5 янв. 2013 г.

Toshimaru Nakamura

[ by request ]



Profile: Guitar and no-input mixing board player

Toshimaru Nakamura formed "A Paragon of Beauty" in 1992, and the group released the CD A Paragon of Beauty in 1995.

Since 1994, Nakamura has frequently visited Berlin, working and performing in various projects. In the course of these visits, he formed the duo Repeat in 1998 with the American drummer Jason Kahn. They put out their first CD, Repeat, in the same year, and have toured in Japan, Germany, Switzerland and France.

Nakamura set aside his guitar around 1998 and began to concentrate more on producing electronic music. He developed a unique style, playing the "no-input mixing board."

In 1999, Repeat played in more cities and released a second CD, Temporary Contemporary. Nakamura also released the CD Un, a recording of his duo with Sachiko M ("no-no duo," with Sachiko M's no-sample sampler); and since then they have continued to perform together occasionally.

In addition to these activities, Nakamura has since 1996 been a composer/sound designer for the theatrical works of Bagnolet Choreography Concours-winning dancer Kim Ito. These works have been performed in Japan, the U.S., England, France, Germany, Israel and so on.

Since 1998 Nakamura has also organized, hosted and performed in a monthly improvised music gathering with guitarists Taku Sugimoto and Tetuzi Akiyama in Tokyo. The original venue was Bar Aoyama, but in August 2000, it moved to the gallery Off Site. This event, featuring guest musicians, has been growing as an important meeting point of the Tokyo improvised music scene. The CD The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama, a compilation of live recordings of performances at the bar, was released in October 1999.

In November 2000, Nakamura released his first solo CD, No-input Mixing Board. This title describes the way in which he was creating music at that time. He participated in the UK "Japanorama" tour at the beginning of 2001.







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1 янв. 2013 г.

Les Femmes Experimentelles


Remember March 8 1857 on the 100th anniversary of I.W.D.

Homage to the International Women Day.

Opening with "Ouverture for that Day", Maile Colbert is an intermedia artist with a concentration on sound and video, relocated from Los Angeles and living and working between New York and Lisbon, Portugal. She spent the last two years collaborating with the art organization Binaural/Nodar, and is currently director of Cross the Pond, an organization based on arts and cultural exchange between the U.S. and Portugal. This beautiful piece she brings to our compilation is also the opening to "Come Kingdom Come", an experimental opera on millennialism and apocalyptic thought and theory, to be released Autumn 2011 on Two Acorns (US/JP). Her web-site: www.mailecolbert.com

"Shadows" from Belgium, Dominica Eyckmans uses movement-sensors placed on her body, the information is translated through advanced software and thus she can alter the sound of the live-viola-playing and/or add sounds that are recorded live, originated by the viola and occur related to specific movements. This is a work in progress she started about two years ago and has evolved very much since the sensors keep being updated, as does the software and of course her own dancing-skills. Dominica Eyckmans started playing the viola at the age of 17, after studies of piano and flute. Her main focus currently is contemporary and experimental music.

"Ya Abbas Catalakt" is a long, intense, progressive, ambience, noise piece from Hyaena Fierling Reich, Ana Cordeiro Reis, Lisboa Portugal. She develops a body of sound work since 1999 as a composer and experimentalist and works with experimental/improvised/noise music since 1996. Her work is based in experimentation and improvisation, involving the capture of real life sounds and ambients, as well as programming and editing (based on filmic canons) of sound sequences with uncanny sound sources - metal and wood objects, stones, musical instruments (prepared bass guitar, Hexluth -electrified luth, Moog synthetizer) or the exploration of sounds in spaces with specific acoustic characteristics - being afterwards edited and sequenced according to soundtrack-building techniques, breaking the borders of experimental music and sound in cinematic space.

"Pureza (Hilário Gonçalves)" is a poetic piece previously released on the album Dos Caminhos do Velho Mundo by the Net Label Just Not Normal. Amber Dolly is a young artist from Braga, Portugal, with Risco Corrosivo she is Paranoid Doll and they are Z.O.T.E. a ambiental, noise, industrial sound project, together with Hyaena Reich they are Light Implant with one release on this Net Label: Lobotomized Peach

Anastasia Vronski brings the "Ghost", from Perm, in Russia, a purely electronic piece, progressing from her previous works, some acoustically recorded, many of them released on this same Net Label. She uses microphones, synths and instruments, sounds from the real life transformed by the emotions of life itself, most of her music is inspired by or dedicated to real events. She explores different approaches and techniques with a transversal, ritualistic, interest in human psychics. The exorcism of our deepest scars. Anastasia Vronski kindly gave the picture used for the cover of this fertile release, nothing more suitable than a fertility doll from the ancient Ural tradition.

