Prosegue la scappatella punky del chitarrista dei Blast Frank Crijns, alla seconda pubblicazione ufficiale per il suo Betonkraktion: Sure 'Nuff 'n Yes We Do, mordace mini-album di quattro brani diffuso tramite Bandcamp, dove si trova anche la prima prova del trio, Snake Nation Cropduster.

Fraktionistas are Frank Crijns (guitar), Maartje ‘Marzj’ Simons (drums) and Störsender Swarth (voice ‘n’ noise). The Fraktion aims to research sound textures. Noises, voices, rhythms and the vibes of a distorted guitar are part of the experience. Rock with a clever twist, an inflammable cocktail of partly structured, partly improvised energy.

http://www.betonfraktion.com
http://betonfraktion.bandcamp.com/album/sure-nuff-n-yes-we-do
http://betonfraktion.bandcamp.com/album/snake-nation-cropduster

Cordelia Records pubblica un'estesa riedizione di un album del 1987 di R. Stevie Moore, il suo settimo, con il titolo (1952-19??) scelto allora come se l'autore a trentacinque anni dubitasse un po' di arrivare alla cinquantina. Moore invece è tuttora attivo e prolifico, prolisso e sregolato come sempre - pur senza la verve di un tempo - e ancora in giro per concerti, quando la salute glielo consente: per esempio a Londra o Copenhagen, pochi giorni fa.

A scattershot collection of 1976-1986 recordings by Nashville-born, New Jersey-based home recording pioneer R. Stevie Moore, (1952-19??) focuses on Moore's stranger material instead of his more straightforward pop songs. However, unlike 1985's Verve, which was released by a related label, this 22-track collection also avoids Moore's noise collages and most aggressive experiments. The songs mostly stick to traditional verse-chorus-bridge structures, but they're full of unexpected melodic shifts, idiosyncratic arrangement choices, and playfully bizarre lyrics.
This is a CD reissue of R. Stevie Moore's seventh L.P. which Cordelia originally released in 1987. In collaboration with the artist himself the new version has been remastered and expanded to about 77 and a half minutes. It comes in a digipak with, this time, a colour photograph on the front.

http://www.cordeliarecords.co.uk
http://www.rsteviemoore.com
http://www.rsteviemoore.com/cd/1952.html

Il programma Hear and Now della BBC Radio 3 offre in tre puntate un ampio resoconto del festival di musica contemporanea Tectonics, svoltosi per la seconda volta a Glasgow dal 9 all'11 maggio, con la direzione artistica e musicale di Ilan Volkov e Alasdair Campbell. Nel primo episodio, trasmesso sabato scorso e disponibile nell'archivio web dell'emittente ancora per qualche giorno, ci sono opere di David Behrman, Christian Wolff, un set di improvvisazione di Takehisa Kosugi con Thurston Moore e la prima esecuzione del lavoro di John Oswald I'd Love to Turn, che combina Beatles, György Ligeti e Terry Riley.

http://www.tectonicsfestival.com
https://www.facebook.com/tectonicsglasgow/photos_stream
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043wjb0#programme-broadcasts
http://vilearts.blogspot.it/2014/05/john-oswald-id-love-to-turn-grand-hall.html

Breve intervista con Guy Klucevsek, che parla di approccio tradizionale e innovativo alla fisarmonica, esegue un proprio originale (Clarissa) e dà anche un piccolo saggio di bravura con il celebre Road Runner zorniano. Dal dvd di Steve Mobia Behind the Bellows, ora su YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt_dxwF8Q-U

http://www.guyklucevsek.com
http://www.henrydoktorski.com/store/behind_the_bellows.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt_dxwF8Q-U

Si precisa la partecipazione degli invitati al Rock in Opposition nipponico in programma il 15 e 16 novembre 2014: ai nomi della primissima ora subentrano Present, Mats/Morgan Band, The Artaud Beats, Richard Pinhas e Sola/Lars Holmer's Global Home Project. E altro ancora c'è da attendersi.

