Oltre a nuovi titoli e il rimando ad alcune importanti sottoscrizioni, l'aggiornamento di marzo 2011 al catalogo ReR riferisce di alcune copie - scovate in magazzino durante le pulizie di primavera - della serie completa dei Re/ReR Quarterlies in vinile e cd con tutti i fascicoli e certificati originali. Tidying up is good!
http://www.rermegacorp.com
Tre concerti in Italia per Soft Machine Legacy: questa sera a Genova (Auditorium Porto Antico), il 31 marzo a Roma (Jailbreak) e l'1 aprile a Piangipane, Ra (Teatro Sociale). La formazione è quella degli ultimi due anni - e del più recente album, Live Adventures (MoonJune Records, 2010) - con John Etheridge, Theo Travis, Roy Babbington e John Marshall.
http://tinyurl.com/6xe32cn
Portrait d'un inclassable: è tutta dedicata a John Zorn la programmazione di questa settimana di Open Jazz su Radio France, con cinque puntate di un'ora ciascuna a partire da stasera alle ore 19.00, articolate attorno a un'intervista raccolta lo scorso dicembre da Alex Dutilh, oltre a uno speciale di sei ore nella notte tra il 2 e il 3 aprile. "Les interviews qu’il a données à ce jour se comptent sur les doigts des deux mains, en trente ans de carrière! Il en a accordé une à Alex Dutilh à la fin décembre qui permet d’éclaircir sa démarche: la définition de ses game pieces, ce qu’il entend par file card pieces, l’importance de la composition, la place de ses musiques de films, son rapport au saxophone… Surtout, cette interview permet de saisir la philosophie qui rassemble toutes ses facettes: le sens du jeu, la direction d’orchestre, une mystique, la rigueur, l’importance d’une famille artistique, l’ouverture au monde…). Il s’est livré avec ce même engagement qui caractérise toutes ses musiques. Ses propos sont répartis sur cinq épisodes d’Open Jazz et une Nuit spéciale, elle même découpée en cinq parties. La vérité de John Zorn réside dans cet empilement, dans la complémentarité secrète de ses diverses approches".
In verità Zorn ha parlato di recente anche a David Garland, in una puntata di Spinning on Air per l'emittente newyorkese WNYC, per annunciare alcuni importanti appuntamenti in questi giorni al New York City Opera, tra cui una nuova 'maratona Masada' e la messa in scena della mini-opera La Machine de l’être.
http://tinyurl.com/6kuo9t6
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/spinning/2011/mar/20
Qualche estratto dal concerto della settimana scorsa di Keith Tippett e Louis Moholo-Moholo a Castel San Pietro Terme è su YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/MrMoscone
Una puntata interamente dedicata all'etichetta Erstwhile, con un'intervista al fondatore Jon Abbey, è in programma per la londinese Resonance FM giovedì 31 marzo con inizio alle ore 21.00.
Adventures In Modern Music this week plugs into the past, present and possible futures of electroacoustic improvisation with the Erstwhile label. Jon Abbey's NYC label has explored the boundaries of group improvisation since the late 1990s, transposing the laminal dynamics of AMM into the era of laptops, real-time digital processing and no-input mixing desks. Its quietly mesmeric music has been honed in partnership with fellow travellers such as AMM guitar improvisor Keith Rowe and members of the Japanese onkyo school of improvisation, and Erstwhile has engineered a number of specially convened and one-off collaborations within this diverse cast of players, including a forthcoming triple CD documenting the first meeting of Rowe and Austrian reductionist trombonist Radu Malfatti. Erstwhile’s exacting and sometimes austere music has divided opinion within the improvisation community, but across nearly 70 releases it has documented some of the most consistently forward-thinking improvisation of the last decade. Derek Walmsley will be talking to Jon Abbey about the label, its music and philosophy, and playing a selection of Erstwhile recordings old and brand new.
Adventures in Modern Music is broadcast every Thursday 21:00-22:30 (BST), 104.4 FM for Londoners, streamed live at http://resonancefm.com for the rest of the world.
http://resonancefm.com
http://www.erstwhilerecords.com
Alcuni filmati inediti dei Gong dei primi anni settanta sono raccolti in un dvd appena pubblicato da Gonzo/Voiceprint: Gong on French TV 1971-1973. "Gonzo are exceedingly happy to announce the forthcoming release of the Gong dvd featuring footage shot for French TV in the early seventies. The dvd utilises footage that was previously thought to be lost and this footage is a real find for Gong fans. The material on the dvd features two distinct periods of the bands history with the earliest footage coming from an in the studio performance filmed in 1971. The material featured on this dvd also includes further footage from 1972 and 1973. In fact there is good news for fans of the Angel’s Egg period as there is over twenty minutes of footage featured on the dvd. None of this rare footage has ever been made available commercially making this release a real treat for fans of Gong who in 2009 re established themselves in both the live arena and the albums market".