"So Stupid Life This Is" by Ilsa D´Orzac, Ilda Teresa Castro, Lisboa, Portugal, a prophylactic visual artist: drawing, comics, painting, jewelry, set design, web design, film, video, music, photography, she explores the dynamics of distinct artistic practices. Her blog:quadradoredondotriangular.blogspot.com

Portugal, Nemraca, Carmen Serralva, from Espinho and Nina Aggy, Augusta Mesquita, from Porto, set this arqueological piece, named "Pingo Doce". Evolving throught different old instruments in a low-fi, experimental recording.

"Deixai Entrar A Morte" is a Florbela Espanca poem recited and accompanied, on electric guitar, by Sónia Amen. Recorded at first take. She is a visual artist, filmaker and musician from Porto, Portugal.
She is a member of FP25co. experimental project.

Susanne Hafenscher, MaCu is an Austrian based musician. She started her musically activities with studying piano and vocals. After a certain period without doing any music she began to play guitar. Soon MaCu started to experiment with prepared guitar and to generate music by using fieldrecordings and processed sounds of objects and vocals. "Disconnected" is the piece choosen by the curator of this Net Label for this compilation, it was previously released by the Net Label Isolationism Records: Vol.3.

Marita Lumi is a young plastic artist from Estonia, presently studying in Portugal, Porto, design school, she is also a musician with participation in interesting projects such as Estonian Bad Dream Big Band. One short song for an end, "Laul" was low-fi recorded at first take, an experimental and improvised composition.








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Fear, Power, God



FEAR POWER GOD The Birth of Tragedy magazine, with a title lifted from the book by Nietzsche of the same name, marked a certain sort of scabrous and profane looking into the garbaged heart of our present place in space. Simultaneously and unapologetically intellectual and resolutely probing, The Birth of Tragedy's examination of SEX, DEPRESSION, FEAR, POWER, GOD, LOVE and the almost-soon-to-be-never-released MADNESS issue formed a sui generis basis for reinterpreting the entire premise of spoken word recordings: how you said it mattered not, it was all about what you said. And pulling interviewed artists from the Fear, Power, and God issues of the Birth of Tragedy was easy, as was aligning their varied interests and approaches. Recording was full on guerilla style with everybody recording their contribution on whatever they had available. Art was generated by the inimitable and now artist of some renown Jim Blanchard and with its white vinyl [also initially released on cassette tape] on the US releases and black vinyl on the UK releases [the largely suspect Worker's Playtime Records], most of the heavy lifting was done. Right in time to have its distribution done in by the folding of distributor [Jem, Systematic, and Rough Trade, in pretty short order] after distributor. Fitful later attempts to reissue the record, most notably by the Swiss German label Skin & Speech, turned up little and in the intervening years since its 1988 release, in addition to the deaths of several of some of the original participants, no one's approached who was even remotely interested in resurrecting it in anywhere near to its original glory. Until now. And this Blackhouse-led initiativea rare and limited re-issue of a rare and limited issueÑmarks the last and fi nal chapter in this glorious and storied enterprise. Though Allen Ginsberg, Anton LaVey from the Church of Satan, Mr. V.O. Real, and Whipping Boy have all shuffl ed off of this mortal coil, the remaining participantsÑ LYDIA LUNCH, MATT HECKERT formerly of SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABS, CHARLES MANSON, JELLO BIAFRA and HENRY ROLLINS are still destroying anti-culture, one project at a time. And for this I have to say to some degree we're all a little bit better off.


