lower cases

there is too much excitement in the world. (nothing like starting the day with a big bold statement and yes, you can quote me on that) and everyone is vying for your attention -- which I do believe has become the most valuable commodity. microsound or lowercase or whateveryouwanna may be one method to counter the break neck pace of A.D.D. info saturation - by furnishing your living space with unassuming and un-obtrusive sound objects which one relates to for certain periods. or constructing some conscious or sub-conscious situation which gently unfold in time, the process inducing states of mind, body, or emotion. the interaction may be subtle, but can be multi-layered and open to interpretation - thus arriving at an art which gives, gives, gives, and does not take much in return. (of course the same can be said of some other musics, such as Feldman or Sugimoto)

since Mr. Roden has expressed clearly that he does not mind, but in fact encourages the giving (there's that bizarre concept again) away of his music for free, here are a few more pieces of lovely object/situations by him and a couple of others.

Steve Roden - Speak No More About The Leaves

"The cd contains 3 pieces inspired by Arnold Shoenberg's 'The Book of the Hanging Gardens' and in particular the poems by Stefan George that Shoenberg used as lyrics. Track one uses my voice reading/singing part of the text as the only sound material. Track two uses the vowel structure from the text as a score for striking five tones on a small chime and was originally used for an installation at the pomona college museum of art. Track three uses samples from the Shoenberg work as well as my voice singing the same text as track one."

http://www.sendspace.com/file/7ogci3
or
http://rapidshare.com/files/4280949/Speak_No_More_About_The_Leaves.zip .html

Steve Roden & Jason Kahn - Shimmer Flicker Waver Quiver

"In September 2002, Jason Kahn and Steve Roden joined forces in the Extrapool studios. Steve Roden played small acoustic objects, electric guitar, contact microphones and guitar pedals whereas Jason Kahn played minimal percussion, laptop and analogue synthesizer. Their focus on sound is a central factor in this work. Six beautiful pieces of microscopic, precise music - like watching through the looking glass at the smallest particles available. - www.kormplastics.nl"

http://www.sendspace.com/file/whb8t8
or
http://rapidshare.com/files/5160630/Steve_Roden___Jason_Kahn_-_Shimmer _Flicker_Waver_Quiver.zip.html


[rit 16] STEPHAN MATHIEU - Wurmloch Variationen

a dreamlike digital blizzard in the hard-drive of your brain - snow, impressions, remnants and after-images focus and blur - a mesmerizing play of static and memory.

"]This CD has five pieces out of 26 different pieces, which were all based on a piano recording. That source recording is enclosed here as the final track, which is a very open piece of occasional hammering on the piano and lots of free space. This recording is sampled and pieces of the processings are used to create new pieces. The overall sound might be classified as 'ambient', as in: soft music, but made with clicks, hiss and drony, deep end sound. It's a well-crafted work, very minimal, with great emphasis on, there we go again, microscopic details." - Frans de Waard / Vital Weekly"

http://www.sendspace.com/file/br2eae
or
http://rapidshare.com/files/5159419/STEPHAN_MATHIEU_-_Wurmloch_Variati onen.zip.html

[raster-post] mitchell akiyama - temporary music

akiyama is too soft for the bb; whose objection I think runs somewhat along the lines of noodly, polite, DSP-overdose, pastel-y, boring, IDM-wank. but while I think some of these descriptors fit, this is non-the-less an artist with an unusual number of ideas; his inventiveness and charm of execution clearly making him stand much taller than the thousands of other purveyers of geek-tronica which I absolutely take bb's stance on (like some on Mitchel's own intr_version label).

this release is actually very different from his usual sound - which is synthy and relatively playful. there are actually some similarities to Stephen Matheiu's Wurmloch Variationen. I had to include this because in addition to the quality music, the first track is titled "Big Sur".

[quote]"temporary music", is a collection of fragments - shards of pianos, pieces of field recordings, digital interruptions. all pieces are homages to places and people whose images have changed and faded over time. "temporary music" is a representation of the ephemeral nature of experience and the instability of memory.[/quote]

http://rapidshare.com/files/5156214/Raster_Post.zip.html
or
http://www.sendspace.com/file/56vezb

Silence Resounding

ah. I can never look at three days off of work badly. lots of sleep! good food! Working on the things I want to work on! not posting much to forums and blogs! So, as if to open up my perception of the oncoming winter, and to follow up Zhao's essential Steve Roden post...

Miki Yui "Silence Resounding"
http://rapidshare.com/files/4075690/Silence_Resounding.zip

Another fine, contemporary sound art release from the L-ne label, unfortunately out of print. A perfectly balanced collection of short, delicate soundscapes and extended events, fragmentary without being broken or lacking. Some tracks are clearly based on field recordings, others more processed, all have a poetic emphasis on acoustic perception. For whatever reason I love this album during the winter, the silences highlight the cold, but send out a warmth, animating my home.

