A l’évènement de la performance de mon trio “Tandem” pour les 28e Rencontres de Musiques Spontanées en octobre 2018, j’ai retrouvé dans le chaud d’un petit café à Rimouski Eric Normand, directeur artistique de Tour de Bras, un organisme voué aux musiques d’improvisation. Il y dirige aussi, depuis dix ans, un grand orchestre d’improvisateurs (le GGRIL).
Improvisateur, Éric invente un langage personnel et radical. Équipant sa basse d’un attirail électronique se sa fabrication, il se force à réinventer la gestuelle instrumentale. Il privilégie les duos et trios avec Xavier Charles, Philippe Lauzier, Jim Denley, Magda Mayas, Pierre-Yves Martel, Martin Tétreault, en plus de nombreuses rencontres impromptues.
New episodes on Mixcloud! My guest for this third episode is Berlin-based improviser and composer Hannes Buder, whose work concentrates on issues of movement, authenticity, intuition, minimalism, density and slowness.
Having performed across Europe, Australia and in the USA, Buder has also composed, improvised and recorded music for different dance, theater and film projects, as well as given workshops at festivals, music schools and prisons.
Audrey Chen’s work with voice, cello and analog electronics has been described by David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet as “possessing something extremely vital and vivid….”. Recent projects include duos with artists such as Phil Minton, Maria Chavez, Jean-Yves Evrard, Richard Scott, Flandrew Fleisenberg, John Bock, as well as duos BEAM SPLITTER and AFTERBURNER.
With double bassist and visual artist Adam Goodwin, we chatted about the Berlin scene, where’s he’s based now, Classical music training, and hallucinations.
Like the previous episode, this interview was recorded in the corner of a large, empty gallery room, so there’s a lot of echo but it creates a somewhat fitting sonic environment. The music you’ll hear throughout this episode comes from Adam’s newest release, Banishing Ritual. https://adamgoodwin.bandcamp.com/album/banishing-ritual
The first episode of Echo Chamber and the first to go on to Mixcloud!
Back in 2017, I talked with Sam Mackay, researcher and co-founder of the London Contemporary Music Festival. We chat about improvised and experimental music practices, being uni grads from Edinburgh, and noise in a post-colonial setting. https://lcmf.co.uk/
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.
Ed Williams 