At the end of September 2019, the Hurdy Gurdy player from Guelph, Canada, named Ben Grossman came to Marseille to play in the premier of Guillaume Orti’s “… ence” at the Festival Les Emouvantes. He stayed the weekend and we organized a concert in a beautiful cave in the stunning Calanques National Park just outside of town.
Before that, I took him aside for a discussion à la Echo Chamber:- we covered the immediacy of prepared acoustic instruments compared to electronics; making sounds “acceptable” through extended techniques; how good improvisation resembles a enriching conversation; the problems with the term “experimental”; translating and the problems of using words in general, and even a little Rite of Spring.
Throughout the episode are extracts of some of Ben’s releases. Choosing which of his sounds to put where was particularly fun this time because one of the releases featured, “MACROPHONE: Aleatoric Solo Duets for Electro-Acoustic Hurdy Gurdy” is a double CD where the listener is actually instructed to play both disks simultaneously, setting each to shuffle or replay, so as to “create the experience of improvisation in a recording”. So I played around with the tracks and two combinations came up which I particularly liked, which you can hear at the beginning and at 32’50” of the episode.
The other performances that feature are taken from the cave concert – first, a part of Ben’s solo that he began in the belly of the cave, and the second, a trio with percussionist Vincent Roussel and myself alongside Ben.
Thanks so much Ben for your time and the beautiful concert!
A little over a year ago I visited Justin Evans in Charlotte, North Carolina, for his residency showcase at Goodyear Arts. I originally got in touch with Justin after coming across his indescribable experimental podcast project Mystery Meat. We met at the Goodyear Arts building and recorded a little echo chamber.
I’m overjoyed listening back to our conversation over a year later. In part 2, we talk about, amongst other things, art & ritual as psychological tools to alleviate guilt, enrich life & bind an audience closer to be more of a community, often employing the purifying effects of noise.
But who is Justin Evans? He is a poet and electrician from Marietta, GA. He’s pursuing an MFA from Queens University and is the co-author of many local plays in his current home, Charlotte, NC and in his last home, Asheville, NC. He’s the former co-editor of the local lit mag Vanilla Sex, and current poetry editor of the Queens lit mag QU.
Music/Audio featured in this two-part edition come exclusively from various Mystery Meat episodes.
A little over a year ago I visited Justin Evans in Charlotte, North Carolina, for his residency showcase at Goodyear Arts. I originally got in touch with Justin after coming across his indescribable experimental podcast project Mystery Meat, and was blown away by the group performance he gave of shouted texts he’d worked on for his residency. Before the show, we met at the Goodyear Arts building and recorded a little echo chamber.
But who is Justin Evans? He is a poet and electrician from Marietta, GA. He’s pursuing an MFA from Queens University and is the co-author of many local plays in his current home, Charlotte, NC and in his last home, Asheville, NC. He’s the former co-editor of the local lit mag Vanilla Sex, and current poetry editor of the Queens lit mag QU.
I’m overjoyed listening back to our conversation over a year later. We talked about so many things that light up my imagination, and hopefully yours: the need for catharsis, and poetry/art as necessary tools for outlet. Anti-literariness (slam). His podcast Mystery Meat. The importance and rarity of quiet spaces. Hallucinations and rhythmic attunement (cf. the famous Aix-Marseilles bus hallucinations that led to Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine) How contemporary art tries to put form the shapeless blob that is our experience of the world.
Music/Audio featured in this two-part edition come exclusively from various Mystery Meat episodes.
I had the honour to be invited to the home of Canadian composer John Beckwith in autumn last year. He came to see Tandem in concert at Toronto and I took the opportunity to sit down with him later on and have his thoughts on the art of musical composition.
Topics varied from writing music to text; hymn-tune and nursery-rhyme rhythms; operas; acting and performance in theatres, as well as electroacoustic composition. He even put questions to me about my improvisation projects – how we prepare an improvisation and the importance of human connections between improvisers.
Various names pop up, such as John’s long-time collaborator, poet, and friend James Reaney, and my ever-present late father, two problematic quotes of whose we chew over: “Various species of experimental music not made of notes might give pleasant listening experiences, but I don’t see why every pleasurable listening experience has to be called ‘music'”; and “Most music is a conversation with itself”.