A1 Lydia Lunch – The Human Animal (4:29)
A2 Matt Heckert – Untitled (2:51)
A3 Lawrence Ferlinghetti – The Lord's Prayer (1:13)
A4 Charles Manson – Prison Tape (3:49)
A5 Mr. V.O. Real – Balls In The Great Meat Grinder (2:11)
B1 Jello Biafra – Alien Orders (3:18)
B2 Jello Biafra – Space Shuttle (2:31)
B3 Allen Ginsberg – A Song (2:23)
B4 Allen Ginsberg – Dream About William Carlos Williams (0:54)
B5 Anton Szandor LaVey – Book IV (3:02)
B6 Henry Rollins – L.A. (7:53)
B7 Whipping Boy – The 3rd Secret (1:51)



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The Nova Convention



Throughout the seventies, Hollywood flirted with Burroughs and his work. Various heavy hitters and big money lowlifes optioned Naked Lunch, Junky, and The Last Words of Dutch Schultz. In 1978, Burroughs was on the set of Heartbeat, a movie based on the memoir by Carolyn Cassady, Neal Cassady’s second wife. Out of this atmosphere, the idea of an “homage to Burroughs” germinated, later to be named the Nova Convention. About the Convention, Ted Morgan writes, “The Nova Convention took place on November 30th, December 1, and December 2, 1978, with the principal performances to be held on the last two days at the Entermedia Theater, on Second Avenue and Twelfth Street, which in the Fifties had been the fabled Phoenix Theater. Attending were an odd mixture of academics, publishers, writers, artists, punk rockers, counterculture groupies, and an influx of bridge and tunnel kids drawn by Keith Richards who made the event a sell out.” Due to his drug problems in Canada, Richards never made it.

I always focus on the term “sellout” when thinking about the Nova Convention. The whole thing seemed more about money and publicity, more about Burroughs’ celebrity than a celebration of Burroughs. The double LP issued after the readings reminds me of a tie-in, a cashing-in. Even the readings in 1965 seem more pure somehow, although I feel stupid and naïve saying that. No doubt there are obvious similarities between the attendees of the Nova Convention and Wynn Chamberlain’s loft party. But comparing the Call Me Burroughs LP from 1965 to the double LP there seems no denying that the earlier disk not only captures the essence of Burroughs but also was a defining work in Burroughs’s canon. The Nova Convention is merely an “odd mixture” like a sex on the beach shot at a frat bar. Call Me Burroughs is a shot in the mainline. It takes you to the core of Burroughs as a writer and a performer. Burroughs’ wonderful deadpan delivery completed the performative nature of his early routine based work.

I have always viewed the Nova Convention as a literary equivalent of the Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus, something of a glorious mess that could only be fully appreciated years later and at a distance. As Morgan points out, much of the audience was there to see Keith Richards hoping to see a rock show, and the Convention delivered that even without Richards. Yet the audience was not all “bridge and tunnel kids.” The performers were all directly influenced by Burroughs and formed something of a school of Burroughs and the Beats. This included members of the audience as well.

Jan Herman attended the Convention and wrote his impressions to Carl Weissner in Germany. Herman and Weissner were intimately involved with Burroughs and his work. They were not only influenced, but also influential in spreading Burroughs’ work internationally as well as spreading the word about the cut-up technique. RealityStudio posts the complete letter (page 1, page 2) in order to allow an eyewitness account of this event that like all legendary gatherings many claim to have attended but few actually did. The letter provides several interesting comparisons and contrasts in a short two pages — for example, Bukowski’s Hello, It’s Good to Be Back LP of a reading he did on his return to Germany. This tour of Germany possesses many similarities to the Nova Convention as a merging of hype and honest sentiment. The New York party scene in 1978 versus 1965. The establishment literary homage (National Book Award) versus the counterculture homage. Much food for thought in that the first National Book Award for fiction went to Nelson Algren’s novel The Man with a Golden Arm. What a large field of play in the parameters of the drug narrative!

© http://realitystudio.org

A1 Terry Southern – Vingette Of Idealistic Life In South Texas (1:25)
A2 William S. Burroughs – Keynote Commentary & Roosevelt After Inauguration (5:52)
A3 John Giorno – Eating The Sky (13:30)
A4 Patti Smith – Poem For Jim Morrison & Bumblebee (11:45)
B1 William S. Burroughs – Benway (3:40)
B2 Philip Glass – Building, Excerpt From Einstein On The Beach By Robert Wilson & Philip Glass (3:04)
B3 Brion Gysin – Kick That Habit, Junk Is No Good Baby, Somebody Special & Blue Baboon (7:06)
B4 Frank Zappa – The Talking Asshole (5:25)
B5 William S. Burroughs – From The Gay Gun: "This Is Kim Carson" & "Just Like The Collapse Of Any Currency" & "The Whole Tamale" (13:27)
C1 William S. Burroughs – What The Nova Convention Is About (2:35)
C2 Ed Sanders – Hymn To Aphrodite From Sappho (8:50)
C3 John Cage – Writing For The Second Time Through "Finnegan's Wake" (14:15)
C4 Anne Waldman – Plutonium Ode & Skin Meat Bones (6:35)
D1 Laurie Anderson & Julia Heyward – Song From America On The Move (12:50)
D2 Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky – Punk Rock, Old Pond; Feeding Them Raspberries To Grow, & Nurses Song (13:00)
D3 William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Les Levine & Robert Anton Wilson – Conversations (7:10)