I have no other albums like this, and haven't heard anything else like it. Neither have I encountered Miki Yui's work as in occurs in installation or soundtrack. sigh.

consider this my eulogy for the M N M L • • • • T C H N O thread.

the departed (and Steve Roden)

I think only now the passing of the M N M L • • • • T C H N O thread has really hit me... why do the good die so young!

at least the grieving process will be softened by a vacation in Big Sur... so I probably won't be around these parts for a week or so. in the meantime... I wish I could tell you two trouble-makers and the crazies over at SFRP to chill with the posting, go outside, throw a frisbee around, key a few Hummers, so that my DL pile is not TOO outrageously overwhelming upon return... but you know as well as I do that that's not gonna happen. so... carry on...

and if I don't ever come back, you will know that the combination of foggy, winding cliff-side roads and coconut flavored Caribbean Rum got the better of me... and that my end was met gloriously, in the arms of beautiful music and women.

live, listen, and prosper.

cheers! - zhao

P.S. 2 gifts before take off:

I can't even begin to explain how much I love these recordings... it's a case of sound art becoming much more than mere "interesting", but sustaining, and sustained, nourishment for the passage of time.

as far as I know these are not available anywhere... visit http://www.inbetweennoise.com for more information.

Steve Roden - Light Forms

"both tracks use the electronically transformed sounds of lightbulbs being handled and were inspired by the bell ringing scores of jasper snowdon, the theme of 'light' for a performance evening at the stadtgalerie saarbrucken, and the singuhr - hoergalerie in parocial exhibition space (a church) in berlin. track 1 is a studio version of the concert piece for saarbrucken, and track two is the soundtrack for the berlin installation."

Truth Is The Bell (Saarbrucken)
Bell Is The Truth (Berlin)

http://rapidshare.com/files/4280859/Right_Forms.zip.html

or

http://www.sendspace.com/file/lsrsge

Steve Roden - Winter Couplet

"winter couplet was created for the 2002 la freewaves festival in los angeles. the sound composition was made using the sounds of two tea cups; and was played through 8 speakers connected to cardboard tubes. the tubes acted as resonators and were inspired by the work of architect shigeru ban."

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ykqurt

or

http://rapidshare.com/files/4278184/Winter_Couplet.zip.html

Mille Plateaux 2: kid606 - PS I Love You/PS You Love Me

http://rapidshare.com/files/3807158/PS_I_Love_You.zip


http://rapidshare.com/files/3863618/PS_You_Love_Me.zip

This pair of albums are unique in kid606's (unnecessarily) large body of work, from a time when his attitude wasn't as static, his sound more playful. OK, I like his "early work" much more than what he's done since 2002 - his wild stuff was raw and exhilirating, his playful or maybe introspective tracks were loose and buoyant. Here, he releases the "clicks_+_cuts" aesthetic from a clinical approach and, somehow, marries it to a laptop/shoegaze thing, keeping the mix warm, yet snappy, hinting at all-out glitchnoise, smirking at Fennesz's guitar smears, and keeping the kids on the dancefloor moving, if they didn't know why. in 2000, "PS I Love You" really worked for me, and it still does. "PS You Love Me" has some alternate tracks/remixes from kid606, and some fun remixes from other folks on the scene at the time.

Piotr Panin - Selected Pieces for Guitar

note: this image is the cover of a different album (for this one I could find nothing); and i included it because it's so cool.

Russian modern guitar works. this collection presents a taut and concise variety of pieces. the first thing the listener notices is a pure formalism uncluttered by decorative bull-shit, even if the style is not recognizable; and secondly a wild and passionate (yet extremely disciplined) spirit in the playing. there is an angularity through out (much like the cubist picture), and the short pieces go the entire gamut from turbulent to calm, from ecstatic to pensive. I personally could not detect traces of the "ethnic" influences as mentioned in the blurb below, either because my ear is not as schooled as I thought, or this collection focuses on a different body of work than what Jean-Pierre Jumez encountered.

"The following evening a small man with slanted eyes picks up my guitar. From the moment he begins playing, I relax in my armchair. It’s obvious that I'm in the presence of a man of extraordinary feeling. He plunges me into a new world, a world that arises from the multitude of cultures that form the Soviet Union—a country he knows well. His playing is not pretentious, it doesn’t deteriorate into brief, explosive flurries or long, drawn-out developments. There are few variations in these concise musical forms, but there is no sense of boredom either. It contains Tartar, Mongolian, Inuit, Chinese, and Russian influences, and dazzles the listener with its fiery passion.This man's name is Piotr Panin. He shows me the 150 manuscripts for guitar and three concertos he has written, which I immeidately offer to have published in the West. But here’s the problem: Panin is self-taught. Therefore he has no musical status or recognition, other than the opportunity to perform with third-class folk bands, which doesn’t even provide him with enough money to make ends meet. He has no chance whatsoever of obtaining the status of performer or composer, since he didn’t attend music school. He lives with a distant cousin and raises chickens in the bathtub. Well, too bad! I’ll have to harass the administration until they come to their senses. At my next recital I perform some of his pieces (the easiest). Afterward all of my records would include a selection of his works. I send a barrage of lavish praise to Moscow. It would take at least seven years for Piotr to obtain the cherished status of composer. Because of constantly being made to feel like an outsider, he decided to change course and sell paintings instead."

