30 июл. 2013 г.

AMPLIFY 2002: Balance



The AMPLIFY 2002: balance box set has been designed and assembled to recreate as much as possible the experience of being in Tokyo in late October 2002 for the week-long whirlwind of music and camaraderie revolving around the 2002 AMPLIFY festival.
The annual series of AMPLIFY festivals began in 2001 in NYC, followed in 2002 by the event documented in this box. AMPLIFY returned to NYC in February 2003, and the next AMPLIFY will be in Cologne and Berlin in May 2004, co-curated by Keith Rowe and Jon Abbey. The festivals are closely tied to the Erstwhile label, and are designed to showcase an ambitious amount of music within a short time period, demanding increased attention and focus from both the musicians and the audience. This box set aims to convey at least part of the intense atmosphere created by AMPLIFY's climate of total immersion.
The AMPLIFY 2002: balance box set contains over seven hours of music on seven CDs, consisting of:
1) Eight of the twelve sets from the festival itself, which took place over three nights at Star Pine's Cafe in Kichijoji, Tokyo, including, among others, the tracks with the participation of Sachiko M.
2) Two CDs compiled from the smaller club shows which took place before and after the festival itself, organized by Toshimaru Nakamura and Taku Sugimoto, including an entire disc by the all-star guitar septet of Keith Rowe, Tetuzi Akiyama, Oren Ambarchi, Nakamura, Otomo Yoshihide, Burkhard Stangl and Sugimoto.
3) A studio recording by the duo of Günter Müller and Toshimaru Nakamura, recorded that same week. This disc has been carefully sequenced and constructed, and is essentially a regular Erstwhile release contained within the larger box.





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29 июл. 2013 г.

Keith Rowe

[by request]



British guitarist Keith Rowe, a member of AMM, is one of the improvisors who has most contributed to the definition of a new vocabulary for the guitar. Or, better, for the "tabletop" guitar, a guitar plugged into the cacophony of the "perfectly ordinary reality" (usually, a barrage of radios and electronic devices). He has played the guitar virtually in every possible manner and with every possible tool, to the point that the guitar has become a mere object that can be used to produce unusual sounds. His body of work, that references abstract painting, Dada, Edgar Varese and John Cage, is the quintessence of "noise" guitar music.

Interview (2001)



In groups:


4g

Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz and Toshimaru Nakamura are four of the most prominent and influential musicians in experimental music today, each with extensive discographies and distinctive styles. In mid-2004, they formed the Four Gentlemen of the Guitar (4g), and played a series of shows in Europe and Canada, three of which are contained on the album "Cloud". The underlying concept of 4g is to unite four artists who each began their musical explorations as guitarists, keeping that mindset as a crucial underpinning of their work as they've each explored increasingly abstract territory, both with and without guitars.




AMM

Radical free/spontaneous music ensemble founded in the UK in the mid 1960s. Members have included Lou Gare, Lawrence Sheaff, Keith Rowe (up to 2005), Eddie Prévost, Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, Christopher Hobbs, John Tilbury and possibly others. The group currently performs as a duo of Tilbury and Prévost.




MIMEO

Phil Durrant (GB) violin, electronics
Christian Fennesz (A) computer
Cor Fuhler (NL) electronics, piano, organ
Thomas Lehn (D) analogue synthesizer
Kaffe Matthews (GB) computer
Jerome Noetinger (F) electroacoustique devices
Gert-Jan Prins (NL) electronics, radio, tv, percussion
Peter Rehberg (A) computer
Keith Rowe (GB/F) tableguitar
Marcus Schmickler (D) computer, synthesizer
Rafael Toral (P) guitar, electronics
Markus Wettstein (CH) metal garbage

London / Vienna / Amsterdam / Cologne / Grenoble / Nantes / Zurich / Lisbon




Music Now Ensemble 1969

A great, lost document, Silver Pyramid fills an important gap in the history of British improvised music. Percussionist Eddie Prévost, most consistent member of improv group AMM since its founding in the early 1960s, usually heads towards completely improvised free jazz when he records on his own. Yet, it appears that participation as part of the Music Now Ensemble performance of a series of so-called contemporary classical creations in 1969, encouraged Prévost to "create" his own "composition" in that idiom. That's what this fine disc reproduces.
The quotation marks are deliberate. That's because "Silver Pyramid" is based not on a score, but a text written by Prévost and interpreted by a group that could be termed AMM plus. The almost 74 minutes that result have a similar relationship to AMM as the 1959 large group versions of Thelonious Monk's music related to the pianist's work with his quartet. Not only do the other players amplify the shape of the composition itself, but they also add their particular talents to influence the final product.
It's instructive to recall that 1969 was the height of psychedelia-influenced art rock and anyone hearing "Silver Pyramid" -- or AMM for that matter -- for the first timemay feel as if they're embarking on what was termed a musical trip. Certainly one credo that this sort of pure improv represents -- that the music is there before the band begins and continues after the group finishes -- dovetails nicely into the free-floating psychedelic experience. But the difficulty of identifying each sound source on the disc and the lack of identifiable rhythmic climaxes would probably frustrate spiritual camp followers searching for an ecstatic trance shortcut.
Instead, the album is a multi-leveled offering. Prévost can likely be heard slowly manipulating his cymbals with a violin bow, repeatedly striking a small bell and bouncing small rubber balls on the heads of his snares. Cellist Cornelius Cardew and violinist Lou Gare are conceivably responsible for the string scratching that can be heard, while tabletop guitarist Keith Rowe probably provides the steady electronic humming in the background as well the sound crescendo of consistent feedback mixed with plucked strings.
But the identity of other sounds that range from what appears to be a door being ripped off its hinges and fire engine sirens suddenly erupting are less clear. Who are the unidentified man and woman carrying on a gibberish conversation in one section, for instance? Who supplies the wordless drone in another? Who plays the piping penny whistle which floats in and out of audio range several times and where does the happy calliope sounds appear from -- the instrument itself or a prerecorded tape?
This performance sounds as old as any pioneering examination of electro-acoustics and as contemporary as any 21st century harnessing of electronics. In short, this CD is both a historical document and a fine listening experience



