One month with Jeph Jerman
richard,
jeph made this recording by attaching some contact mics (maybe just two) to a tree and some shrubs. i dont think there is any interaction by jeph on this recording. its just all the sounds of the wind blowing the trees and shrubs around and the contact mics picking up those sounds and bumping into things and whatnot. all this recorded on a cheap old cassette recorder. i see this recording as an extension of jeph's soundhouse recordings. sorry i ruined the mystique.....
-gd
p.s. listening to jeph's 'assemblages' right now.
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 10 – Jeph Jerman – Trees and Shrubs. Autumn Records CDR
jeph made this recording by attaching some contact mics (maybe just two) to a tree and some shrubs. i dont think there is any interaction by jeph on this recording. its just all the sounds of the wind blowing the trees and shrubs around and the contact mics picking up those sounds and bumping into things and whatnot. all this recorded on a cheap old cassette recorder. i see this recording as an extension of jeph's soundhouse recordings. sorry i ruined the mystique.....
-gd
p.s. listening to jeph's 'assemblages' right now.
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 10 – Jeph Jerman – Trees and Shrubs. Autumn Records CDR
richard,
all of the leaves series discs have stories / descriptions written usually by the artists on the leaves series webpage.
http://mysite.verizon.net/gregorytdavis/leaves.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;
although i think a few of the discs are lacking entries.
btw, i sent your leaves order last week. i hope you enjoy the others in the series too!
-gd
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 14 – Jeph Jerman – Harvester Ants. Autumn Records Leaves Series CDR
all of the leaves series discs have stories / descriptions written usually by the artists on the leaves series webpage.
http://mysite.verizon.net/gregorytdavis/leaves.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;
although i think a few of the discs are lacking entries.
btw, i sent your leaves order last week. i hope you enjoy the others in the series too!
-gd
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 14 – Jeph Jerman – Harvester Ants. Autumn Records Leaves Series CDR
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Richard Pinnell
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Not at all Greg, thanks for the info. Although I am now just tending to enjoy the music/sound without worrying too much about the source of what I am hearing, it still bugs me a little when I can't figure something out!gtd wrote: i see this recording as an extension of jeph's soundhouse recordings. sorry i ruined the mystique.....
p.s. listening to jeph's 'assemblages' right now.
What is assemblages? Is this a disc I don't have!?
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Richard Pinnell
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Thanks Greg, I have been to your site, but I have forgotten to reference it now and again, apologies.gtd wrote:richard,
all of the leaves series discs have stories / descriptions written usually by the artists on the leaves series webpage.
http://mysite.verizon.net/gregorytdavis/leaves.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;
although i think a few of the discs are lacking entries.
btw, i sent your leaves order last week. i hope you enjoy the others in the series too!
Looking forward to hearing the rest of the Leaves series, unfortunately they will probably join the mountain of discs that have piled up whilst I have been persevering with this project, but i'll let you know when I've got to them!
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Richard Pinnell
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This is good news, thanks Jules.jules wrote:If you're interested in the four installation set, it's easy to order them direct from Jeph......just go to his website.
http://www.davidstanford.com/jerman/sale.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;
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Richard Pinnell
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And I count 15 Jerman discs still available at Erst...jon abbey wrote:we've been trying to keep a lot of Jeph's titles in stock recently, and will continue to reorder whatever's available fairly frequently.
http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/distro.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;
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Richard Pinnell
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Day 17 – Jeph Jerman – Sound (Field Recordings 1993-2003) CDR
After yesterday’s interactive extravaganza, back down to earth and the catalogue of interesting sound that it has to offer. Today’s disc is a compilation of twelve short recordings taken from Jeph Jerman’s collection of field recordings made over a ten year period. The recordings here vary dramatically, from short three second blasts of a static-laden voice message from the Anomalous Records answer machine, to the recording of a flagpole flapping in the wind as a siren blasting emergency vehicle passed close by.
The disc lists the tracks here before announcing that all are recorded using handheld analogue tape decks and various cheap microphones. As I sit and listen here one of the things that really strikes me is the dedication Jerman has shown to his mission to capture interesting sound, underlined here by the time span involved with the recording of these tracks.
In places Jerman ‘plays’ found object(s) in situ to create this music. The metal bed frame in the shed makes its reappearance, and a track titled ‘window bars and light cord’ is reminiscent of gamelan sounds as Jerman plays the bars as if it were a natural instrument.