- from A GUITAR AROUND THE WORLD by Jean-Pierre Jumez

http://www.sendspace.com/file/e3fio1 or

http://rapidshare.com/files/3834372/Piotr_Panin.zip.html

Mille Plateaux: VA - Clicks + Cuts (2000)

The first in this seminal, eventually gratuitous, series of experimental and forward thinking techno/laptoppery. Coming back to this release, 6 years later - the music is (generally) more mature than I may have thought back in 2000, crisp and reductive without any excess or exagerration. Things are more raw on these discs, and doesn't have the clubbier/poppier moments of the 2nd and 3rd sets, and also lacks the extremes mapped by the 2nd sets 3 discs. That said, artsy laptoppery and minimal techno's rapid and rhizomatic (sorry for the argot, but the metaphor is actually appropriate) growth in the last 10 year got a huge kick in the pants from the innovations by the artists included in these discs, in a time before heavy DSP double-tap soloing was possible, before Live made things so much smoother.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EIYSPZOL

needless to say, these compilations included some real highbrow liner notes, which I feel have lost some their relevance.

Asia Piano Avantgarde - Indonesia

I personally was kind of hoping for more of an overt affinity with Gamelan, but am more than impressed and happy with what is inside this disc - smart, slow, spacious and lovely piano music. - zhao

"Pianist Steffen Schleiermacher specializes in the contemporary repertoire—he has recorded at least 10 CDs of Cage’s piano music—and here he embarks on a journey into Asia. Our Western sense of Indonesian music begins and ends with the gamelan, where the act of composition is traditionally collective rather than individual, but that is a limiting notion: there are composers in Indonesia, same as everywhere else, and the sound of their music is not necessarily location specific. Some of the above composers studied in Europe, with Blacher (in the case of Paul Soegijo) and Dutilleux (in the case of Slamet A. Sjukur), and bring that background to bear on their national roots to produce a unique, often dissonant language. These works are not simple exotica. It seems to me that an Asian sensibility comes through most strongly in the feeling of time suspended; of musical motifs growing organically at their own pace, undisturbed by human concerns. (One gets a similar sense from the piano music of Takemitsu.)" - Phillip Scott

note (from my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong): although often allowing room for improvisation on the part of the individual players, and indeed sometimes the structures of the pieces are partially determined collectively, a lot of traditional Gamelan music is written by single composers.

Asia Piano Avantgarde / Indonesia - Schleiermacher

1. Klavierstudie by Paul Gutama Soegijo
2. Svara by Slamet Abdul Sjukur
3. A Piece for Piano no 10 by Michael Asmara
4. A Little Piece for Pianoforte by Michael Asmara
5. Kenang by Soe Tjen Marching
6. Yu Taha by Slamet Abdul Sjukur
7. Langendria by Dody Satya Ekagustdiman

192K:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/jo6a37

or

http://rapidshare.com/files/3764592/Asia_Piano_Avantgarde__Indonesia_-_Steffen_Schleiermacher.zip.html

None But The Lonely Flute - Cage / Alexander / Feldman / Babbit

from the record label: "Dorothy Stone, critically acclaimed flutist and founding member of the California EAR Unit, presents six new works for flute which explore the expressive potential of the pure voice of the solo flute in a variety of sympathetic contexts.

Babbitt’s solo piece, None but the Lonely Flute, written in 1991 for Ms. Stone, takes as its point of departure the familiar Tchaikovsky song “None But the Lonely Heart,” celebrating the utter “alone-ness” of the solo flute with subtlety and wit. Cage’s Ryoan-ji (1985) is a musical counterpart to drawings he made of the Ryoan-ji Garden in Kyoto after a visit in 1962. From these drawings, beautiful in their starkness, Cage then, in 1985, fashioned a musical counterpart, with a live flute solo against a tape of prerecorded flutes and with simple percussion that seems to be filling around the “rocks” with a sandscape. Feldman’s Trio for Flutes (1982) is “pure” Feldman: a kind of distant view from a mountaintop, with the fragments of an obsessive, compressed musical idea seeming to scud across the landscape like wisps of cirrus clouds. Mosko’s For Morton Feldman, completed in 1987 shortly after Feldman’s death, is “a reflection on many of the ideas he introduced to me. (This) composition is concerned with musical ideas forming and evaporating, re-forming in many ways, and again dissolving...” Mosko’s Indigenous Music II: Flute (1985) is a survey of the many kinds of music-making indigenous to the instrument—not only the usual melodic line, but also multiphonics, whistle tones, and singing while playing—while also exploring new territory in the use of extended glissandi over the range of the instrument. Alexander’s And the Whole Air Is Tremulous meshes Stone’s live performance with a tape composed of manipulated prerecorded samples of various members of the flute family. The work is not programmatic, but it is associated with a passage from Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room: “So when the wind roams through a forest innumerable twigs stir; hives are brushed; and the whole air is tremulous with breathing...”