Informazioni:
http://www.rockinopposition-japan.com
https://www.facebook.com/riofestivaljapan

L'improvvisa assenza di Daevid Allen per motivi di salute non ha fermato il giro di concerti in Giappone programmati in questi giorni dal trio you me & us (Allen, Yumi Hara e Chris Cutler), trasformatosi rapidamente in occasione di incontro aperto ad amici e collaboratori - Haco, Alfred Harth, Kazutoki Umezu, Akira Sotoyama e Sato Yukie tra gli altri - e messaggio benaugurale di pronta guarigione: Get Well Soon, Daevid!

https://www.facebook.com/yumi.cawkwell
http://tinyurl.com/nladtyh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6G3JExsRm0

Composizione istantanea, istantanea incisione su vinile: Julianna Barwick e Ikue Mori negli spazi della galleria d'arte alternativa - una delle più antiche a New York - White Columns.

http://www.whitecolumns.org/view.html?type=exhibitions&id=538

Pomeriggio di musica improvvisata negli spazi artistici della londinese Hundred Years Gallery, su idea della sassofonista Sue Lynch: intervengono Chrome Yellow (Kev Hopper, David Petts e Richard Sanderson con lei), The Custodians Of The Realm (Adam Bohman e Adrian Northover) e il giovanissimo Evan Parry.

http://www.hundredyearsgallery.com/sue-lynch

Helen Petts ha filmato qualche giorno fa Steve Beresford e Alan Tomlinson in azione negli spazi ex-agricoli dell'High House a Purflleet, Essex - poco fuori Londra - riconvertiti in anni recenti a sede di eventi culturali e artistici di diversa natura: http://tinyurl.com/otodqmo

https://www.youtube.com/user/helentonic/videos
http://www.thelivingstudio.uk.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_House,_Purfleet

Sono oggi cento anni dalla venuta di Sun Ra sul pianeta Terra, domenica prossima compie novant'anni Marshall Allen, miriadi di iniziative editoriali, discografiche e radiofoniche celebrano l'evento e l'Arkestra è in giro per concerti in mezza Europa, fino a tutto giugno, più in forma che mai: Space is the Place!

www.sunraarkestra.com

Registrato in gran parte dal vivo un paio d'anni prima, uscì per Polydor nel 1971 a segnare il debutto discografico del Bley-Peacock Synthesizer Show: l'album si intitolava Revenge (The Bigger The Love, The Greater The Hate). Oggi Annette Peacock ne cura un'estesa riedizione per Ironic, in cd e vinile, mutuando il nuovo titolo da uno dei brani d'origine: I Belong To A World That's Destroying Itself.

Annette Peacock has been a storied figure within avant-jazz, rock and experimental music since the mid-1960s. This spring she reissues her impossibly rare debut album from 1968 Revenge, credited to the Bley-Peacock Synthesizer Show, with two bonus tracks. This record, along with her '70s masterpieces I'm the One and X-Dreams, shows a truly virtuosic vocalist, songwriter and avant-gardist at the utter height of her power.

www.annettepeacock.com

Mentre dal vivo proseguono le presentazioni del suo più recente lavoro, On Behalf of Nature, due diversi album da poco in circolazione raccolgono composizioni di Meredith Monk di epoca precedente, per voce e per pianoforte: Basket Rondo, del 2007, interpretato dal sestetto vocale The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble (su Labor Records), e Piano Songs, brani scritti tra il 1971 e il 2006 ora affidati alle mani di Ursula Oppens e Bruce Brubaker (su Ecm): "As a creator of new opera and music theater pieces, Meredith Monk has been hailed for her pioneering work with extended vocal technique and interdisciplinary performance; over a career of nearly 50 years, she has explored the voice as an instrument unto itself. Yet long before she began composing music for the voice, Monk wrote short piano studies as a music student inspired by the examples of Mompou, Satie and Bartók. She returned to composing for piano in the early ’70s, producing pieces that had their “own topography, texture and mood”, as she writes in the liner notes to Piano Songs. In her piano music, “directness, purity, asymmetry and, above all, transparency have always been important to me. The surface of the music is seemingly simple but the intricacy of detail and the combination of restraint and expressivity challenge the performer. Every gesture is exposed and clear."