One of the more interesting pieces is a recording of a dilapidated old water heater crashing and banging in on itself as it heats a new tank of water, immediately sparking memories for myself of a childhood bedroom that had a water heater immediately behind my head as I lay in bed at night. One thing these pieces of music do is evoke memories of sounds we have heard in our lives, pulling them out of the mists of memory and bringing with them images we relate to them.
The disc ends with another recording of a running stream, this time a nineteen minute capture of Frijoles Creek, New Mexico. Whilst it would be easy to dismiss these watery recordings as all very similar I find myself listening deep within again, here picking out rhythmic figures and overlapping patterns reminiscent of my experiments yesterday when I played around with speeding up the four installation piece tracks on the computer.
This is the best recording of running water yet, revealing a transparency to the sound that allows the careful listener to unwrap the sound layer by layer and reveal structure in what is an apparently random event.
After yesterday’s interactive extravaganza, back down to earth and the catalogue of interesting sound that it has to offer. Today’s disc is a compilation of twelve short recordings taken from Jeph Jerman’s collection of field recordings made over a ten year period. The recordings here vary dramatically, from short three second blasts of a static-laden voice message from the Anomalous Records answer machine, to the recording of a flagpole flapping in the wind as a siren blasting emergency vehicle passed close by.
The disc lists the tracks here before announcing that all are recorded using handheld analogue tape decks and various cheap microphones. As I sit and listen here one of the things that really strikes me is the dedication Jerman has shown to his mission to capture interesting sound, underlined here by the time span involved with the recording of these tracks.
In places Jerman ‘plays’ found object(s) in situ to create this music. The metal bed frame in the shed makes its reappearance, and a track titled ‘window bars and light cord’ is reminiscent of gamelan sounds as Jerman plays the bars as if it were a natural instrument.
One of the more interesting pieces is a recording of a dilapidated old water heater crashing and banging in on itself as it heats a new tank of water, immediately sparking memories for myself of a childhood bedroom that had a water heater immediately behind my head as I lay in bed at night. One thing these pieces of music do is evoke memories of sounds we have heard in our lives, pulling them out of the mists of memory and bringing with them images we relate to them.
The disc ends with another recording of a running stream, this time a nineteen minute capture of Frijoles Creek, New Mexico. Whilst it would be easy to dismiss these watery recordings as all very similar I find myself listening deep within again, here picking out rhythmic figures and overlapping patterns reminiscent of my experiments yesterday when I played around with speeding up the four installation piece tracks on the computer.
This is the best recording of running water yet, revealing a transparency to the sound that allows the careful listener to unwrap the sound layer by layer and reveal structure in what is an apparently random event.
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letchhausen
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Well, I just got a package from Cottonwood today containing yon cigar box and some other CD's. I also got a package from Mr. Erstdist, the Wolf-man, containing a few more of Jerman's discs. (I also got a Hermann Nitsch poster in the mail, the Skater's Humbug LP from Norway and some musicyourmindwilloveyou stuff from Australia, a real international transartistic load o' booty).
I'm listening to Trees and Shrubs right now and loving it. This is great. The subterranean nature of the sounds would be fairly abstract and scarier than Hair Police if I didn't know what it was. As it is, I find it a very dense and fascinating listen, the semi-repetitive nature of the sounds giving it a natural off-kilter sort of rhythm. I feel like I should play this on a boombox outside my window and then listen to other music inside.
For environmental sounds I grew up with, check out the house I lived in on and off during my childhood(it belonged to my aunt and uncle and my nomadic family upbringing meant I spent lots of time there):
Ensculptic
And then imagine what a rain or hailstorm sounded like on that roof!!!
That would be something to record!
Richard, I need to get that software that you were talking about and start getting down with my sweet cigar box. I was coveting this so much when I saw yours in New York that as soon as I got home I ordered it from our pal and when I found out that you had the only one east of the Mississippi, I went straight to the source. Now I'm gonna be riding that train with you! Tomorrow I will start back up with the haikus since I have some more inspirational material here.
I'm listening to Trees and Shrubs right now and loving it. This is great. The subterranean nature of the sounds would be fairly abstract and scarier than Hair Police if I didn't know what it was. As it is, I find it a very dense and fascinating listen, the semi-repetitive nature of the sounds giving it a natural off-kilter sort of rhythm. I feel like I should play this on a boombox outside my window and then listen to other music inside.
For environmental sounds I grew up with, check out the house I lived in on and off during my childhood(it belonged to my aunt and uncle and my nomadic family upbringing meant I spent lots of time there):
Ensculptic
And then imagine what a rain or hailstorm sounded like on that roof!!!