Dorothy Stone - None But The Lonely Flute

1. Milton Babbitt - None but the Lonely Flute
2. Morton Feldman - Trio for Flutes
3. Stephen L. Mosko - For Morton Feldman
4. Kathyrn Alexander - And the Whole Air is Tremulous
5. Stephen L. Mosko - Indigenous Music II: Flute
6. John Cage - Ryoan-Ji

192k

http://rapidshare.com/files/3764856/None_But_The_Lonely_Flute_-_Dorothy_Stone.zip.html

or

http://www.sendspace.com/file/f317ud

San Ul Lim

first 2 albums of the great Korean psychedelic rock band San Ul Lim, whose name translates to "That Mountain Echo". originally came from citiesonflame (link to the right -- all the best wishes to Dirk), and re-invigorated links by verdantone and kumarsicle.














Volume 1:Ah! Already (1977)
slightly more fuzzy / poppy

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ftvlrp

Vol 2: As Laying Carpet on My Mind (1978)
slightly more progy / trippy

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mgez4b

Clip'd Mokira

Here is the first Mokira (aka Andreas Tilliander) album, "Cliphop" (very descriptive title!) from the Static series on Raster-Noton, circa 2000. One of the earliest releases that slips into the Clicks + Cuts genre of laptoppery. Simple, funky glitch, and that is about all. Essential by most definitions of the word.



http://rapidshare.com/files/3532280/Cliphop.zip

Guitar-y Re-ups (file host questionnaire!)

In response to some requests from German (and other) folks out there on the web, I'm re-posting older Sendspace uploads via Rapidshare or maybe maybe Megaupload. Please leave comments as to yr preferences!

from the recent Annette Krebs post:

Annette Krebs "Guitar Solo"
http://rapidshare.com/files/3464941/guitar_solo.zip

Krebs + Sugimoto "eine guitarre...." etc etc etc etc
http://rapidshare.com/files/3472481/eine_gitarre.zip

and an older Taku Sugimoto "Myshkin Musicu for Electric Guitar" (it's awesome!)
http://rapidshare.com/files/3475017/Myshkin_Musicu_for_Electric_Guitar.zip

Polmo Polpo - The Science Of Breath

OK. There is a lot of laptop music out there. Some people want to debate the "music" thing w/ me but let's just go with it. It is really easy to sit in yr room and make some sound these days. I think this is a good thing (in general). But it means you have to swim to find the more fascinating parts of the sea (to go with the blog's metaphor). I had forgot about this release for a little while, by the Canadian Polmo Polpo (nom de Sandro Perri). The breathing image paces the album and is rendered in fine layers of hiss and noise, with long, pulsing tracks divided by shorter ambient moments. Very dancey, funky and moody. A brilliant mix of materials takes precedent over DSP, leaving a more timeless piece of modern techno. Fragments of guitar and voice appear through the haze. This is the only record of his I have heard, and the only one that has crossed my path.

Polmo Polpo "The Science Of Breath" (2002)




http://www.sendspace.com/file/xrp7su

OR

http://rapidshare.com/files/3460846/polmo_polpo.zip

Morton Feldman 1

Who is this fat man? And how did he gain Occult Powers?

"Feldman's life as a composer is a series of untiring steps to penetrate reality and enter an inner territory whose intensity can only be recognized by the memory traces it leaves.

"The titles of his compositions often hint at a journey to a hidden world, for example, Atlantis and Journey to the End of the Night, or they refer to mysterious confrontations or particular choices along the way, such as I Met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg, Intersection, or Ixion (while journeying to the underworld Orpheus met Ixion being tortured on his wheel).

"Creatively, Feldman's is an art of 'becoming', a new Feldman always painfully emerging from the dying ruins of his previous work so that the search can continue on a new level.

"This whole endeavor can be misconceived if seen predominantly through the lens of his later music, for his life's work is a single story of which the earlier works are the crucial opening verses. To understand the latter we must look at the background from which he came rather than our knowledge of his final destination.