http://www.voiceprint.co.uk/product_details/15247
http://www.planetgong.co.uk
Electronic Church Muzik è un nuovo bizzarro capitolo delle produzioni del musicista e scrittore Billy James per la sua Ant-Bee, in genere caratterizzate dalla partecipazione estemporanea di musicisti e artisti dai trascorsi piuttosto diversi. Vi hanno variamente contribuito Jan Akkerman (Focus), Peter Banks (Yes/Flash), Daevid Allen e Gilli Smyth (Gong), Michael Bruce (Alice Cooper), Napoleon Murphy Brock (Zappa), Zoot Horn Rollo e Rockette Morton (Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band), Don Preston, Bunk e Buzz Gardner, Motorhead, Jimmy Carl Black (Mothers of Invention), Moogy Klingman (Todd Rundgren’s Utopia). L'album riprende andamento e formule del rito religioso, è contenuto in un piccolo messale confezionato da Cal Schenkel ed è ovviamente dedicato a Dio.
http://www.ant-bee.com/news.html
http://www.barkingmoondog.com
http://www.idiotbastard.com/News/PressRelease3.htm
Due nuovi titoli si aggiungono alle autoproduzioni di Eugene Chadbourne raccolte sotto sigla House of Chadula: Ecs e Bigger Country Boobs: "Ecs is named after a small town in Hungary where I spent some time a few summers ago. It is the latest collection of my original songs, old and new, featuring No One, Cormerant, Sunny One, Said than Done, Big Boys with Little Balls, Wall One, Happy New Year, Mountain Men, Birthday Song, 30 One, Ice One. I play about 25 instruments on this! Bigger Country Boobs is the latest duo recording with myself and Tatsuya Nakatani on percussion. Our subject is country and western music with space for improvising in the places where whoever quarterbacks sees a hole. Songs by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Henson Cargill and others".
Oltre che ai concerti del Nostro - questo sabato al newyorkese The Stone, per esempio, ma anche in Italia in diverse occasioni il prossimo giugno - gli album si ottengono tramite il sito web, dove il catalogo è stato appena aggiornato, che per il musicista cura Ben Raskin: www.eugenechadbourne.com
Iniziative si stanno prendendo a vario titolo anche all'interno delle comunità internazionali di musicisti per dare aiuto, consapevolezza e speranza in seguito ai catastrofici eventi in Giappone. Shinji Masuko, giornalista e membro dei gruppi DMBQ e Boredoms, tra i primi ha lanciato un appello rimbalzato attraverso parecchi blog, indicando recapiti e modalità per donazioni alla Croce Rossa o alla Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. In donazione andranno anche tutti i proventi del festival con giovani artisti e musicisti giapponesi 'We Don't Care About Music Anyway' in corso da domani al 23 marzo al londinese Cafe Oto; lo stesso sarà per due concerti a New York, il 27 marzo e il 9 aprile, in parte coordinati da John Zorn, con la partecipazione tra gli altri di Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Cibo Matto, Sonic Youth, Mephista, Marc Ribot, Uri Caine, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Laswell, Philip Glass, Hal Willner, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson. Messaggi di Shojiro Ishibashi, Jojo Hiroshige e Otomo Yoshihide - quest'ultimo ha cancellato tutti i suoi immediati impegni all'estero, e qui ne spiega i motivi - sono riportati, in versione in lingua inglese, in un post dal titolo 'It's only Music' presso il blog dello Steim ad Amsterdam.
http://www.japansociety.org/earthquake
http://tinyurl.com/4a8uhjk
http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/we-dont-care-about-music-anyway.shtm
http://www.downtownmusicgallery.com/Main/news/Newsletter-2011-03-18.html
http://www.steim.org/STEIMBLOG/?p=1992
Per Sid Smith, esperto di King Crimson e fripperie varie, la versione di Starless che danno The Unthanks nel nuovo album, Last, è tra le migliori mai sentite di brani crimsoniani. Adrian McNally, 'mente' musicale del gruppo, annota in copertina: “A song from the 1974 album Red by King Crimson, about depression we think. The guitar melody we have given to the trumpet is one of the most beautifully sad, plus I wanted to do the vocal melody justice, which I don’t think was done on the original. Like Robert Wyatt, King Crimson are one of the few prog acts from that time that outside the prog world still have some cred, cited for example by Kurt Cobain as an influence. For me, they got it wrong as often as they got it right but if you’re going to push boundaries and yourself as an artist, you’re going to get it wrong some of the time, which is precisely why I admired them so much! I love the bits I don’t like as much as those I do! My mission impossible with the end section was to take John Wetton’s mighty bass riff, which embodies everything in prog that is angular, male, spiky and difficult, and try to turn it into something serene and graceful.”