That would be something to record!
Richard, I need to get that software that you were talking about and start getting down with my sweet cigar box. I was coveting this so much when I saw yours in New York that as soon as I got home I ordered it from our pal and when I found out that you had the only one east of the Mississippi, I went straight to the source. Now I'm gonna be riding that train with you! Tomorrow I will start back up with the haikus since I have some more inspirational material here.
i too have played the infamous metal frame bed out back in jeph's shed.
it sounds great.
-gd
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 17 – Jeph Jerman – Sound (Field Recordings 1993-2003) CDR
In places Jerman ‘plays’ found object(s) in situ to create this music. The metal bed frame in the shed makes its reappearance, and a track titled ‘window bars and light cord’ is reminiscent of gamelan sounds as Jerman plays the bars as if it were a natural instrument.
it sounds great.
-gd
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 17 – Jeph Jerman – Sound (Field Recordings 1993-2003) CDR
In places Jerman ‘plays’ found object(s) in situ to create this music. The metal bed frame in the shed makes its reappearance, and a track titled ‘window bars and light cord’ is reminiscent of gamelan sounds as Jerman plays the bars as if it were a natural instrument.
Right now i am enjoying (to my ears at least) very intriguing record, that combines field recordings w improv. It was released in latest batch of releases on Creative Sources by trombonist Mathias Forge and guitarist Cyril Epinat (both credited also w objects) under title ''Duo ...''. fair enought they both credit also Jerome Bertholon for sensitive recordings of enviroment (and a quartz clock and electric lighter). The improvisations were done during 3rd-5th september last year in france at La Pierre Chatelus in La Croix du Sud located on the Cote Roannaise on various locations and at various time of the day (some in total darkness close to midnight, some really early in the morning, etc ... which affects not only the surroundings but also possibly perception of sounds from two players). The locations that are cruicial to the pieces are grove, leafy forest, big field pondside and ''Chatelus'' stone. Hell the duo also listed what they ate during ''wanking in the wild''.
Nice idea and well executed one althou i couldn't stop thinking what the noisy animals like guitar and trombone did to the poor animals close to midinght. And some local hunter could also think that there is a new beast in the forest.
For all that are running Jerman marathon along w Richard i think this is a record to grab from CS ...
Nice idea and well executed one althou i couldn't stop thinking what the noisy animals like guitar and trombone did to the poor animals close to midinght. And some local hunter could also think that there is a new beast in the forest.
For all that are running Jerman marathon along w Richard i think this is a record to grab from CS ...
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Richard Pinnell
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I didn't think it would take you long Chris! I hope you enjoy, be interested to hear your thoughts.letchhausen wrote:Well, I just got a package from Cottonwood today containing yon cigar box and some other CD's.
.
The house you pointed out looks amazing, and I'm sure it sounds incredible also.
An office I have been working out of recently is in the back of a massive stock warehouse, constructed of aluminium with a flat roof.
When it rains there the sound gets so loud I actually cannot use the telephone, and my thoughts have turned a lot recently to the Malfatti/Durrant/Lehn recording Dach, as well as Taku Sugimoto's Live in Australia recordings.
Perhaps not the most sensible of places to put an office (it wasn't my choice!) but it makes for a great listening experience from time to time.
I will PM you about the mixing software I used also Chris
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Richard Pinnell
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Day 18 – Jeph Jerman – Monument Valley CDR
I had a pretty stressful time with work today, the blood pressure was reaching all time highs and my head was pounding as I drove home, so tonight as the weather looked to be behaving itself for the first day in weeks I took the opportunity to take today’s Jerman disc with me for a walk in the fields south of my house.
I have been meaning to do this since I started this project, and as today’s selection, Monument Valley is made up of field recordings made outside it seemed the perfect opportunity. So I loaded up my Discman and went for a quiet stroll as darkness fell. I kept the volume at about two thirds of the maximum possible, and despite having a decent pair of headphones the outside sounds were able to permeate my hearing easily.
The first track here is quite loud, a recording of stones being shifted about in a rocky alcove. This piece was pleasant to listen to as I reached the fields and headed up an old disused railway line I often walk along, but the sounds seemed alien to the space I was walking in, and I found it hard to relate them to natural recordings as they sounded hard and brittle, again feeling electronic in their make-up.
There then followed though a series of beautiful recordings that blended with my walk perfectly. The first of these, a track simply called Wind consisted of the gentle buffeting of the microphone by an Arizona breeze. As I walked high up on the raised railway line the wind rose around me and the darkening skies turned grey, making it difficult to separate the sounds on the recording from what was happening around me.