http://www.meredithmonk.org

Zeena Parkins è stata insignita pochi giorni fa a New York del Doris Duke Artist Award, prestigioso riconoscimento e cospicuo premio pluriennale assegnato ad artisti innovatori nel campo della musica, della danza e del teatro. Con lei tra gli altri anche Bill T. Jones, Oliver Lake, Roscoe Mitchell, Craig Taborn e Randy Weston. Brava Zeena!

Così definisce il campo d'azione entro il quale intende muoversi: "Recently, I am drawn to the de-stabilized environments proposed by open structures juxtaposed with fully notated materials and the precarious ways in which one can transverse into the other. I have begun to explore the palpable tension, as lines drawn in the sand, vibrating between various kinds of information and how this information is translated. The inscription, transmission, and reception of musicalities form a system/instrument of communication, not unlike the telegraph. For me, it is a composition. I am teasing these concerns as I am immersed in an expression of this unsteadiness and the energy that it produces. I want to understand how we ‘know’- before we know or even before we know that we know: where thoughts are encoded in what often appears to be telepathic connections. In collecting, developing, and parsing out the materials of a new work, a space is created for focused listening that feeds back into all aspects of my artistic practice on multiple levels."

http://www.zeenaparkins.com
http://ddpaa.org/artist/zeena-parkins
http://ddpaa.org/docs/DDPAA_2014_Award_Announcement.pdf

A vent'anni dalla sua pubblicazione in cd, l'americana Important Records produce una lussuosa riedizione - la prima in vinile - di Grayfolded, lavoro di ri/composizione plunderfonica compiuto da John Oswald utilizzando oltre cento versioni dal vivo del più celebre brano dei Grateful Dead, Dark Star. Circa l'approccio ai materiali e alle fonti, disse Oswald all'epoca: "Phil Lesh called me up and talked me into doing it. At that point, I hadn't listened to any Grateful Dead music in about twenty years. I did think I was qualified, because I do think it's often a good idea to come into a project without a lot of prior knowledge and get kind of an alien's overview of what the music seems to be, and then put in your own two cents of what you think it should be. And I think that was the case for this. During the course of working on it, I went to a couple of Grateful Dead concerts, but other than that, I haven't listened to anything except these hundred versions of Dark Star that I found in the vaults".

http://www.pfony.com
http://www.importantrecords.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Important-Records/266991299998819
http://youtu.be/oMGUQTK8tXw

Proseguono i festeggiamenti per il trentennale in casa Cuneiform, con sito web completamente rinnovato e ben otto nuovi titoli in uscita entro fine mese: Mats/Morgan, [schack tati]; due album di Led Bib, The People In Your Neighbourhood e The Good Egg; Joel Harrison, Mother Stump; Richard Pinhas & Yoshida Tatsuya, Welcome In The Void; Richard Pinhas & Oren Ambarchi, Tikkun; The Microscopic Septet, Manhattan Moonrise; Ideal Bread, Beating The Teens: Songs Of Steve Lacy. Ascolti in anteprima presso SoundCloud.

Based in the Washington D.C. area since its founding in 1984, Cuneiform Records is widely recognized as an international force in the world of avant-garde and truly progressive, cutting-edge music. This independent record label has charted an adventurous course, avoiding music’s oft-travelled mainstream and resisting confinement within any single musical genre. Instead, Cuneiform has focused on the nascent edges of a variety of genres. It is especially renown for championing music that transcends traditional, rigidly-defined 20th Century musical styles, championing pioneering composers and genre-defying music that organically fused elements from various styles to form vibrant new hybrids. Repeatedly, Cuneiform has released music that’s either influenced or served as precursors to modern music’s most intriguing new forms. For instance, much of the radical, genre-defiant music that Cuneiform released in the 1980s and 1990s to the confoundment of rock, jazz and classical music critics alike – music such as Curlew’s foot-tapping, genre-morphing jazz/pop/blues/rock, and Present and Univers Zero’s startling Chamber Rock – would in later years be recognized as precursors (forming the metamorphic bedrock) for post-jazz and post-classical genre-defying hybrids that now define 21st century music.