The music you hear throughout the episode comes from various pieces of John’s repertory. The orchestral extracts featuring at the beginning, middle and end of the conversation all come from John’s 2016 piece, ‘Calling’, performed by the New Music Concerts Ensemble. You can also hear the first movement from ‘Pages’, for solo piano and performed by Barbara Pritchard, and the enigmatic second movement from the set of six fantasies for guitar, ‘Ut re mi fa sol’, performed by Peter Higham.
PS Don’t adjust your sound system! There’s an intermittent buzz in the right-hand channel of these recordings, due to my faulty Zoom microphone. Sorry.
I spent several days last summer with composer, improviser and spinet-player Christoph Schiller at his somewhat legendary studio in Basel. Given the concentrated subject matter, and the sheer length, of the discussions, I decided to make a three-part Echo Chamber special that deals overall with the question of freedom in musical composition:- composition as an emancipatory means to deeper reflexion and a more sincere gestural approach.
Toward the end of our three days of conversations, we focused on the problem of words; the problem of musicians trying to communicate between one another despite speaking different languages, ideas becoming lost in translation, and the difficulty of choosing the right words in even one’s own language.
We also look at the problems posed by the following quote from my late musicologist dad: “the more that people believe that music expresses or arouses emotions, the more they want others to agree.” This takes us onto the descriptive words used for music, and leads us to consider the deliberate theatricality of Baroque music amongst others.
The music featuring in this episode comes exclusively from the sublime album ‘Tse’ by Christoph Schiller in trio with Pierre-Yves Martel and Cyril Bondi.
PS Don’t adjust your sound system! There’s an intermittent buzz in the right-hand channel of these recordings, due to my faulty Zoom microphone. Sorry.
I spent several days last summer with composer, improviser and spinet-player Christoph Schiller at his somewhat legendary studio in Basel. Given the concentrated subject matter, and the sheer length, of the discussions, I decided to make a three-part Echo Chamber special that deals overall with the question of freedom in musical composition:- composition as an emancipatory means to deeper reflexion and a more sincere gestural approach.
Composition in the sense we discuss it here becomes a tool that is more efficient in prying open interior dialogues within the musician than any score-less method; a tool whose sharpening is the result of a simultaneous rejection of Romantic ideals, various amalgamations with new technologies and improvised methods, and the embracing of the earliest written music practices.
The music you hear throughout this episode comes from Christoph’s bewildering piece Missa, recorded in Basel in 2016 and featuring many of the musicians and singers from the Millefleurs ensemble.
PS Don’t adjust your sound system! There’s an intermittent buzz in the right-hand channel of these recordings, due to my faulty Zoom microphone. Sorry.
I spent several days last summer with composer, improviser and spinet-player Christoph Schiller at his somewhat legendary studio in Basel. Given the concentrated subject matter, and the sheer length, of the discussions, I’ve decided to make a three-part Echo Chamber special that deals overall with the question of freedom in musical composition:- composition as an emancipatory means to deeper reflexion and a more sincere gestural approach.
Composition in the sense we discuss it here becomes a tool that is more efficient in prying open interior dialogues within the musician than any score-less method; a tool whose sharpening is the result of a simultaneous rejection of Romantic ideals, various amalgamations with new technologies and improvised methods, and the embracing of the earliest written music practices.
I took great pleasure in choosing what music to accompany these conversations, what sounds of Christoph’s that I not only have a personal fondness for but that also best give some kind of musical parallel to the content of our discussions. For Freedom & Composition Part 1, Christoph’s joint album with violinist Anouck Genthon, Zeitweise leichter Schneefall (Newwaveofjazz, 2019) fits the bill perfectly.
PS Don’t adjust your sound system! There’s an intermittent buzz in the right-hand channel of these recordings, due to my faulty Zoom microphone. Sorry.
Mon invité pour le dix-septième épisode fut le saxophoniste improvisateur Sébastien Branche. On s’est retrouvé chez lui à Leipzig en printemps pour prendre le thé et discuter les origines et la continuité de sa pratique de musicien expérimental, ainsi que celle de masseur shiatsu et professeur de mathématiques. Je m’intéresse beaucoup à son approche singulière et hyper-sensible envers un traitement musical du son, silence et bruit qui le mène sur un chemin que je trouve, il m’excusera, quasi-chamanistique.