A further track, Juniper Wind begins in similar fashion with a gentler wind filling the recording, but for the last four or five minutes of the piece this drops away to virtual silence. Having not heard the recording before I found myself listening hard for further sounds, and the gentle roar of the real wind around me forcing its way past my headphones merged into the sound, making it hard to figure out where the recorded sounds stopped and reality began. At some point an aeroplane passed overhead, maybe on the recording, maybe in real life? Only on the second play of the disc later did I find that it belonged on the recording.
Further tracks follow a similar vein, some featuring sounds of plants rustling mixed in with the consistent flurries of the wind. Track seven, entitled Walk around the mitten also contains the faint sound of footsteps treading along a dusty leaf strewn path. This threw me a little and saw me looking down at my feet, but the track I was following was made up of damp gravel, making for an odd sensation to hear these alternative footsteps instead of my own. I found myself slowing my stride slightly so I could come in line with the all too brief footsteps on the recording.
As I doubled back on myself and re-entered the town and the brightly lit but peaceful streets of my town, rain started to fall and I quickened my stride for home. At this point, track eight, which is titled Wood and is the penultimate piece on Monument Valley started up, filling my ears with the loud clatter and tumble of wood and the microphone moving about amongst it, almost signalling an end to the tranquility.
Then, as I arrived back home to find the house empty and quiet, track nine began, a gentle, quiet recording of closely miked stones being moved about the slightest fraction and the gritty clicks of smaller stones rubbing together.
This final piece is very slow and verging on silence, and I found myself sitting down in the dark at the foot of the stairs just inside the door, letting all eleven minutes unfurl themselves as I sat perfectly still taking in the moment.
It was only as it ended, and I put the lights on and picked up the sleeve for the disc I noticed the title of this last track; ‘Stones at Home’
Tonight I am tired and battered after a tough day, and maybe I am over romanticising the experience of this evening’s listening, having been fortunate enough to select a disc that worked well with a walk in the country, but tonight did wonders for my blood pressure and helped me focus my listening to a degree I may not have reached before.
I had a pretty stressful time with work today, the blood pressure was reaching all time highs and my head was pounding as I drove home, so tonight as the weather looked to be behaving itself for the first day in weeks I took the opportunity to take today’s Jerman disc with me for a walk in the fields south of my house.
I have been meaning to do this since I started this project, and as today’s selection, Monument Valley is made up of field recordings made outside it seemed the perfect opportunity. So I loaded up my Discman and went for a quiet stroll as darkness fell. I kept the volume at about two thirds of the maximum possible, and despite having a decent pair of headphones the outside sounds were able to permeate my hearing easily.
The first track here is quite loud, a recording of stones being shifted about in a rocky alcove. This piece was pleasant to listen to as I reached the fields and headed up an old disused railway line I often walk along, but the sounds seemed alien to the space I was walking in, and I found it hard to relate them to natural recordings as they sounded hard and brittle, again feeling electronic in their make-up.
There then followed though a series of beautiful recordings that blended with my walk perfectly. The first of these, a track simply called Wind consisted of the gentle buffeting of the microphone by an Arizona breeze. As I walked high up on the raised railway line the wind rose around me and the darkening skies turned grey, making it difficult to separate the sounds on the recording from what was happening around me.
A further track, Juniper Wind begins in similar fashion with a gentler wind filling the recording, but for the last four or five minutes of the piece this drops away to virtual silence. Having not heard the recording before I found myself listening hard for further sounds, and the gentle roar of the real wind around me forcing its way past my headphones merged into the sound, making it hard to figure out where the recorded sounds stopped and reality began. At some point an aeroplane passed overhead, maybe on the recording, maybe in real life? Only on the second play of the disc later did I find that it belonged on the recording.
Further tracks follow a similar vein, some featuring sounds of plants rustling mixed in with the consistent flurries of the wind. Track seven, entitled Walk around the mitten also contains the faint sound of footsteps treading along a dusty leaf strewn path. This threw me a little and saw me looking down at my feet, but the track I was following was made up of damp gravel, making for an odd sensation to hear these alternative footsteps instead of my own. I found myself slowing my stride slightly so I could come in line with the all too brief footsteps on the recording.
As I doubled back on myself and re-entered the town and the brightly lit but peaceful streets of my town, rain started to fall and I quickened my stride for home. At this point, track eight, which is titled Wood and is the penultimate piece on Monument Valley started up, filling my ears with the loud clatter and tumble of wood and the microphone moving about amongst it, almost signalling an end to the tranquility.