http://www.the-unthanks.com/music
http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm
L'associazione Rocktime rende noto il programma definitivo della quarta edizione del Rock In Opposition France Event, a Cap'Découverte, Le Garric (Carmaux, Francia) dal 16 al 18 settembre 2011: ci saranno Christian Vander, Aranis-Present-Univers Zero 'Once Upon A Time In Belgium', Yugen, Gargantua, Panzerballett, Jack Dupon, Vialka, Grumpf Quartet, Alamaailman Vasarat e - ebbene sì - Arno. Al sito Vraiment Autre Chose si ascolta in merito uno dei fondatori del festival, Michel Bisset.
http://www.rocktime.org/rio
http://tinyurl.com/6z4v35p
Henry Kaiser alle prese con le eccezionali chitarre ideate e create da Allan Beardsell, fine artigiano liutaio di Winnipeg: un paio di filmati dimostrativi sono su YouTube, e una raccolta di sue esecuzioni con alcuni di quegli esemplari è ora in un cd - Solo Acoustic On Beardsell Guitars: February 2011 - disponibile, in tiratura limitata, presso Downtown Music Gallery. Così lo presenta Bruce Lee Gallanter: "The entire 62+ minute disc was performed on solo acoustic guitars live in the studio with no overdubs but some live processing on two tracks. Wow! This is superbly recorded so that it sounds as if Henry is right in front of us playing directing to us, his audience. Each piece here sounds like a short story or the setting of a scene in movie. Henry draws from a wealth of influences and genres - free, folk, blues, jazz, world, always balancing a variety of extremes - in & out, melodic and quietly atonal, delicate & bold, subtle & intense. There are a couple of pieces where he seems to be tapping on the sympathetic strings of the custom guitar and it sounds like thunder in the distance. I kept looking out my window to see if it was real or not. Henry also adds some live processing on a couple of tracks, which create an enchanting psychedelic shimmer".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgj_m-2Y83E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w51v0xaGL60
http://www.beardsellguitars.com
http://www.downtownmusicgallery.com
Plastic Spoon è un nuovo progetto orientato con ironia alla canzone rock guidato dal bassista Kato Hideki assieme a Karen Mantler, Shahzad Ismaily e Chris Cochrane (quest'ultimo però recentemente sostituito da Doug Wieselman). Alcuni video su YouTube ritraggono il quartetto in un paio di concerti newyorkesi: "Plastic Spoon is a New York-based rock'n'roll band which perform songs about money. Their songs are often based on true stories and have a satirical sense of humor. Some of the topics include poverty, the decline of capitalism, global aging, the banking and food industries, prison-industrial complex, etc. More importantly, their music is catchy, playfull and uplifting. The members of the band have individually worked with a who's who of music and art in the US, Europe and Japan."
http://www.plasticspoon.net
http://www.youtube.com/user/opencircuitmusic
http://www.youtube.com/user/mycatarnold
Festeggiamenti in corso per il quindicesimo anno di attività della Tricatel. Un primo appuntamento è già fissato con alcuni dei nomi più celebri dell'etichetta guidata da Bertrand Burgalat - Initiation, con April March, Etienne Charry, A.S Dragon, Showgirls, Michel Houellebecq e Valérie Lemercier tra gli altri, oltre ovviamente a Burgalat - mentre un'antologia di inediti e curiosità, Tricatel Rare, precederà ad aprile una serie di ristampe dal premiato catalogo della casa.
http://www.tricatel.com
http://tinyurl.com/67pw9jz
Un festival di nove giorni di musica e danza a Philadelphia, Blindspot, ha avuto come centro d'attrazione il maestoso organo a canne della Christ Church, col quale sono stati invitati a misurarsi tra gli altri Tony Conrad, John Zorn, Troy Herion e Marshall Allen e Farid Barron della Sun Ra Arkestra. Pare che Zorn sia rimasto stregato dallo strumento, tanto da chiedere e ottenere dalla direzione del festival il permesso di replicare il proprio concerto - probabilmente per registrarlo - a chiusura di rassegna. Immagini e informazioni sono in http://www.blindspot2011.org
A proposito di Zorn, al sito di UbuWeb c'è un suo elenco di titoli scelti e consigliati questo mese tra i documenti audio e video dell'immenso archivio online.