Currently issuing 15 albums/year, Cuneiform – in 2014, its 30th year – features about 300 titles in its catalogue. These releases cover a broad stylistic range, from experimental rock to avant-progressive, avant-jazz and jazz improvisation, electronic/ambient/noise, and much much more. From classical minimalism to chamber rock, Rock in Opposition to Weird Americana, jazz/pop to jazztronica, Cuneiform has explored a wide world of cutting edge music and especially, music beyond genre and genres-yet-to-be-defined. The common denominator of all releases on this uncommon, artist-friendly label is the singularity and consistent high-quality of its artists. Cuneiform's innovative composers and improvisors create music true to their unique visions and their unfettered visions often defy, reshape, and transcend prior genre boundaries, transforming the musical landscape of jazz, or rock, or New Music/contemporary classical for generations to come.

http://www.cuneiformrecords.com
http://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/cuneiformrecords
https://soundcloud.com/cuneiformrecords/sets/cuneiform-releases-for-may

A margine dell'affaire Denseland, in cui è implicato anche Hanno Leichtmann, David Moss e Hannes Strobl si ritrovano a tu per tu in spiaggia a confessarsi storie intime, meravigliose e implausibili: At the Beach-Music for Voice and Electric Bass, per la polacca Monotype Records.

Together, the pieces make the impression of being a single cohesive work with an intimate quality, sometimes moving forward with a steady drive, sometimes rotating around themselves. In some places, the music is very physical and microscopic, one can hear how the strings are scraped or how the vocal sounds start. In other places it keeps the secret of its genesis, playing with the possibilities of psychoacoustics. David Moss brings the sounds, texts, stories, narratives and ‘mystery geschichten’ out of his mind in a stream of consciousness. He uses points within the rhythmic patterns to connect to or to jump from, to dive off to new words or new sounds. The connection that the words and sounds have to meaning switches on and off.

http://www.davidmossmusic.com
http://www.hannesstrobl.de
http://www.monotyperecords.com/en/mono078.html
http://www.monotyperecords.com/docs/mono078presskit.pdf
https://soundcloud.com/monotyperec/hannes-strobl-david-moss

Louis Philippe, Danny Manners e Jonathan Coe hanno preso parte lo scorso aprile al Livres & Musiques Festival di Deauville (Francia), presentando un programma di musiche e letture dal titolo Perfect Disharmony un po' sulla scia dell'album 9th & 13th prodotto una dozzina d'anni fa per l'etichetta Tricatel. Un breve reportage fotografico è in https://www.flickr.com/photos/actualitte

Jonathan Coe, romancier britannique majeur est également un musicien accompli et un mélomane. Il tisse depuis plus de vingt ans une relation privilégiée avec l’auteur-compositeur-interprète français Louis Philippe. Cet artiste français installé à Londres depuis de nombreuses années construit une œuvre musicale raffinée. Jonathan Coe lui a écrit de nombreuses chansons et, ensemble, avec la complicité du musicien Danny Manners, ils ont commis l’album 9th & 13th sur le label de Bertrand Burgalat, Tricatel. Un album aux arrangements élégants mêlant textes écrits et dits par Jonathan Coe et chansons interprétées par Louis Philippe. A Deauville, les trois artistes sont réunis autour d’une proposition artistique littéraire et musicale. Un moment unique, un des temps forts de la programmation.

http://mutualise.globaldeauville.com/deauville2010/media/9/20140318-programme_anglais.pdf

Nella parte conclusiva dei festeggiamenti del loro quarantennale - intitolata Shadowland - The Residents hanno suonato a inizio mese in Belgio, Olanda, Germania, Svizzera, Israele e Francia. I concerti a Gent e Den Haag sono documentati per intero su YouTube.