Then, as I arrived back home to find the house empty and quiet, track nine began, a gentle, quiet recording of closely miked stones being moved about the slightest fraction and the gritty clicks of smaller stones rubbing together.
This final piece is very slow and verging on silence, and I found myself sitting down in the dark at the foot of the stairs just inside the door, letting all eleven minutes unfurl themselves as I sat perfectly still taking in the moment.
It was only as it ended, and I put the lights on and picked up the sleeve for the disc I noticed the title of this last track; ‘Stones at Home’
Tonight I am tired and battered after a tough day, and maybe I am over romanticising the experience of this evening’s listening, having been fortunate enough to select a disc that worked well with a walk in the country, but tonight did wonders for my blood pressure and helped me focus my listening to a degree I may not have reached before.
this reminds me of my favorite free jazz musicians in the woods record. i just bought the 2CD reissue of 'schwarzwaldfahrt' by peter brotzmann and han bennink on atavistic. its the original album which was on FMP plus an entire second CD of tracks from the same sessions that didnt make the original LP. excellent stuff. my favorite track is one that sounds like brotzmann (and maybe bennink too) are playing their horns underwater or submerged in a running stream. i highly recommend this record and im sure youll be seeing the reissue around.
-gd
-gd
lukaz wrote:Right now i am enjoying (to my ears at least) very intriguing record, that combines field recordings w improv. It was released in latest batch of releases on Creative Sources by trombonist Mathias Forge and guitarist Cyril Epinat (both credited also w objects) under title ''Duo ...''. fair enought they both credit also Jerome Bertholon for sensitive recordings of enviroment (and a quartz clock and electric lighter). The improvisations were done during 3rd-5th september last year in france at La Pierre Chatelus in La Croix du Sud located on the Cote Roannaise on various locations and at various time of the day (some in total darkness close to midnight, some really early in the morning, etc ... which affects not only the surroundings but also possibly perception of sounds from two players). The locations that are cruicial to the pieces are grove, leafy forest, big field pondside and ''Chatelus'' stone. Hell the duo also listed what they ate during ''wanking in the wild''.
Nice idea and well executed one althou i couldn't stop thinking what the noisy animals like guitar and trombone did to the poor animals close to midinght. And some local hunter could also think that there is a new beast in the forest.
For all that are running Jerman marathon along w Richard i think this is a record to grab from CS ...
-
Richard Pinnell
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Day 19 – Jeph Jerman – Lithiary. Fargone Records CDR
Tonight I am very tired after a very long and exhausting day sat around meeting tables. Checking the list of what I had to listen to tonight I was initially pleased to see I was writing about Lithiary, as this is the first Jeph Jerman disc I ever purchased a couple of months back and I figured I knew it well enough to not need to listen too hard.
Then I put the track on when I got home, and despite having listened to this a half dozen times or so in the past I found myself sat down quietly with it again, listening closer than I have before, and being able to place the sounds much easier.
The first thing that strikes you about Lithiary is the packaging. A plain white gatefold card sleeve has wrapped around it a gloss print of a stoney beach taken by Jerman. Grey-blue stones can be made out easily in the foreground, but stretch out into the distance, becoming blurred into one grey mass far away whilst the detail close up stays sharp. This image forms a perfect metaphor for the music contained here.
Lithiary is one long forty six minute track, based similarly to the Instability Studies disc on recordings made of the shaketable, this time loaded with a large number of stones.
The track consists of two overdubbed recordings of the shaketable from the same session. This creates a blurred, disjointed feel to the sound. The nature of the table vibrating the stones on their axis leads to a sense of movement in the music, and a feel of echo and delay as the stones settle back into place quickly, only to move again fractions of a second later.
The two tracks overlaid make it difficult to focus on individual moments or events, and as you listen for a long time into this music the source of the sounds becomes irrelevant and you begin to get lost in the mass of detail that remains constantly textured and complex, yet also has an overall hypnotic feel. The music actually made me feel a little dizzy and decentred as I became closely involved with it, although this could also have had something to do with my 15 hour working day!
To the casual listener there is little change across this recording, but deep focussed listening becomes an intense rewarding experience, as with the similar the recordings of running streams, repeated patterns, rhythms and shapes form within the sound mass.
