Nayr Krik

Vonda De Ville in Temporal Follies

2010-02-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight I had the good fortune to check out the premiere of the new Lukas Pearse and Vocalypse electropera Vonda De Ville. Two thumbs up for an amazing show and I recommend everyone check it out. It's running the next three nights at the Bus Stop Theatre.

Here's what the producers have to say about the show:

"In an effort to kick start her career in the late 19th century, a vaudeville singer decides that “new technology” is her key to stardom – she seizes an opportunity to become one of the early recording artists. Her colleagues mock her interest in this new-fangled machinery which steals her voice away only to be replayed later, without her presence, at a penny arcade. She thinks they’re silly and superstitious, so she takes the gig. But something strange and unexpected happens. Her voice actually separates from her body and spirit, and thus begins a century-long journey through space and time, where the voice and the spirit of the long-dead singer wrestle for reconciliation. Her spirit desperately seeks closure, an exit from the stage. More than anything, she wants the final curtain to fall."

The opera is performed by Janice Jackson as Vonda and Lukas Pearse performing his score on laptop. The musical element of the show was amazing with songs, lush soundscapes, prerecorded announcements and audience sounds, and an awesome spin on Mozart; Medias Irae. Janice's vocal performance was awesome as usual and her execution of the choreography made for a really captivating show. In addition to the actual performance, the sets and costumes were very well done and communicated the time travel aspect of the show as well as the musical numbers.

If you want to see a great surreal stage show, my favourite was when Vonda emerged with a giant gramophone for a head, and also contemplate the evolution and impact of recording and media then I really recommend the show.

Oh, and expect a great sense of humour, especially in the historical and musical references scattered throughout.

Check out the Vocalypse site for some audio samples.

Artifacts of Nature

2009-12-30T11:30:00.001-08:00

One of the things I love about having time off is spending a lot of time outside the city. Whether I'm at my parents house in Fall River or out on the Eastern Shore, I'm far enough from the city to get out and enjoy the woods and nature.

I was going for a walk in the woods last weekend and came across some awesome ice sculptures. They were formed on the side of a large cliff and varied from giant ten foot icicles to large mounds that looked like a waterfall spilling over the cliff that had suddenly frozen in place.

This icicle was the most impressive. It looked to be at least twelve feet long and probably weighed hundreds of pounds. I wouldn't want to be under it if it fell. There was also some very cool ice on the ground that I have never seen before. The water had frozen in sheaths over small blades of grass and undergrowth and made these awesome formations that reminded me of crystals growing up from the floor of a cave.

Wiklatmu'j Reveries

2009-12-07T15:15:00.000-08:00

Matthew Duffy and I have finished recording our first album together and here it is, for anyone who dug the live set that I posted awhile back this should be up your alley. There are a few of the same pieces we performed live as well as all kinds of original material. The album is all over the place and pretty experimental there are soundscapes, walls of noise, folksongs, and everything in between. Expect field recordings, just intonation, black metal, free jazz, and more. Artwork by Ryan Kirk and Matthew Duffy.

Next up, a country album.

Get it for free here.

Zachary Devereux Fairbrother's Buddha Box

2009-12-02T06:12:00.000-08:00

I first met Zachary a few years ago when I began studying music. He was a year ahead of me and pursuing composition, the same road I wanted to go down. I remember one of the first times we got together; I had become aware of some workshops going on in the city that involved free improvisation and was interested in attending, I only knew Zach as an acquaintance but was aware that he frequented those workshops. I started asking him for information and about attending myself and he answered that it wasn't for the faint of heart. We ended up attending several of the workshops together and after I overcame that initially intimidating introduction it had a major positive impact on my growing interest in the wide world of strange music. By the end of the year we had solidified plans to become roommates and the rest is history. Over the last two years heady explorations of drone, improvisation, psychedelia, and metal all took place while laying the foundations of a friendship that I hope will last well into the future.

Last spring Zach graduated with a BMus in Composition and the most interesting graduation recital I've seen yet. One of the pieces performed that day was Buddha Box 1.0. Thanks to the great local label Divorce Records, run by Darcy Spidle, you can now enjoy that piece from the comfort of your own home and for free. I cannot recommend this enough, it is an awesome exploration of drone, spectrum, timbre, and psycho-acoustics, and as an added bonus you get to enjoy the beautifully rendered score that Zachary created for the amazing Halifax pianist/composer Tim Crofts.