Concluding the celebration of their 40th anniversary, The Residents are pleased to present Shadowland, Part 3 of the Randy, Chuck & Bob Trilogy. Aspiring to examine life in reverse, the trilogy began in 2010 with The Talking Light, a study of ghosts and death; reflecting on love and sex, the group continued with their Wonder of Weird tour in 2013; and finally with Shadowland, Randy, Chuck & Bob focus on the beginning of life - birth. As with Parts 1 & 2 of the trilogy, Part 3 features music from The Residents’ extensive catalog interspersed with short videos about birth, rebirth, reincarnation and NDEs (near death experiences).

www.residents.com
http://www.residents.com/historical4/shadow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcg0OaTbuYo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihpa1Gac7Ms

Un resoconto dell'edizione 2014 - la ventinovesima - del bel festival Kaleidophon tenutosi presso lo storico Jazzatelier di Ulrichsberg (Austria) ai primi di maggio è in una galleria video su YouTube. Una sintesi radiofonica si ascolta ancora per qualche giorno in due episodi di Zeit-Ton, presso la ORF.

Elf Beispiele aktueller Musik aus den Bereichen Jazz, Neue Musik und Improvisation stehen auf dem Programm der 29. Ausgabe des Ulrichsberger Kaleidophones. Dreißig Musiker und Musikerinnen aus Australien, Holland, England, Luxemburg, Japan, Schweden, USA und Österreich werden die Jazzatelierbühne bespielen. Klassiker und genredefinierende Persönlichkeiten wie Joëlle Léandre, Alvin Curran oder Peter Ablinger sind ebenso dabei wie noch zu Entdeckendes von Musikern wie Elisabeth Flunger, Gareth Davis oder Magnus Granberg. Akustisches steht neben Elektronik, Geschriebenes neben Improvisiertem. Die bunte Mischung kreativer Ansätze ist es einmal mehr, die das Kaleidophonprogramm prägt.

http://www.jazzatelier.at/zh5/kal14.htm
http://www.jazzatelier.at/zh5/kal14pr.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/user/wotan667/search?query=kaleidophon+2014
http://oe1.orf.at/programm/371121
http://oe1.orf.at/programm/371654

Intanto all'Alter Schlachthof di Wels (Austria) si prepara la ventottesima edizione del Music Unlimited: dal 7 al 9 novembre 2014.

http://www.schlachthofwels.at
https://www.facebook.com/festivalmusicunlimitedwels

Rock in Opposition prossimamente anche in Giappone!... Per ora si conoscono le date - il 15 e il 16 novembre 2014 - e alcuni nomi dei partecipanti, già diversi da una prima ipotesi formulata tempo addietro. Presto se ne saprà di più...

http://rockinopposition-japan.com
https://www.facebook.com/riofestivaljapan

Tre domeniche di concerti all'ora del tè, alla Cascina Castelletto di Pioltello (Mi) l'11, 18 e 25 maggio: SoUNDAYS - suoni e immaginazioni, un progetto ideato e diretto da Massimo Giuntoli. Punto Parco Cascina Castelletto, via Primo Maggio, Pioltello MI. Informazioni: 342.230263

Un giro di concerti tutto all'insegna di microtonalismo, temperamento inequabile e accordature fuori standard, impiegando violino, violoncello e antichi organi con registri a tirante: Tuning Out Tour, immaginato da Veryan Weston e Jon Rose con Hannah Marshall, al via domani fino al 19 maggio, esclusivamente in chiese e cappelle secolari del Regno Unito tra Sheffield, Newcastle, York e Brighton.