"He was born in New York in 1926; studied piano from the age of twelve with Madame Maurina-Press who had been a close friend of Scriabin and a pupil of Busoni. At 15 he started composition lessons with Wallingford Riegger who had been a pupil of Max Bruch. At 18 he transferred to Stefan Wolpe, another pupil of Busoni, and during this period he frequently met Varèse, who had known Debussy. Incidentally, it was through Wolpe that Feldman became friendly with the pianist David Tudor for whom he composed the piece Illusions (1949), and later introduced to his last and most important mentor, John Cage (himself a pupil of Schoenberg). With these connections he could see his work as making legitimate claims on the inheritance of the European heartlands as well as the traditions of the New World.

"Feldman's quest was essentially that of the romantic artist, but his significance at the end of the 20th century partly derives from his paradoxical ability to be committed to his own interior poetry and yet simultaneously embrace the detached and abstract aural relationships which arose when certain compositional controls were abandoned and sounds liberated from the demands of overt self expression. Superficially it may be thought that indeterminacy held little significance for Feldman's mature work, but none of it could have been conceivable without his maintaining strong roots in the radicalism that first accepted chance encounters."
(Frank Denyer, in his notes to the collection of Feldman's music performed by the Barton Workshop, entitled The Ecstasy of the Moment).

It's always hard to know how essential your own connection is to a given work--let alone a body of work--that is, how much it has to do with the qualities that seethe up out of the sounds there before or the images that condense and disperse before the senses you have to work with, which, after all, aren't everyone's sense, and not just in a matter of degree. A friend once had a professor who was anything, herself, but a stodgy mouldy prune of an academic. Even reassured that this professor was not hellbent for explanation, when it came to the lucid description of the inner workings of Feldman's music, my friend (anything but a mystic himself, hellbent on submission to the obscure) couldn't help but wonder: should you be telling us this? Is this going to destroy Feldman for me? Are we systematizing the anti-systematic and doing violence not just to the intentions of the composer, but to the fundaments of the edifice? Is this creative appropriation in the name of knowing What's Going On in Feldman's music, or is it complaining about a lack of plumbing in the Outback?
I don't need to offer noise to your own encounter with this music, and a surplus of handwringing over how much of my love of it refers to my own susceptibility to the fashion for the man's output, such is less careful than Care. What strikes me more and more is how the way it moves insinuates itself into so much of my listening: this is not a theoretical coloring, at least I don't feel it rearing its head as such. It's a matter of having a sense of the audible world moving forward and back again, a kind of spasmodic procession that can be sensed in more obvious (e.g. a certain apprehension of the repetitive) and less obvious (e.g. form as an arc containing arcs, the sense of being surrounded by a design of my own design and designs outside my own designation: the world as a infinite-regressive, finite-progressive outflowing of forms Ineinander, or to cop a lovely phrase from Stan Brakhage, the world worlding like a thrumming sequence of "commingled containers"). What does it feel like to have a everything sensible seething gently around you, like a landscape in conspiracy (which is to say, breathing together with you)? --g.r

“I feel that I listen to my sounds, and I do what they tell me, not what I tell them. Because I owe my life to these sounds.” (M.F.)

















Morton Feldman: All Piano
(Pianist John Tilbury, a noted Feldman interpreter and a longtime member of the improvising ensemble AMM, performs much of Feldman's solo piano work over four discs. Released as a limited edition 4cd set by the LondonHALL label in 1999. Presented here in Apple Lossless format with liner notes and some graphics.)
Disc 1: Early Piano Works
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0k9nxg
Disc 2: Piano 77 + Palais de Mari
http://www.sendspace.com/file/557m6d
Disc 3: Triadic Memories
http://www.sendspace.com/file/c4nkjt
Disc 4: For Bunita Marcus
http://www.sendspace.com/file/rn61cn


Morton Feldman: Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981)
(hat ART, CD2-6145, 2cds, released 1995; Rohan de Saram, of the Arditti Quartet, cello; Marianne Schroeder, piano)
Disc One: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ezc5dt
Disc Two: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mmgekl
(ripped to Apple Lossless)
...A fragment will recur in subtly altered guise— shifted in register, at a different speed, superimposed on something alien—without fulfilling recurrence’s traditional implications of stability or development. Some apparently fundamental patterns are forgotten and never surface again; other gestures, sometimes of bewildering eccentricity (a series of rising double glissandi, a single repeated ponticello tone, brief forays into the extremes of the piano’s range), happen once and vanish. Such thwarting of expectation constitutes Feldman’s “conscious attempt at ‘formalizing’ a disorientation of memory ... There is a suggestion that what we hear is functional and directional, but we soon realize that this is an illusion; a bit like walking the streets of Berlin—where all the buildings look alike, even if they’re not.” Disorientation arises not only from an elusive continuity but from the smallest details. Throughout his work Feldman is preoccupied with “in-betweenness,” a reliance on values that resist perceptual differentiation. Feldman often spoke of the inspiration he derived from the variation of color (“abrash”) and pattern he found in Anatolian rugs: “‘Abrash’ is that you dye in small quantities. You cannot dye in big bulks of wool. So it’s the same, yet it’s not the same. It has a kind of micro-tonal hue. So when you look at it, it has that kind of marvelous shimmer which is that slight gradation.” The title Patterns in a Chromatic Field suggests the analogy with rug-making, the weaving of figures from narrow bands of neighboring pitches and rhythmic values.
(from Erik Ulman's notes to another recording of this piece: http://www.gardenvariety.org/projects/feldman/notes.html)