Here are some quotations from Zachary and Divorce:

"I just released a solo EP on Divorce Records as a part of the FREEWAVE series; a series free downloadable EPs. You can donate to the label if you wish, all proceeds go the label and to the artists."
-Zachary Devereux Fairbrother

"Buddha Box was performed in a university concert hall last spring as part of Zachary Fairbrother’s thesis recital in modern composition. I am not sure what the usual crowd looks like for these events, but I saw a lot of cosmic kids tripping in the soft seaters, waiting for their man Fairbrother be born as a professional composer. A special day. This piece involves a grand piano, singing bowls, Buddha machines, various effects and piano treatments. It starts and ends in the most delicate ambient webs, but somewhere in the middle it’s like the piano is on fire and rocketing through space."
-Divorce Records

Download it HERE.

Games

2009-11-13T07:21:00.000-08:00

"A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context." (Clark C. Abt)

I have always been fascinated by games. Whether board, video, role-playing, abstract, or sport, games have always managed to suck me in and in many cases to distract me from other more pressing matters. I’ve been thinking about them quite a bit lately and so I’ve decided to share some of my experiences, observations, and ideas relating to games.

Games can be based around three different methods; skill, strategy, and chance. Although in practice most games somehow blend two or more of the above. Even a game as simple as dice, though it may appear to be all chance involves some kind of strategizing and decision-making. And games that appear on the surface level to be all about skill, like hockey or football actually involve a fair amount of strategy and large scale planning.

My own history interacting with games, and most likely yours, goes back to the earliest days of my childhood. Beginning with simple games like catch, musical chairs, and tag, children learn to interact with one another in specific social contexts. In a way games become social rituals for children that determine appropriate behaviours and modes of interaction and establish hierarchies and pecking orders. They also often encourage conditioning and development of the body and motor skills as well as encouraging a healthy psychological state by facilitating play and learning.

As well as those simple children’s games, I was also exposed to traditional boardgames in my home. We always played the staples, snakes and ladders, parchisi, checkers, and then when I was a bit older some of the more complicated ones like chess, Scrabble, and Risk. Risk was always my favourite. I was a typical kid and loved playing with army men and G.I. Joes and watching old war movies that would play on television during the day. So I guess the idea of controlling whole armies over continents and ultimately the world really appealed to me. I played all kinds of boardgames and cardgames throughout my childhood and they have a special place in my memories. But then videogames came onto the scene.

I got my first Gameboy for Christmas when I was six or seven. It came with Kirby and I was hooked from the start. From there I got a few other classics like Mario and Zelda and then a year or two later my brother and I got a Super Nintendo and a little colour TV to play it on for Christmas. Super Mario World consumed my childhood. I played it incessantly and even today I will once and awhile hook up the old Nintendo and it instantly takes me back to the countless hours I spent as a kid trying to reach %100.

From that point on videogames mostly dominated my gaming experiences. I tried my hand a few sports, but never really took to any of them, and unfortunately my obsession with videogames stopped my board gaming short. Which brings me to the downside of some forms of gaming, specifically videogaming. At certain points in my preteens and early teen years I became so obsessed with games that I would relegate school work, physical activity, and socializing just to get further ahead in the games. It wasn’t all bad, and some of my friends played videogames, so there were social times of playing together. Overall though I would say there were far more hours spent playing them alone in my room. There was also the frustration they posed. There would be points where instead of having fun I would get so angry I would throw the controller at the floor. Fortunately I grew out of that pretty fast. By the time I finished high school I was only playing videogames sporadically. I had found other activities that interested me more and used my time in more productive ways. I still don’t feel that videogames are bad, but they can become addictive in ways that I never experienced with social games or boardgames.

These days I’m pretty busy and don’t have much time for games. But when I do I tend to prefer boardgames and cardgames. I find that videogames are too time consuming. A boardgame can start and end in an hours time and it allows you to game in a social way. Whereas my experience with videogames tends to be that an hour just wets your appetite and that generally it’s more difficult to videogame socially. My favourite games these days are mostly strategy and abstract. Games like chess, checkers, backgammon, Risk, and Diplomacy. Diplomacy takes the interactive element of gaming to the extreme, I’ve only played it once but would love to try it again. I also enjoy a few cardgames; poker, cribbage, and crazy eights.