The decision to present two shaketables overdubbed shows a distinct concession to composition here, with Jerman taking two recordings and creating something new from them. With Lithiary Jerman has found an increased depth and an overall sense of a deep embracing cocoon of sound that can either be taken at surface value as a pleasant piece of music, or listened into closely to further reveal the immense level of detail involved here. So this disc takes one short step beyond pure field recordings by allowing the simple use of overdubbing, but otherwise there is no processing done to the recorded material.
Although there seems to be a number of releases due any day, Lithiary is I think Jerman’s most recent release. As a limited run of 100 CDRs though you may have to move fast to catch one.
Tonight I am very tired after a very long and exhausting day sat around meeting tables. Checking the list of what I had to listen to tonight I was initially pleased to see I was writing about Lithiary, as this is the first Jeph Jerman disc I ever purchased a couple of months back and I figured I knew it well enough to not need to listen too hard.
Then I put the track on when I got home, and despite having listened to this a half dozen times or so in the past I found myself sat down quietly with it again, listening closer than I have before, and being able to place the sounds much easier.
The first thing that strikes you about Lithiary is the packaging. A plain white gatefold card sleeve has wrapped around it a gloss print of a stoney beach taken by Jerman. Grey-blue stones can be made out easily in the foreground, but stretch out into the distance, becoming blurred into one grey mass far away whilst the detail close up stays sharp. This image forms a perfect metaphor for the music contained here.
Lithiary is one long forty six minute track, based similarly to the Instability Studies disc on recordings made of the shaketable, this time loaded with a large number of stones.
The track consists of two overdubbed recordings of the shaketable from the same session. This creates a blurred, disjointed feel to the sound. The nature of the table vibrating the stones on their axis leads to a sense of movement in the music, and a feel of echo and delay as the stones settle back into place quickly, only to move again fractions of a second later.
The two tracks overlaid make it difficult to focus on individual moments or events, and as you listen for a long time into this music the source of the sounds becomes irrelevant and you begin to get lost in the mass of detail that remains constantly textured and complex, yet also has an overall hypnotic feel. The music actually made me feel a little dizzy and decentred as I became closely involved with it, although this could also have had something to do with my 15 hour working day!
To the casual listener there is little change across this recording, but deep focussed listening becomes an intense rewarding experience, as with the similar the recordings of running streams, repeated patterns, rhythms and shapes form within the sound mass.
The decision to present two shaketables overdubbed shows a distinct concession to composition here, with Jerman taking two recordings and creating something new from them. With Lithiary Jerman has found an increased depth and an overall sense of a deep embracing cocoon of sound that can either be taken at surface value as a pleasant piece of music, or listened into closely to further reveal the immense level of detail involved here. So this disc takes one short step beyond pure field recordings by allowing the simple use of overdubbing, but otherwise there is no processing done to the recorded material.
Although there seems to be a number of releases due any day, Lithiary is I think Jerman’s most recent release. As a limited run of 100 CDRs though you may have to move fast to catch one.
nice review as ever richard, i'm really enjoying reading these every day.
interestingly, when jeph sent me the cd he told me that he originally conceived of lithiary as a 2-disc set of pure field recordings -- the released album is the overdubbed version w/ both discs together, mixed by jeph.Richard Pinnell wrote:Day 19 – Jeph Jerman – Lithiary. Fargone Records CDR
The decision to present two shaketables overdubbed shows a distinct concession to composition here, with Jerman taking two recordings and creating something new from them. With Lithiary Jerman has found an increased depth and an overall sense of a deep embracing cocoon of sound that can either be taken at surface value as a pleasant piece of music, or listened into closely to further reveal the immense level of detail involved here. So this disc takes one short step beyond pure field recordings by allowing the simple use of overdubbing, but otherwise there is no processing done to the recorded material.
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user_836
i just found this record after hearing brotzmann mention it somewhere. really great, esp. with the sounds of birds and water, bennik beating on things with branches, brotzmann sounding like he's playing with the birds...quite lovely.gtd wrote:this reminds me of my favorite free jazz musicians in the woods record. i just bought the 2CD reissue of 'schwarzwaldfahrt' by peter brotzmann and han bennink on atavistic. its the original album which was on FMP plus an entire second CD of tracks from the same sessions that didnt make the original LP. excellent stuff. my favorite track is one that sounds like brotzmann (and maybe bennink too) are playing their horns underwater or submerged in a running stream. i highly recommend this record and im sure youll be seeing the reissue around.
-gd
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Richard Pinnell
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Day 20 – Jeph Jerman – Open Mics and Mini Discs 2003-2004 CDR
I listened to this initially on the way home in the car from work this evening, tired, eyes aching and in need of some stimulation to keep me awake, and well, I guess I got it...