The Ecstasy of the Moment:
The Barton Workshop Plays Morton Feldman
(Etcetera KTC 3003, 3cd set, released 1997, out of print)
http://rapidshare.com/files/2975397/MF_EM_1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/2975211/MF_EM_2.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/2975147/MF_EM_3.zip
(all discs at 192)

1947 Only
1950 Projection 1
1951 Intersection 2
1951 Projection 2
1951 Projection 3
1951 Projection 4
1951 Projection 5
1953 Intersection 3
1953 Intersection 4
1957 Piece for 4 Pianos
1957 Two Pianos
1958 Piano Four Hands
1960 Durations 1
1960 Durations 2
1961 Durations 3
1961 Durations 4
1961 Durations 5
1963 Vertical Thoughts 1
1963 Vertical Thoughts 2
1963 Vertical Thoughts 3
1963 Vertical Thoughts 4
1963 Vertical Thoughts 5
1964 Piano Piece 1964
1974 Instruments 1
1974 Voice and Instruments 2
1976 Voice, Violin and Piano
1977 Instruments 3
1981 Bass Clarinet and Percussion




Morton Feldman: self-titled "green" disc on (Naive-)Montaigne
works from the 70s performed by Ensemble Recherche
(Montaigne MO 7820181994, released 1994;
Reissued as MO 782126 in 2000)

performed by the Ensemble Recherche

1. The Viola in My Life 1 (1970)
2. The Viola in My Life 2 (1970)
3. I Met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg (1971)
4. For Frank O'Hara (1973)
5. Routine Investigations (1976)


http://rapidshare.com/files/1673125/FeldmanMontaigne_pt1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/1670855/FeldmanMontaigne_pt2.zip
ripped from disc at 320


Morton Feldman: THREE VOICES
(for Joan La Barbara)
(New Albion, 1989)
http://rapidshare.com/files/2538277/MF_3V_1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/2536445/MF_3V_2.zip
(ripped at 320)




Concerning THREE VOICES, Feldman remarked, "One of my closest friends, the painter Philip Guston, had just died; Frank O'Hara had died several years before. I saw the piece with Joan in front and these two loudspeakers behind her. There is something kind of tombstoney about the look of loudspeakers. I thought of the piece as an exchange of the live voice with the dead ones - a mixture of the living and the dead."

















Frank O'Hara: Wind (to Morton Feldman)

Who'd have thought
that snow falls
it always circled whirling
like a thought
in the glass ball
around me and my bear

Then it seemed beautiful
containment
snow whirled
nothing ever fell
nor my little bear
bad thoughts
imprisoned in crystal

beauty has replaced itself with evil

And the snow whirls only
in fatal winds
briefly
then falls

it always loathed containment
beasts
I love evil

(from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF FRANK O'HARA)

Annette Krebs (plus Taku Sugimoto)

Annette Krebs is a classically trained German guitarist of a totally unique (if unfailingly modern) approach to tabletop guitar playing. All sorts of small objects come into contact with her instrument, summoning the inner hum, buzz and electric resonances of the instrument. Clumsily put, maybe the feminine opposite of Keith Rowe? (a role she is either moving out of, or accepting, as her recent performances find her using more dynamic, radio sources and noise, though her touch on the guitar is just as delicate). Her recorded output is very small, but flawless.

"Guitar Solo" (Fringes Recording, 2002)

Eight very delicate, very quiet solos. No hype.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/k3kcos

-----AND-----

"eine gitarre ist eine gitarrre ist keine gitarre ist eine gitarre..." (Rossbin)

Taku Sugimoto: six-string bass guitar (1) and electric guitar (2, 3)
Annette Krebs: electro-acoustic guitar

Recorded by Taku Sugimoto at Off Site in Tokyo on June 12, 2001 (1, 2)
Recorded live by Taku Sugimoto at Verein für experimentalle Musik in Darmstadt on November 2, 2001 (3)
Mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura at Setreset in Tokyo
Artwork by Lucaroux/Agitup

Released July 2002

http://www.sendspace.com/file/09h5dm

HENRY GRIMES TRIO - THE CALL

long story short: 3 years ago Henry Grimes (legendary bassist, free jazz luminary, collaborator of Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, etc, etc.,) was found living in a tiny hotel room in downtown Los Angeles, after missing for 3 decades. some of the rumors were that he chanced his name and moved to Germany, or that he died in Florida. he apparently sold his bass in San Francisco in 1969 (likely for a meal), wondered down to LA, depressed, broke and was homeless for a good part of the 70s. He had been doing janitorial and grocery store packaging jobs for another 20 years until someone found him - now that he got all those royalty checks from all those records he played on in the 60s, and that William Parker gave him a new bass, he played a couple of shows in LA, and has since moved to NYC - from everyone who has heard him recently, sounding every bit as good as 1969.

this was his only album as leader from back then.