These days I also see elements of gaming and play in other activities I enjoy. One that rings especially true to me is music making. Although in many cases music exists as more than just a pastime or fun activity, it still involves elements that are shared by games. There are often multiple independent agents involved, and there is usually a common goal of some kind as well as a limiting context and the same elements of chance, strategy, and skill figure in. Take for example a symphony orchestra; the members are all working towards the goal of realizing the piece being performed, the conductor and performers use strategies to ensure a successful performance, the players need skill to actually perform the parts when they come up, and as far as chance, well things can always go wrong. It’s even plainer to see in improvisation.

Artists like John Zorn even explicitly compose game pieces. Where players can compete and there is a conductor who establishes rules and divides players into sub-ensembles or teams. In some cases there are even point systems. Free improvisation also incorporates a large component of game and play. Within the performances there can be room for competition and subversion. Music like John Cage’s Book of Changes draws explicitly on chance through the use of dice, a tool common to many games.

I find games interesting because they seem like such a natural human activity. Boardgames date from the earliest known civilizations in Mesopotamia, and in many cases are not that far off from contemporary games like chess. They’re a productive pastime that encourage socializing and stimulate your mind. Games can offer you an escape from the everyday world, yet in familiar and comfortable ways, either through simulating a situation or encouraging roleplaying. After all, who doesn’t want to conquer the world, especially when the leaders you’re competing with are all your best friends?

La Monte Young: Three Notions

2009-11-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

1. Tuning is a function of time. Since tuning an interval establishes the relationship of two frequencies in time, the degree of precision is proportional to the duration of the analysis, i.e. to the duration of tuning. Therefore, it is necessary to sustain the frequencies for longer periods if higher standards of precision are to be achieved. The fact that this information is not generally known to musicians may be one reason that only a few examples of pitches of long duration such as organum, pedal point, and the drone are to be found in music. On the other hand, astronomers have known for some time that if a measurement or comparison is to be made of two orbits which involve many years of time, the degree of precision of the measurement will be proportional to the duration for which the measurement is made. (1)

2. Consider the possibility that the number of complete cycles of a periodic composite waveform is a primary factor in recognizing an interval and/or in determining the degree of precision in tuning once the interval has been recognized. If this were the case, ratios comprised of lower frequencies (such as 52.5 Hz: 30 Hz=7:4) would have to be sustained for longer periods of time than the identical ratios comprised of higher frequencies (such as 840 Hz:480 Hz=7:4), in order to produce an equivalent number of complete cycles of their periodic composite waveforms.

3. In the tradition of modal music, a fixed tonic is continued as a drone or frequently repeated, and a limited set of frequencies with intervallic relationships established in reference to the tonic is repeated in various melodic permutations throughout a performance in a particular mode. Generally, a specific mood or psychological state is attributed to each of the modes. The place theory of pitch identification postulates that each time the same frequency is repeated it is received at the same fixed place on the basilar membrane and transmitted to the same fixed point in the cerebral cortex presumably by the same fiber or neuron of the auditory nerve. The volley theory of pitch perception assumes that a sequence of electrical impulses is sent traveling along specified neurons of the auditory nerve. For frequencies up to about 2000 Hz only, these produce a more or less complete reproduction of the frequency of the vibratory motion of the basilar membrane in the case of a single sine wave and a more or less distorted reproduction of the complete waveform for more complex signals. It is presumed that this reproduction will be best for sounds at lower frequencies and less good for higher frequencies since an individual neuron cannot fire faster than 300 Hz. At lower frequencies a group of neurons working together would be able to supply several pulses per cycle whereas at higher frequencies they could only supply one every several cycles. The assumptions of place theory and volley theory suggest that when a specific set of harmonically related frequencies is continuous, as is often the case in my music, it could more definitively produce (or simulate) a psychological state that may be reported by the listener since the set of harmonically related frequencies will continuously trigger a specific set of the auditory neurons which in turn will continuously perform the same operation of transmitting a periodic pattern of impulses to the corresponding set of fixed points in the cerebral cortex. When these states are sustained over longer periods of time they may provide greater opportunity to define the psychological characteristics of the ratios of the frequencies to each other. (2)

(1) A notable example of the application of principles 1 and 3 is the classical music of India which has nearly always included a sustained drone and has evolved and actually practices the most highly developed system of modal scales and moods related to modes in the history of music.

(2) Ibid.