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Steven 'Jesse' Bernstein - Prison



You have GOT to hear this!

Sub Pop released Prison in February of 1992, and only one track, "No No Man (Part One)," was completed before Bernstein took his life. Bernstein's readings were recorded from 1990-1991, and three of these poems were recorded in his home studio. The readings were set to "soundscapes" made by producer/composer/musician Steve Fisk. The backing tracks often sounds like bad metal or cheesy synth-jazz, but somehow this music compliments Bernstein's sardonic poetry perfectly. On tracks like the brutal "Face," there is a touch of ambient noise gurgling at just the right parts in the background. Prison is a challenging tour de force. ©

***

Prison is a spoken word album with jazz, ambient, and hip-hop break beat instrumental accompaniment that is lipstick on a pig sty.

This is disturbing material, not the most outrageous, but because of the stale rage of Bernstein’s words and voice in concert. "Face" being the most psychotic, not only for the intense language, but as much for the public service announcement by Bernstein at the beginning stating that "The following is pure fiction / Actually, I have been handsome and popular all my life" before the deluge of traumas flooding in with "there has always been something wrong with my face" followed by the chilling refrain of his name done in a depraved impersonation of his mother as he heard her call him when he was a child, "STEVIE! / THERE'S STEVIE! / LOOK IN THE MIRROR, STEVIE!" The rest of the track digs deeper into places most goth kids merely attempt with some pins, leaving one lasting impression near the end of the track when Bernstein discovers the faces of other people at a "gruesome state hospital in California...[had] far uglier faces than [his]," that they could be so "ghastly [he] couldn't look at them without wretching." Someone else has what you have plus a headache, or in this case are plain worse off then you. With "Face" aside, the rest of the album can be humorous and insightful on the human condition such as the sexualized "No No Man" or the technological poverty of "More Noise Please". ©

***

Something of a legend in Seattle circles, both for his material and his suicide three years before a more notorious self-killing by a former labelmate, Bernstein's posthumously assembled record can actually be considered a collaboration between himself and Northwest music figure Steve Fisk. Fisk had only completed musical accompaniment for one full track before Bernstein's death, but had already won approval from the spoken word artist to continue with the rest. The end result is stunning and unnervingly appealing, arguably superior to the similar, higher profile collaboration between Bill Laswell and William Burroughs (the latter of whom Bernstein admired deeply; a photo of the two appears in the album artwork). Fisk's varying arrangements match Bernstein's drawling, quietly threatening tales perfectly, alternately sprightly and disturbing as his readings continue. Even the most relative ambient backings, such as the low rumblings and keyboards on "More Noise Please," have an undertone of unease. Given Bernstein's lack of input in the arrangements, things should feel more stilted than they are, but Fisk never forces the rhythm to Bernstein's readings. Sometimes things take a jazzier tip, thus the opening "No No Man (Part One)" and "This Clouded Heart." More often Fisk conjures up dark, threatening funk/hip-hop not that far from what Tricky would eventually be famous for. "Morning in the Sub-Basement of Hell" is particularly fierce, Bernstein describing a thoroughly scuzzy domestic situation in such detail that Charles Bukowski would appreciate while the beats and bass charge on. At points Fisk treats Bernstein's vocals with echo or distortion for effect, but most often he lets the speaker's voice through clearly, his often violent images cutting straight through to the listener even as the music might be getting the listener moving. The most chilling moments come on "Face" -- Fisk introduces only very subtle elements as Bernstein pitilessly details a humiliating, horrifying series of childhood incidents. ©

***

Steven Jesse Bernstein was a drug addled mentally ill monster of a poet, channeling his rage and pain into word to feel okay in his day to day life. His poetry, though often very grim and vulgar, was Bernstein's way of confronting the reality of his situations in a way that showed others like him that there was someone else with feelings one may be too afraid to say in polite society. He described himself as "...a war correspondent, and sent his dispatches from Hell to shake up the souls of the over-comfortable", and that he was, as a gifted spokesman for the outcast and insane of the streets.