[note: apologize for the confusion earlier. I had mistakenly zipped up both this album as well as Steve Lacy's "Troubles" (the last 5 tunes) together. it is corrected, and I will post the Lacy separately at a later date. the following is this album by itself]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mxd55q

GIACINTO SCELSI - THE 5 STRING QUARTETS, STRING TRIO, KHOOM [COMPLETE]

another amazing out of print album by our favorite pre-spectral composer - you guessed it, from Arcaf. would love to write a book on this but no time.

over joyed that Mr. Phillip Glass (our pal at SFRP, not the pretentious sell-out) kindly upped the second CD:

disc 1: http://www.sendspace.com/file/vito1m

disc 2: http://rapidshare.com/files/3390578/scelsci_CD_2.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/3387536/scelsci_CD_2.part1.rar

VLADISLAV DELAY - MULTILA

some of this guy's earliest. no polished sheen, has some of that basic channel weathered and moss-grown texture and feel... great compositions that surprise and intrigue.

in my opinion one of, if not the best work.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PNJR1ZWM

A PAIR OF BLEYS

Paul_Bley__Gary_Peacock_-_Mindset__2005.zip

http://www.sendspace.com/file/dzva00

and a re-up of Paul Bley - Open, To Love:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/3l1641

EVAN PARKER, BARRY GUY, LAWRENCE CASSERLY - DIVIDUALITY

(sorry for 128, but this is from a long time ago)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/lvxzpt

Do NOT Forget To Boogie!

This is my first posting here, and I'm starting this on the right foot, the hot foot. What follows is a very very rare LP (2003) from Tetuzi Akiyama, my favorite guitar-ish-ist from the new improv scene (Onkyo, New Silence, whatever The Wire is calling it this month). That said, his range is much broader than genre and associates suggest, and this is the album that convinced me that it is not just his style(s) that are inimitable.

"Don't Forget To Boogie" is a collection of seemingly trad Rock 'n' Roll riffs, but played with a minimalist repetition, attention given to overtones and texture. I've always found Akiyama's solo music extremely resonant, even emotional, and that is certainly in evidence here, evoking the desperation and sadness of the lone guitar player, but finding that place deep within the ecstatic language of rock, more specifically, boogie. I can not recommend highly enough this recording or any by Tetuzi (scroll down for his recording with Jason Kahn, where he plays acoustic). Stick around and you'll probably get more Tetuzi from me. Take the title of this release as sagely advice.

Tetuzi Akiyama - Don't Forget To Boogie! (Idea LP 2003)

Note: Although this is only available on vinyl, be advised - this is NOT a vinyl rip! That is all I will say about that.





http://www.sendspace.com/file/tuo4ka

(fresh upload)

or

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FEKZ883H

All music by Tetuzi Akiyama

Tetuzi Akiyama: electric guitar

Recorded by Yoshio Nakayama and Tetuzi Akiyama at Phonic Aim Road House on July 5, 2002
Edited by Toshimaru Nakamura
Front cover photo by Takashi Matsuoka
Back cover photo by Fredrik Nilson
Typography and design by Tom Recchion
Produced by Tetuzi Akiyama

Released in 2003

NEW CREW MEMBERS

a historical anouncement: 3 carefully chosen individuals with massive credentials will be joining us on this expedition, to lend their particular knowledge and expertise to the navigation of these tricky, immense, and different waters.

bb
grasprelease
Don Federico el Sabio

welcome aboard!

TAJ MAHAL TRAVELERS - AUGUST 1974

some of the most satisfying acoustic drone ever made. albeit this belongs in the category of spaced out hippie free collective improvisation, but its sophistication and superior craft tower over thousands of imitators. it is not lazy like so many others in this vein, but rather full of ideas and invention. yes tantric buddhist chant and avant classical and rock'n'roll (in the loosest of loose definitions) CAN fuse into an incredible cosmic consciousness "thing". and yes it can be exhilarating and wonderful and soul nourishing. this is the stuff of legends.

there are other recordings by this sprawling commune of an outfit, and many solo outings by prominent violinist Takehisa Kosugi worth seeking out.

http://rapidshare.com/files/713641/Taj_Mahal_Travellers_-_August_1974.zip

GUITAR SOLOS

first track alone is worth the price of your computer, extra ram, extra internal and external hard drives, DSL line, electricity bill, rent, etc.