This is a strange Jerman release, really not what I was expecting. The first eleven tracks on Open Mics and Mini Discs contain recordings made at a place called Random acts of coffee in Sedona, Arizona. The pieces contain a lot of background noise from what sounds like a large-ish hall quite full of people of all ages, as on occasions voices can be easily made out, sometimes adult, occasionally the cries of young children.
Some of the tracks here are recordings of (presumably) Jerman playing more recognised percussion instruments. A snare drum is played in the first track, sometimes by scraping across the skin to create a tortured wail, but also at times it is played really quite traditionally, occasionally at high speed, but with rhythms easily recognisable. Other instruments appear throughout the disc, a violin makes an appearance as well as more exotic items such as a berimbau and a tongue drum. Another track though features Jerman ‘playing’ an amplified cactus, possibly plucking the spikes of the plant to create a tuneful percussive sound.
All of these first eleven tracks deal with an element of rhythm some how, in some places this is obvious where crude percussive patterns are evident, and at other times the rhythm is less pronounced, often hard to make out amongst the crowded recordings.
It is the background noise that really stands out here. Each of these first eleven tracks features a lot of crowd noise, chatter and movement. The background noise often consumes the music played totally, blending it all together into one mass of confused sound.
These eleven pieces have thrown me a little. I find them hard to come to grips with for a couple of reasons. Firstly I find the use of rhythm in such a simple manner to be less interesting than the loosely defined percussive feel of many of the other recordings I have heard. I also find the tracks here to be quite ugly to listen to, the sounds of human chatter coupled with the harsh clatter of the music in some of these pieces makes for very interesting but less appealing to the ear release. I found it very hard to listen closely to these first eleven pieces, the return was less rewarding than with other discs.
Tracks twelve and thirteen are just as confusing. Recorded beside Dry Beaver Creek they feature Jerman playing a fast hypnotic rhythm on what sounds like a bongo drum for a brief period of time. The second of these two tracks also features some interruptions from the billowing wind, but generally speaking the musical elements involved here are quite straightforward short drum patterns. Perhaps it is the recognisable language of the drums that is putting me off here, but I fond these two pieces less interesting.
But then the final piece, track fourteen saves it all. It consists of a simple, peaceful and quiet recording made on someone called Julie’s front porch. The overwhelming urge for silence covers most of the seven and a half minute track, but it never quite manages to mask the sound of the wind over the open mic, or the distant sounds of the neighbourhood that merge together to form a grey backdrop for the piece. This track is truly beautiful, a recording that lifts you up from where you are and transplants you out onto the porch of a home far away. There is no indication as to when the piece is recorded, but there is a feeling of early evening here, with the rush and energy of the day dying away and the town catching its breath.
In the context of the rest of Jerman’s music I have heard so far, Open Mics... is a little bit of an anomaly, an interesting addition that has made me think again about how easily I have been able to relate to and listen closely to this music so far. The last track though is worth the entry fee alone.
I listened to this initially on the way home in the car from work this evening, tired, eyes aching and in need of some stimulation to keep me awake, and well, I guess I got it...
This is a strange Jerman release, really not what I was expecting. The first eleven tracks on Open Mics and Mini Discs contain recordings made at a place called Random acts of coffee in Sedona, Arizona. The pieces contain a lot of background noise from what sounds like a large-ish hall quite full of people of all ages, as on occasions voices can be easily made out, sometimes adult, occasionally the cries of young children.
Some of the tracks here are recordings of (presumably) Jerman playing more recognised percussion instruments. A snare drum is played in the first track, sometimes by scraping across the skin to create a tortured wail, but also at times it is played really quite traditionally, occasionally at high speed, but with rhythms easily recognisable. Other instruments appear throughout the disc, a violin makes an appearance as well as more exotic items such as a berimbau and a tongue drum. Another track though features Jerman ‘playing’ an amplified cactus, possibly plucking the spikes of the plant to create a tuneful percussive sound.
All of these first eleven tracks deal with an element of rhythm some how, in some places this is obvious where crude percussive patterns are evident, and at other times the rhythm is less pronounced, often hard to make out amongst the crowded recordings.
It is the background noise that really stands out here. Each of these first eleven tracks features a lot of crowd noise, chatter and movement. The background noise often consumes the music played totally, blending it all together into one mass of confused sound.