Great Show Last Night

2009-10-31T07:41:00.000-07:00

Last night there was a house show on Windsor St. with some awesome acts. Here were a few of my favourite sets and a recording of the set I played.

OmmaCobba played an awesome 20 minutes or so of fuzzed out wash that you could crawl inside of like a blanket. The highlight for me was a new version of Policeman, a song that Dan originally wrote for The Dooms. This performance of it though was slowed way down and instead of the punching rock riffs of earlier versions there was just an insistently static wash of chords that shifted slowly through the progression with high, ethereal vocals overtop.

Fascism played right after OmmaCobba and Denis and Jennica's songs were great. I'm definitely excited to hear their new CD when it comes out. Dan helped beef up the sound on electric guitar and percussion. Highlight was the final song of the set with awesome vocal interplay and counterpoint.

After Fascism finished up Matthew Duffy and I played our set. We had been working on it throughout the week and it was a pretty fun approach to composing the piece. We mostly exchanged rough cut recordings of vocal lines and poems over e-mail taking turns making transcriptions of parts of them and turning them into melodic heads that could be improvised on and around. Then we added in the melodic line of Taurus from the Karlheinz Stockhausen composition Zodiac. Both of us are Taurus', so it seemed appropriately cosmic.

Overall I'm really happy with how the set sounded. It ended up playing out like some kind of melancholic reinterpretation of a Biblical melodrama in a desert. Check it out:

Ryan Kirk and Matthew Duffy-To the Storm/Offering/Taurus/Awake

(((0))) La Monte Young (((0)))

2009-10-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

La Monte Young is, to me, among the most interesting and important composers of the 20th century. He is a masterful artist who is sorely under appreciated for a number of reasons I'll get into a little later. He is the grandfather of minimalism and drone and has done more for just intonation music than any other figure in the western world.

Young was born in Idaho in 1935 to a Mormon family and he first began playing music on the alto saxophone at church and in jazz bands at school. He began his studies in composition in the 1950s at UCLA and Berkeley and also jammed with jazz greats like Eric Dolphy and Don Cherry. From that point on his resume only grew. He eventually studied with both Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, moved to New York and became deeply involved in the Fluxus movement, and finally through his interactions with other New York composers essentially launched minimalism. He also trained in Hindustani classical music and studied voice with the great Pandit Pran Nath for a number of years and regularly performed raga concerts with his mentor, his partner Marian Zazeela, and other friends. Other musical collaborators included Tony Conrad, John Cale, and Terry Riley.

His musical works have varied considerably over the course of his career, but have always shared common features such as long sustained tones and a focus on tuning. During his early period as a composition student he wrote some hugely influential pieces such as For Guitar, For Brass, and his String Trio. These were, if extreme in length and approach, conventionally notated and relatively traditional pieces drawing on serial techniques. Around the same time he also composed a number of instructional and conceptual pieces in the style of Fluxus. During the 1960s he began to work on the dream music for which he is more well known.

In 1961 he opened the first Dream House; a house and installation that featured long justly tuned drones and light shows by his partner Marian Zazeela. Around the same time he founded the Theatre of Eternal Music, a rotating door ensemble of musicians and colleagues who would perform his new compositions with him. At this point his style of composition also changed drastically. He abandoned traditional conceptions of notation and compositional approach altogether and developed a deeply personal musical language that he has used to this day. His compositions became entirely focused on finely tuned just intonation intervals, primarily those involving whole number ratios based on the integers 1,2,3,4, and 7. This gives primarily different variations on 2nds, 4ths, 5ths, and 7ths, and he rarely or never uses intervals of 3rds or 6ths. He conceives the music as eternal and ongoing. Each performance is simply a part of a work far to large to even fathom. Most recordings and performances are given enigmatic names that simply reference, date, time, and duration of performance. In many performances the drones will be turned on by technicians before the audience or performers even enter the space, to emphasize the timeless quality of the music. The music also features a high degree of improvisation within strictly defined limits on the part of the performers.

In the late 1960s and into the 1970s he also began work on his magnum opus, the
Well-Tuned Piano. This masterpiece exists only on recording and in Young's head. For it, he had a Bosendorfer piano converted to single strings and tuned in a careful just intonation of his own devising. He then created a completely individual and self-taught playing technique and composed one of the most epic works of all time. It began as a relatively short piece, but recent performances have exceeded 6 hours. There is a Gramavision recording from the early 1990s that is essential listening. The piece basically consists of a series of different themes, tonal/interval areas, and clouds of sound. La Monte strings these together in a partially improvised and completely exhausting performance that will leave you sapped.