Robie Basho - Seal of the Blue Lotus

http://www.sendspace.com/file/w26vg7

thanks to nphominoid for the lovely vinyl rip. I have not heard this yet but should be well up to the standard of these waters.







Loren Connors - Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 1 and 2.

Loren Mazzacane, acoustic guitar, vocals
LP Daggett Records

Edition of aprox 25-100 copies for each volume
Released: 1979-1980
Recorded: 1979-1980

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4pv33m

from billybilly: "not many notes available for this release (there are plenty *on* it though!), which finds Sugimoto moving towards the refinement of "Opposite" but giving himself more time to explore where he is at. joined by Tetuzi Akiyama and others on the track 'Improvisation.'"



Taku Sugimoto - Myshkin Music For Electric Guitar (Slub Music)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/noz5cc

IMPROVISATION PART 2

another installment in the excellent Stallplaat series, thanks to Kalli. first section is delicate and sparse guitar work, second is a vibrating electro-static drone.





Oren Ambarchi - MORT AUX VACHES

Song of Separation Parts 1-6

solo guitar recorded at VPRO Studios june 10th 2001

http://www.megaupload.com/de/?d=NMXFYXRN

another gorgeous guitar/electronics recording belonging in the same play-list as the Sugimoto/Drumm album posted earlier. but then again, all of the improv I will post here, to reiterate, will be in this muted, meditative vein. no skronk-fests here. thanks to nphominoid.


Tetuzi Akiyama + Jason Kahn - Til We Meet Again
(For 4 Ears, CD1654) (Switzerland)

Tetuzi Akiyama: acoustic guitar
Jason Kahn: percussion, analog synthesizer

http://rapidshare.com/files/1552492/till_we_meet_again.rar

selection of pieces from a festival of music that Otomo curated, varied and wonderful contributions from some key players - free improvisation, electro-acoustic, field recording, noise (not the violent kind), and even a few beats here and there. wish I was there...


MOTTOMO OTOMO_ Unlimited XIII

01 Otomo Yoshihide Untitled (5:00)
02 Radian Untitled (5:22)
03 Incapacitants Untitled (5:35)
04 Kaffe Matthews & Andrea Neumann & Annette Krebs Untitled (5:40)
05 Martin Tétreault & Diane Labrosse Untitled (4:25)
06 Kazunao Nagata Untitled (5:26)
07 Novo Tono Untitled (7:43)
08 Keith Rowe & Taku Sugimoto & Otomo Yoshihide Untitled (4:57)
09 Poire_Z Untitled (6:56)
10 Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet Untitled (7:18)
11 Hoahio Untitled (9:55)
12 Otomo Yoshihide Untitled (2:00)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/66w8ry


from grasprelease: Not exactly completely improvised, but this was a big favorite of mine for quite a while. Some high frequencies to deal with: be forewarned. But nothing terribly brutal.




Ralf Wehowsky & Kevin Drumm: CASES

Musique concrete realized 1999/2000 in Chicago and Mainz
Kevin Drumm: guitar & devices
Ralf Wehowsky: electronics, edits & composition

http://rapidshare.com/files/678474/WehowskyDrummCases.zip.html

KAIJA SAARIAHO - L'AILE DU SONGE (fresh link aug.15.2009)

not sure but I think this Finnish composer, who has worked with all the big men of avant classical such as Stockhausen and Xenakis, is considered a Post-Spectralist.

this album contains chillingly beautiful pieces inspired by birds, involving flutes, narration, electronics, and digitally manipulated recordings of birds.

"During the past several years, composer Kaija Saariaho has gained a fair amount of attention outside her native Finland. It's easy to understand why she has become such a favorite. She has an incredible command of tonal color--both in writing for individual instruments and in ensemble orchestration--and she has a gift for writing music that is accessible yet thoroughly informed by more progressive elements. Saariaho draws upon both these talents on L'Aile du songe, a clever program of works inspired by birds. Perhaps not surprisingly considering the bird theme, the disc's focus is on the flute, an instrument that has long attracted Saariaho and has itself long been associated with birdsong. 1982's Laconisme de l'aile demands a virtuosic instrumentalist who can tackle a whole range of effects. The accomplished American flutist Camilla Hoitenga, a champion of new music, handles Saariaho's demanding work with fluency and ease. When the composer calls for the sweetest, most lyrical tone, Hoitenga complies beautifully. It's no surprise, then, that Saariaho dedicated her 2002 concerto, L'Aile du songe, to Hoitenga. Again, the flutist gives a bravado performance, this time in front of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Jukka-Pekka Saraste at the helm. Saraste coaxes a wonderful crispness and great articulation from his forces. Saariaho's fantastic scoring makes the most of the orchestra's varied colors." -- Anastasia Tsioulcas