The details of his real life were a bit hazy. From what people have been able to understand, he was born in Los Angeles, was declared mentally insane and placed into state care at an asylum, and eventually made his way to Seattle. In the 80's and early 90's, he made his way to Seattle and established a life within the city’s art scene. This album was a small taste of his infamous live spoken word shows. Noted regulars of Steven "Jesse" Bernstein's spoken word/poetry shows included Kurt Cobain and director Oliver Stone. His live shows in Seattle were known to be wild occasions where Bernstein would read poetry like a mad man and throw anything from beer bottles to his own wallet at hecklers and admirers alike.

Originally meant to be performed live in front in a prison housing special offenders, it was instead turned into a studio recording with slight jazz and ambient music to punctuate mood due to the inability to record at the prison. During the music arrangement of the album Bernstein, filled with near constant pain due to a lifelong illness, coupled with his mental illnesses, took his life shortly before the album was released. The result is the only recording of Bernstein's poetry, which range from esoteric beat poetry to ultra descriptive ten minute long stories of how his hatred of his own face and identity caused him to go insane as a young boy. His use of flow and description are multifaceted, fast paced, and will leave a divisive split of those who cannot stand to hear him drone on, or those who are enamored with his at times frank, uncensored, darkly humored, and always all too real perspective. ©







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The Wide Weird World Of Henry Jacobs



Concerning the Henry Jacobs' archival tapes, the several of them found underneath Henrys' old house in Mill Valley, you should know that Sandy has tapes hidden away in many places, usually along long stretches of inaccessible beaches, hence his nickname. The fact that this set of tapes was found under one of his houses and not along a long beach is a deviation from the norm, one that history will thank you for.

- Ken Nordine, "Father of Word Jazz"

Restored, sequenced, and mastered by Jack Dangers at Tape Lab (www.tapelab.org) with input from Henry Jacobs and Alex Artaud:

UNEARTHING SOUND

Several summers ago, I got a call from Jack Dangers. An acquaintance had just purchased a house in Mill Valley, CA and had found a large collection of tapes and records beneath the house covered in dirt. "It might be Henry Jacobs' old place," he said. Jack had come across Jacobs' recordings during his many sessions of record hunting and the artist's unique, free-form style had made a deep impression. I grabbed my reel-to-reel deck and headed over.
We arrived to find a mess of roughly eighty tapes plus an assortment of 45s scattered in the corner of a room and covered in grime. Much of the tapes looked unplayable, some in battered boxes, others without. Scattered through the debris were radio programs, nightclub recordings, ether trips, goof conversations, and more. On the back of one record titled 'Laughing String' read the credit "Engineering: HENRY JACOBS".
We packed the car and headed back to Jack's studio. Picking a tape at random, we cleaned it, threaded the tape on a Revox two-track and pressed play. The tape hissed to life: "Your reporter Bruce Wilkinson on the microphone..." For the next three days, we listened to material covering a ten-year period, the discarded archive a wild time capsule of audio silliness and innovation.
MEETING JACOBS
Actually finding Jacobs wasn't too difficult. We called filmmaker Jordan Belson, who collaborated with him in the late '50s and still lived in San Francisco. He told us that Jacobs was living in West Marin in a small town an hour north of San Francisco, and passed along the phone number. In the spring of 2000 we got up the nerve to call him. A now-familiar voice came over the line. Telling him we were fans, we said we'd love to meet him. He was delighted and set up a time.
Jacobs greeted us with a big smile and said we could call him Henry or his nickname 'Sandy' if we prefer. He shared stories of his travels, of moving to West Marin in the 1970s, and of losing most of his master recordings in a devastating forest fire that consumed his home in 1995. We coyly asked him if he'd remembered leaving anything behind in the Mill Valley house about 30 years earlier. Before he had a chance to recall, we hauled out a large plastic box filled with his now cleaned-up tapes. "I believe these belong to you," said Jack. He wasn't sure what he was looking at, until he read the titles on the tape boxes. "Oh, yeah, these were in the old house," Sandy remembered. "Where did you find them?" 
- Alex Artaud







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