N:Q

The obscurely titled [N:Q] is a superb electro-acoustic recording of a quartet featuring three french musicians and AMM’s Keith Rowe. The single track is an unendingly fascinating and refreshingly sensuous journey of free improvisation, never lacking for ideas and inspiration. Despite the presence of two reed instruments, the general ambience is electronic with drones of varying depths and sonorities predominating. Indeed, while Havard’s alto sax occasionally breaks through with frantic squiggles, Chevalier’s bass clarinet tends to provide a lush companion drone to that generated by Rowe. By maintaining an impressive concentration on one (apparently) slender slice of the sonic spectrum, this quartet is able to unearth a richness and corporeality often lacking in this sometimes arid territory. One is tempted to credit Rowe with the steadying hand here; his playing is at once both extremely assured and democratically deferential to the group. Along with The World Turned Upside Down on Erstwhile, this is one of his finest projects outside of AMM. Fans of that protean group will find much to enjoy on [N:Q], a state-of-the-art document of electro-acoustic improvisation at the turn of the century.



The Scratch Orchestra

Alec Hill, Brian Eno, Bryn Harris, Christopher Hobbs, Cornelius Cardew, Dave Smith, David Jackman, Eddie Prévost, Howard Skempton, Hugh Shrapnel, John Tilbury, John White, Keith Rowe, Lou Gare, Michael Nyman, Michael Parsons, Philip Dadson, Roger Sutherland, Stefan Szcelkun








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28 июл. 2013 г.

Toshimaru Nakamura side projects



Toshimaru Nakamura





Taku Sugimoto Guitar Quartet (Otomo Yoshihide, Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura)

Repeat (Jason Kahn, Toshimaru Nakamura)

Intonarumori Orchestra (Atsuhiro Ito, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura)

4G (Fennesz, Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, Toshimaru Nakamura)


AVVA (Billy Roisz, Toshimaru Nakamura)


Hear (Johannes Strobl, Tony Buck, Toshimaru Nakamura)

Omni (Kato Hideki, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura)


Koboku Senjû (Eivind Lønning, Espen Reinertsen, Martin Taxt, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura)


Skogen (Angharad Davies, Anna Lindal, Erik Carlsson, Henrik Olsson, Joakim Svensson, John Eriksson, Leo Svensson, Magnus Granberg, Petter Wästberg, Toshimaru Nakamura)




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27 июл. 2013 г.

Tetsu Inoue

by request



Tetsu Inoue is a producer of electronic music. He has lived in Japan, San Francisco, and New York. He has collaborated with musicians such as Pete Namlook, Bill Laswell, Jonah Sharp, and Taylor Deupree.

His debut solo album, Ambient Otaku, is regarded by many as a classic of minimalist ambient techno and was initially released in a limited edition of 1000 copies on Pete Namlook's Fax Label. It was later re-released, but even the re-release is very hard to find, often fetching high prices on eBay.










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16 июл. 2013 г.

Keith Fullerton Whitman



Keith Fullerton Whitman is an American electronic musician who has recorded albums influenced by many genres, including ambient music, drill and bass, and krautrock. He records and performs using many aliases, of which the most familiar is Hrvatski (the Croatian word for Croatian). His works under the Hrvatski moniker hewed closest to the drill and bass facet of IDM and were his primary musical outlet in the mid- to late-1990s. Other solo aliases include ASCIII and Anonymous. Keith has been in many bands in the 1990s, including El-Ron, The Liver Sadness, Sheket/Trabant, The Finger Lakes and Gai/Jin.

Keith Fullerton Whitman started recording using his own name in 2001, and most of his work recorded today is under that name.

Whitman studied computer music at Berklee College of Music, where he was exposed to modern electronic music composition and synthesis. His moniker ASCIII has released music distributed with an academic journal. His studio and live setup usually consists of a PowerBook running Max/MSP or Logic Pro, and other analogue instruments, such as guitars, ouds and synthesizers.

Whitman has released albums on labels such as Planet Mu, Kranky, Carpark Records as well on his own Entschuldigen and (now defunct) Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge labels.






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