One of his most recent projects to be recorded is his Dorian Blues by the Forever Bad Blues Band. Not only is it probably the best band name ever, but it's an awesome piece of music. It's basically a really long, just intonation blues progression that is jammed HARD for two hours on his justly tuned piano, guitar, bass, and drums. Imagine Robert Johnson meets Jimi Hendrix meets Miles Davis in just intonation and on acid.

Unfortunately, much of La Monte Young's music is difficult or impossible to find. There are many reasons for this such as record labels tanking, lawsuits with performers and collaborators, the incredible length of much of his music, and to a certain extent his own megalomania. The most unfortunate of these are definitely the copyright disputes between him and former members of the Theatre of Eternal Music. But they do raise an interesting question about the nature of composition. Young's defense has always been that he organized the players, devised the tunings, and imposed the strict limitations on the improvisations, and so they are his compositions. Some of the performers don't quite agree and would term them collective compositions. I won't impose my judgments on the issue though, I just love the music. If you are interested you can read up on the issue and make your own decisions.

Lucky for us though, there is the internet. So here I present to you a compiled collection of recordings by La Monte Young that I've tracked down over the web, so you don't have to:

Dream House is a 1970s recording of two of his Drift Studies for sine waves and voice. This is extremely characteristic of the eternal music performances.

The Melodic Version of the Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer From the Four Dreams of China is a Gramavision recording of this work arranged for 8 muted trumpets. It sounds like electricity buzzing, but it is actually a finely tuned work based on the voltage hum of the transformers that dotted the country side of Young's childhood home.
Well-Tuned Piano 1
Well-Tuned Piano 2
Well-Tuned Piano 3
Well-Tuned Piano 4
Well-Tuned Piano 5
The Forever Bad Blues Band-Just Stompin'

John Cage: Indeterminacy (Mushroom Mix)

2009-10-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Indeterminacy is a piece that John Cage realized by reading from his collection of stories and anecdotes that he collected and wrote down over the years. His idea sprang from a desire to reconcile his compositional techniques of chance with his lecturing.

The idea is that the stories are read, in a random order, at an interval of one every minute. This means that some stories are read quite fast while some must be stretched out for ages. In some performances, such as the Folkways recording with David Tudor, there is music played in the background against which the stories are read. (Folkways Recording)

An online adaptation of this work has been created by Eddie Kohler here. In the online version the stories are drawn from several sources including the Folkways recording and the book Silence by John Cage. In order to visually approximate the concept of one minute lengths, the stories are each placed in a box that remains a constant size. So in some the text is small and tightly packed and in others there are massive spaces between words.

As well as a successful writer and composer, John Cage also had a passion for mycology, or the study of fungi. He was an avid mushroom collector and he spent a lot of time walking through the woods picking mushrooms to prepare and feed his friends. He taught courses on mushroom identification and even won an Italian quiz show where the topic was mushrooms. So here the folks at mundusloci.org have compiled a realization of Indeterminacy that comprises only anecdotes that feature mushrooms as a point of interest or plot device.

It's a lot of fun to read and John Cage is a fountain of wisdom. So everyone should take a bit of time to read through both sites. And if you want make your own version, or just take the concept and start compiling your own collection of anecdotes.

Compagnie Marie Chouinard's Orpheus and Eurydice

2009-10-04T10:31:00.001-07:00

I was fortunate enough to catch this dance production last winter when it came to Halifax. We ended up getting some of the last rush tickets, but our seats were fine and the show was amazing.

On her website, Chouinard writes: "My source has always been the body itself, and especially the silence and the breath which make up the “invisible” stuff of life." Having seen her production that rings quite true. The show was visually all about the body. The dancers writhed, twisted, jumped, and shook throughout. The only way I can describe it was visceral. All the choreography was intense, in your face, and extremely physical and energetic. There was no slow careful ballet here, it was raucous and engaging. The dancers were also incredibly virtuosic. I'm not a dance expert, but this stuff looked taxing.

As well as the great choreography there was also an amazing use of sound. The original music for the dance by Louis Dufort was really well done and transitioned smoothly back and forth between walls of noise, ancient and solemn sounding dirge, and intense dance music with insistent rhythms. And of course it all fit with what was happening on stage perfectly. There was also a lot of onstage sound, with dancers doing bizarre syllabic utterances, screams, growls, and playing giant horns and bells and percussion instruments.