Blindspot is a festival of music and dance taking place at Philadelphia’s historic Christ Church and Neighborhood House from February 24, 2011 through March 6, 2011. Highlights of the festival include seven concerts by world class artists on Christ Church’s pipe organ, choreographed works by three Philadelphia-based companies, and ten all-new dance and music collaborations. Pipe organ concerts feature MacArthur Fellow John Zorn; pioneering minimalist composer Tony Conrad; Marshall Allen and Farid Barron of the Sun Ra Arkestra; the Dufala Brothers, recent recipients of the West Prize and creators of the infamous Toilet Trike Race; Barrymore nominated composer/sound designer Troy Herion, and Christ Church’s own music director, Parker Kitterman.
www.blindspot2011.org
www.ubu.com
E sessant'anni li festeggia in questi giorni anche Elliott Sharp, con una serie di concerti e iniziative presso le sedi, quella attuale e quella in via di allestimento, dell'Issue Project Room a New York: www.issueprojectroom.org
Elliott Sharp, the endlessly creative guitarist, producer and composer, is celebrating his 60th birthday in two concerts at both of Issue Project Room’s current locations. The first concert, accompanied by a screening of a multi-media collaboration with actor Steve Buscemi and filmmaker Jo Andres, begins at 7:00 pm on March 4th at the venue’s new space at 110 Livingston in downtown Brooklyn. The celebration continues with a series of performances on March 5th at its current space at 3rd Ave and 3rd St in Brooklyn, beginning at 5:00 pm. In a fitting nod to his prolific career and wide-ranging musical output, the residency will feature music for solo guitar, guitar and spoken word with film, string quartet, double string quartet, Orchestra Carbon with Butch Morris, solo piano, guitar ensemble, and Sharp’s improvising rock band Bootstrappers with a host of special guests.
www.elliottsharp.com
www.issueprojectroom.org
http://tinyurl.com/6zsst25
http://tinyurl.com/5ur44b3
Il pensiero oggi va a Lindsay Cooper, nel giorno del suo sessantesimo compleanno: una terribile malattia l'ha crudelmente allontanata anni fa da ogni pratica attiva, ma la sua musica e il suo esempio di donna e musicista ancora affascinano, e ancora insegnano. Scrivevano i compagni di Henry Cow in apertura dei dossier del 40th Anniversary Box: "Lindsay became aware that she had multiple sclerosis in the late days of Henry Cow, although she told none of us until it was impossible any longer to conceal the fact. MS is degenerative, and usually develops slowly, so she had almost 20 busy years before, in the late '90s, the increasing severity of her condition obliged her to stop performing and to explain publicly why. Over the next few years her mobility and wakefulness deteriorated quite rapidly, and by the time this collection was being assembled communication had become practically impossible. Her absence is a constant presence in the pages that follow and in these recollections".
Il contatto indicato in quel documento - sarah.maude@virgin.net - è tuttora valido per indirizzare eventuali donazioni e aiuti economici a sostegno di cure ed assistenza. Ciao Lilly, auguri!
http://lindsaycooper.fanspace.com
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lindsay-cooper-p32696/biography
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Lindsay+Cooper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Cooper
sarah.maude@virgin.net
A venticinque anni dalla presentazione del saggio 'Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative', John Oswald ritorna a uno dei suoi lavori più celebri, Plexure (1992), pubblicandone su vinile due nuove versioni, "prePlex" e "PlexureConcentrate".
Storia del brano e delle sue continue alterazioni sono riassunte in http://www.pfony.com/prePlex/index.html, richiamate anche da un breve estratto audio.
"Plexure is constructed entirely from brief fragments cloned from thousands of mostly pop recordings from 1982-1992, the first decade of the compact disc era. Most of the album is built on a structure that begins with the slowest songs from that time (mostly ballads and blues), and proceeds gradually to the fastest (bluegrass and speed metal). This is the same structure that a British mash-up artist called Osymyso, a decade later, used for a piece entitled introinspection that features 100 tunes in a mostly linear sequence, in contrast to Plexure's multifold polyphony. One of the first steps in making Plexure was to arrange hundreds and hundreds of tracks of source material in order from the slowest to the fastest. Most of this work was done by Phil Strong, who in a time before BPM catalogs existed, measured waveforms and arranged bars of music both by eye and by ear. The original bar-of-each-song version of prePlex was about 33 minutes long. A lot of this material was folded into the subsequent structure of Plexure. Oswald found the relative simplicity of prePlex to be occasionally beguiling on its own. But he thought there were parts that worked and parts that didn't; he wished to hear a version that in a way swung all the way through. He did some editing, throwing out a lot of material, and Phil Strong also took another stab at it. But each time Oswald listened to the piece he ended up making improvements. He couldn't listen to the thing right through without stopping the playback to change something. This process continued, very sporadically, for over ten years."
http://www.pfony.com
http://www.myspace.com/pfony
http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xplunder.html
http://www.pfony.com/prePlexureFinal.png