These eleven pieces have thrown me a little. I find them hard to come to grips with for a couple of reasons. Firstly I find the use of rhythm in such a simple manner to be less interesting than the loosely defined percussive feel of many of the other recordings I have heard. I also find the tracks here to be quite ugly to listen to, the sounds of human chatter coupled with the harsh clatter of the music in some of these pieces makes for very interesting but less appealing to the ear release. I found it very hard to listen closely to these first eleven pieces, the return was less rewarding than with other discs.
Tracks twelve and thirteen are just as confusing. Recorded beside Dry Beaver Creek they feature Jerman playing a fast hypnotic rhythm on what sounds like a bongo drum for a brief period of time. The second of these two tracks also features some interruptions from the billowing wind, but generally speaking the musical elements involved here are quite straightforward short drum patterns. Perhaps it is the recognisable language of the drums that is putting me off here, but I fond these two pieces less interesting.
But then the final piece, track fourteen saves it all. It consists of a simple, peaceful and quiet recording made on someone called Julie’s front porch. The overwhelming urge for silence covers most of the seven and a half minute track, but it never quite manages to mask the sound of the wind over the open mic, or the distant sounds of the neighbourhood that merge together to form a grey backdrop for the piece. This track is truly beautiful, a recording that lifts you up from where you are and transplants you out onto the porch of a home far away. There is no indication as to when the piece is recorded, but there is a feeling of early evening here, with the rush and energy of the day dying away and the town catching its breath.
In the context of the rest of Jerman’s music I have heard so far, Open Mics... is a little bit of an anomaly, an interesting addition that has made me think again about how easily I have been able to relate to and listen closely to this music so far. The last track though is worth the entry fee alone.
richard,
i havent heard this disc yet. but jeph told me about these sessions. he used to drive to nearby sedona AZ (a really mystic cheesy new age crystals and spas kinda town). he would go to an open mic at this cafe every so often and play. maybe jeph playing regular rhythms or less abstract music is his concession to the audience here. or a chance for him to experiment with some 'real' instruments and have some fun. jeph was a drummer and percussionist before he focused more solely on improvising with natural materials and field recordings. he was in a quite noisy free jazz group, blowhole. here's jeph's description of it '...our original modus operandi was the use of short themes to springboard wild free improvisations. many of our tapes were recordings of these improvs with the "heads" removed. the sound of the band changed over the years as people came and went. originally using trumpet and sax, a rhythm section and a concussionist who played a great pile of scrap metal and hubcaps. we eventually became more guitar-oriented.'
but its interesting that when someone becomes know for doing a particular focused singular kinda thing and then does something else, its a huge shock. thats probably the case here. i think its just jeph's interest in world musics showing through here combined with the relaxed and casual environment of an open mic session. but i like the idea of jeph jerman showing up to some random open mic night in sedona with a balafon and playing it for a half hour, not really being noticed at all, while people go about reading books and chatting and drinking coffee. music is often relegated to the background in these situations.
oh and julie just might be the 'jules' that posted here earlier.
-gd
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 20 – Jeph Jerman – Open Mics and Mini Discs 2003-2004 CDR
i havent heard this disc yet. but jeph told me about these sessions. he used to drive to nearby sedona AZ (a really mystic cheesy new age crystals and spas kinda town). he would go to an open mic at this cafe every so often and play. maybe jeph playing regular rhythms or less abstract music is his concession to the audience here. or a chance for him to experiment with some 'real' instruments and have some fun. jeph was a drummer and percussionist before he focused more solely on improvising with natural materials and field recordings. he was in a quite noisy free jazz group, blowhole. here's jeph's description of it '...our original modus operandi was the use of short themes to springboard wild free improvisations. many of our tapes were recordings of these improvs with the "heads" removed. the sound of the band changed over the years as people came and went. originally using trumpet and sax, a rhythm section and a concussionist who played a great pile of scrap metal and hubcaps. we eventually became more guitar-oriented.'
but its interesting that when someone becomes know for doing a particular focused singular kinda thing and then does something else, its a huge shock. thats probably the case here. i think its just jeph's interest in world musics showing through here combined with the relaxed and casual environment of an open mic session. but i like the idea of jeph jerman showing up to some random open mic night in sedona with a balafon and playing it for a half hour, not really being noticed at all, while people go about reading books and chatting and drinking coffee. music is often relegated to the background in these situations.
oh and julie just might be the 'jules' that posted here earlier.
-gd
[quote="Richard Pinnell"]Day 20 – Jeph Jerman – Open Mics and Mini Discs 2003-2004 CDR