The interpretation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice was great. There was less emphasis on the love story involved and more on themes of creation and visceral experience. The dance blended the erotic with the grotesque and explored questions of creativity and production. The way it played out it seemed almost like a creation myth where the original artist Orpheus is formed and put through his trials.

I know that the production is still touring, so if you get a chance to see it you definitely should. In fact, I would go check out any Marie Chouinard dances that you can. Definitely a great creative force. I also included a clip of her Rite of Spring production and a significant video of her bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS below, also very cool.

Her Website

WTC and the Jets Online Release

2009-09-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

Available here for the first time in its entirety is the collected works of WTC and the Jets. Possibly known to you through rumor as the greatest rock & roll band of all time, the Jets are now finally releasing it all.

WTC and the Jets were formed sometime in 2008 in a kind of lame basement apartment as the birth-child of garbage can and broken guitar jams and the twisted minds of two wasted friends Dan and Ryan. The first batch of songs were recorded live to cassette tape using only junk from around the house and a cock-rock Jackson with three strings and had a certain undeniable funk and groove. The project continued to exist over several more sessions, some of which featured a veritable big band of alcoholic. satan-worshipping, gone-native drummers and howlers and then ended. There were a few raucous live shows that drew rave reviews and that was it. Further attempts were made to recapture the mad anti-social song writing of the original sessions; but there must have been something special in the water that year as it just couldn't be done.

So here is possibly your only chance ever to get your hands on this depraved and funky rock & roll.

WTC and the Jets-Blow Yr Mind/Everybody Dies (The Lost Recordings)

WTC and the Jets

Tinted Window Van

A Bunch of Free Stockhausen!

2009-09-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) was a giant of 20th century composition. As a leading figure of the Darmstadt School he touched on a wide variety of compositional strategies including serialism, spatialization, improvisation, chance, and electroacoustic methods. His compositions run the gamut from his famous Klavierstucke (Piano Pieces) to a massive opera cycle entitled Licht (Light).

As well as being remarkable for being one of very few experimental composers to achieve a reasonable degree of fame in the mainstream media, Stockhausen also managed to influence many musicians in the jazz, pop and electronic worlds. Musicians from Frank Zappa and the Beatles to Miles Davis and Kraftwerk to Bjork have all cited Stockhausen as a major influence.

He has also been the focus of some major controversy. As far back as the 1970s the marxist and avant-garde composer Cornelius Cardew targeted him in an essay titled Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. In 2001 he was also hung out to dry for suggesting in a press conference that the 9/11 attacks had been the 'greatest work of art there has ever been.' In his later years he was subjected to allegations that he had descended into madness or eccentricity. One oft-cited fact was that he would choose the colour of his cardigan each morning based on a colour coding system he developed in the composition of his opera cycle Licht.

But love him or hate him, he was kind of a big deal, so here is some Stockhausen you can check out for free.

Nos Meilleurs Stockhausen is an album featuring the Swiss ensemble Le Car De Thon's performances of four pieces from the collection Aus Den Sieben Tagen by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The ensemble has been performing the entire collection over the last few years and has chosen their favourites for free release on the Insubordinations Netlabel. There is plenty of information about the album on the website linked below, but basically the collection was composed in 1968 as a set of instructions for improvising the pieces. There are fifteen in total and some are more detailed than others.

Get them here.

Helikopter-Streichquartett is his (in)famous 1993 composition for a string quartet performing in helicopters. The basic concept is that each member of the quartet is in a different helicopter and is playing into a microphone that feeds both to the headphones of the other members of the string quartet as well as to a set of loudspeakers set up in a pavilion on the ground where the audience watches. There are also instructions for the flight patterns of the helicopters and the pilots are very much a part of the piece. The piece won some awards as well as some criticism for pushing the boundaries of absurdity. You can check out an introduction to it with an audio recording, as well as a video of a performance on youtube.

Introduction to the Helicopter String Quartet

Finally, here is his famous 1960 electroacoustic composition Kontakte. The piece took him two years to cut together with tape and it is still pretty mind boggling today.

Jozef Van Wissem

2009-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a composer and performer who has kept me fascinated ever since I read about him in The Wire a few years ago. Jozef Van Wissem is a Dutch lutenist who works both with contemporary techniques and the renaissance and baroque materials that make up most of his instruments repertoire.