Intéressé par les phénomènes perceptifs, il axe son travail principalement sur la matière sonore, se présentant avant tout comme un « faiseur de sons » qu’il donne à entendre. Il joue aujourd’hui dans le duo de saxophones Relentless, en duo avec l’altiste Cyprien Busolini ou avec Miguel Garcia à l’électronique, et en grand orchestre avec l’IMO. Il développe par ailleurs un travail en solo au saxophone ténor sur pied et électronique (Lignes), ou au soprano avec l’eau (saxoph2one). Il a joué en Europe dans divers festivals ou salles, pour des concerts, de la danse ou des balades sonores.
Cet épisode mets en écoute exclusivement l’éblouissant album Pnoladeu Avvrhig, deuxième sortie du duo de Sébastien avec Miguel A. Garcia.
Trouvez tout sur Sébastien, y compris ses autres sorties et où les acheter 😉 sur son site:
Fifty years is a very long time, in any terms aside the geological. AMM’s The Crypt is a legendary recording for anyone touched by experimental, avant-garde, and underground music today. Like all artistic milestones, it not only impresses by its continuing influence but by its continuing force of being that makes you double-check it really was created such a long time before anything similar.
At the end of 2018, Sound and Music‘s Sam Mackay invited me to write an article for the British Music Collection’s 50 Things blog series. Produced by Sound and Music, this series “takes items from the British Music Collection as their starting point, highlighting lesser-known connections and marginal stories as well as familiar names and narratives. Featuring contributions from composers, performers, writers and broadcasters, #BMC50 Things will help build a rich picture of the backgrounds, practices and diverse perspectives that have shaped the landscape of new music in the UK.”
For the article, I focused on AMM’s legendary 1968 recording ‘The Crypt’, and got an immense joy out of not only listening to this again but really trying to put words to it, not forgetting the context into which it sprung, dating back to already half a century ago.
Here’s the track as found on YouTube, with the full article below:
Article by Ed Williams
This record came out just over 50 years ago. That is nuts.
Fifty years is a very long time, in any terms aside the geological. AMM’s The Crypt is a legendary recording for anyone touched by experimental, avant-garde, and underground music today. Like all artistic milestones, it not only impresses by its continuing influence but by its continuing force of being that makes you double-check it really was created such a long time before anything similar.
AMM as a group is, in the best sense possible, similarly prehistoric. Formed in 1965, they had only had a couple of years of experimentation before the Crypt session, but founding members Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe and Lou Gare were already making free-jazz audiences of the time seriously reconsider the limits of their own radicality.
I’m wary of euphemistic and overenthusiastic adjectives to describe experiences like performances and recordings, and words like authentic, ethereal, and raw might be some of the most tempting to use and the most confusing. But how else to rationalize such an experience as experimental music performance? Its very nature is ethereal – or is it ephemeral? – in that it’s one of only a few successful methods humans have found to transcend everyday experience; the best performances often resembling a purgatorial distillation process of religious rites, sexual volatility and subliminal fantasy.
I’ll try to avoid authentic and ethereal (didn’t I just say purgatorial?), but if there’s one word that I might excuse to sum up AMM’s The Crypt, it’s raw. That holy grail of underground aesthetics, rawness, is present in every grating echo and serene siren song discernible in the maelstrom that is this recording. This is, may I remind you, FIFTY years ago. There’s scraping, screaming, ambiguous rattling, contributing to a cacophony of feedback (feedback! in the 60’s!). All common fare nowadays – go to any performance of music roughly within the ‘free improvisation’, ‘experimental’, ‘post-free-jazz’ or even ‘noise’ categories today and you’ll find the hallmarks of what AMM has been so influential for:- everyday instruments (especially saxes, kits, guitars, cellos, as in The Crypt) being distorted beyond recognition through extended techniques; everyday objects’ musical souls exorcised through contact mics; electronics simultaneously swirling in the background and creeping into your eardrums’ inner reaches. But this recording dates from June 12, 1968. The Beatles hadn’t even broken up yet.
Speaking of which, how did audiences react to this kind of thing? Paul McCartney apparently went to one AMM session and said it was too long. Who doesn’t feel that after their first improvisation session, looking around thinking “is everybody here seriously into this?” And that’s nowadays, after decades of digesting Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz, myriad electronic musics, and all things Zappa. Imagine it over fifty years ago.
From a 2019 standpoint, this would still constitute a difficult, protracted listening session for even a seasoned audience – but that makes me so much happier than to think that something this remarkable should dilute with time and habit. It just goes to show how valuable this record is as an early leap into the rabbit hole of artistic exploration – one we’re still hesitant to follow.
Ed Williams 