He has worked with contemporary guitarists such as Tetuzi Akiyama, Gary Lucas, and James Blackshaw. He was also commissioned by the London National Gallery to compose a sound response to a work on display. He appropriately enough chose a renaissance work by Hans Holbein that features a lute as part of its complex iconography. His work with Blackshaw as the duo Brethren of the Free Spirit is particularly noteworthy and I fully recommend that everyone check it out.

In many ways Van Wissem's compositions fit the mold of minimalism. They are constructed from a bare minimum of musical materials that repeat and transform throughout the sometimes lengthy pieces. One of his favourite techniques that he draws from the renaissance is the palindrome, a musical figure that sounds the same played both forward and backward. His work sounds more sublime and ancient than the electronic patter of Philip Glass or Steve Reich though. When I listen to his music it brings to mind both the medieval roots of the lute in the Middle East and Europe as well as contemporary folk traditions, all while sounding decidedly fresh and interesting.

His 2008 album A Priori is available for free download on Ubu as well as a few isolated tracks from more recent releases. There are also a few great blurbs there taken from liner notes and the very Wire article that first sparked my interest Jozef Van Wissem.

Ubu

Canadian Electroacoustic Community

2009-09-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Here is a ton of great free music courtesy of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community. The CEC is a nationwide organization that exists to propagate the creation and performance of electroacoustic music.

For those of you who aren't sure what exactly electroacoustic is, don't worry. The definition of electroacoustic music is something that is under constant debate. For the purposes of this discussion I will just treat it as music that is created primarily through electronic means that does not fit easily into an existing pop genre. This can take the form of pieces composed either entirely with electronically generated sound, or those that are composed only of reworked recordings of acoustic sound. Generally though, most composers work somewhere in between those extremes.

Every year the CEC hosts the Jeu de Temps/Times Play contest which offers the chance for young composers of electroacoustic music to have their works performed and broadcasted. They also offer cash prizes for the top selections. The best part of this for you and I is that they post the entries online for free download. Their website archives the recordings of the last 9 years of submitted works for you to browse at your leisure.

The site is here and I encourage you all to spend some time browsing. There are some great works up there. For starters though I would suggest Jean-Francois Blouin's work Catacombes, I really dug it the first time I heard it and have kept it on my playlist for the last little while.

Enjoy!

Bark Haze Live

2009-09-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

So I've been fortunate enough to have played three shows with Gown, aka Andrew Macgregor, around the Maritimes. They were all great experiences and I'm a huge fan of Andrews music. After the last one, the Obey Convention, he asked me to collaborate with him on his next set of recordings and I readily agreed. Just this week I laid down some of the first horn and trumpet tracks and in the excitement of the whole thing I've been really digging on his past work.

So here I present to you a great video of his project with Thurston Moore: Bark Haze. These guys sit really well together and I've yet to hear anything disappointing out of them. If you like what you hear on this video then I would encourage you to check out the whole discography of Gown and Bark Haze ASAP. His most recent album The Old Line is available from Divorce Records here.

Kim Suk Chul Ensemble

2009-09-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

Shamans of the Eastern Seaboard is a cacophonous album of Korean ritual. South Korea is one of the few places in the developed world were Shamanism continues to play a major role in day to day life and culture. As mediums who help the layman transcend mundane reality for glimpses of something greater, the Shamans often incorporate music into their rites.

This album features the Shamanic musician Kim Suk Chul, who has been recognized by the Korean government as a living cultural treasure, along with his ensemble. There are three pieces here and they are all long and weighty. The overall texture is one of chaos; swirling and crashing gongs, bells, drums, and double reeds all compete for attention, but on repeat listenings a rich and complex polyrhythmic and modal language reveal themselves.

Get it here

Bora Yoon

2009-09-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

Bora Yoon is a performance artist and composer who specializes in using unconventional instruments and found sounds. She is known for her engaging space-specific performances that blend technology, singing, choreography, and extended techniques seemlessly.

This clip from The Wire is particularly captivating. It features vocals, organ, buddabox, turntable, chimes, cups, and diamonds in a unique and powerful performance of a 12th century chant by Hildegard von Bingen. The costume and the choreography at the end blew my mind. This is an incredibly focused performance that borders on ritual.

Check it out:

More info here:
The Wire