Tuning Out is a playful re-imagining of pitch relationships, exploring the lesser chartered areas of scordatura, microtones and unequal temperaments involving three improvising musicians who question the rules of equal temperament in their own different ways. They will be making use of some of the UK’s many underused pipe organs, and using re-configured and re-tuned string Instruments. Veryan Weston, long term explorer of underused and ancient instruments, and Jon Rose, re-builder and re-thinker of the instrumental properties of the violin, have been collaborating for the last 20 years creating recordings and concerts that re-invent possibilities of how instruments can sound, and who use altered tunings as a primary avenue for improvisation. They are inviting cellist Hannah Marshall, whose recent album Tulse Hill explores shifting de-tuned open string patterns, to join them in a collaboration over several concerts where the audience can expect to be part of a rich sonic experiment, and have the chance to hear instruments that would otherwise remain un-played.

http://www.hannahmarshall.net/Hannah_Marshall/TUNING_OUT.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3k8Y65ffo0

Al festival di musica, arti e poesia Sounds New a Canterbury (Kent, Regno Unito) va oggi in scena il lavoro condotto dal Brodsky Quartet sulle musiche di Robert Wyatt, con particolare riferimento a Cuckooland. Gli arrangiamenti sono di Tony Hymas, con l'apporto elettronico di Matt Wright - che è anche direttore artistico del festival - e la voce di Elaine Mitchener. Cuckooland è fonte di ispirazione anche per l'edizione di quest'anno di Curious Curator, galleria di opere visive di artisti locali allestita nei giorni del festival.

Robert Wyatt has let festival director Matt Wright and world-renowned pianist and arranger Tony Hymas loose on his songs to create this dynamic blend of electronics, improvisation and lush string harmonies. The brilliant Brodsky Quartet and radical, soulful vocalist Elaine Mitchener perform with live electronics by Wright in this blend of Canterbury past and present.

http://soundsnew.org.uk

http://soundsnewblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/sn2014-brochure.pdf

http://soundsnew.org.uk/events/brodsky-quartet-robert-wyatt-project
http://soundsnewblog.wordpress.com
http://www.brodskyquartet.co.uk
http://elainemitchener.wordpress.com

Sbirciando tra le sedute di registrazione dell'album di debutto dei quattro Artaud Beats (Geoff Leigh, Yumi Hara, John Greaves, Chris Cutler): Green Arena/E=MC2.

https://www.facebook.com/theartaudbeats

Nuovo album per La1919, False Memory Syndrome (in vinile e in tiratura limitata per ADN Artisti del 900), e contemporaneamente nuovo album anche per Luciano Margorani, Guitarworks (per Bunch Works, in digitale via Bandcamp).

https://www.facebook.com/groups/353651534324
https://www.facebook.com/pages/AD900-Artisti-Del-900/212455995616075
http://bunchrecords.bandcamp.com/album/guitarworks

Renato Rivolta guida l'Off-Topic Ensemble in un 'viaggio senza bussola dall'avanguardia storica all'intelligent dance music': oltre a musiche di John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Conlon Nancarrow e Anton Webern anche Gentle Giant, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Tommaso Leddi, Frank Zappa e molto altro... Questa sera a Milano al Centro Culturale San Fedele, via Hopeli 3a, alle ore 21.00.

http://tinyurl.com/nzzvceo

Immagini dal concerto di Louis Moholo - Special Unit for The Blue Notes a Torino mercoledì scorso sono in http://tinyurl.com/lo3xql3, un breve estratto video è in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-lRdaclZj8 mentre le prove tecniche sono ritratte in http://tinyurl.com/lm666pc. Qualche impressione è riportata nel Giornale della Musica.

Omaggio a Sun Ra nell'anno del suo centesimo compleanno: Solo Works, raccolta di inediti e rarità promossa dal blog Sun Ra Arkive e disponibile gratuitamente tramite SoundCloud. "Sun Ra is turning 100. It is time to celebrate! Sun Ra Solo Works is a special musical compilation featuring nearly 80 minutes of rare solo performances. The tracks have been carefully selected and mixed. Some of this music has only been heard by the ears of a few. The track listing is intentionally left off to keep the suspense of hearing this for the first time. The sounds contained are the very best, a blend of cosmic beauty. Put yourself in the right frame of mind, sit back and enjoy."

www.sunraarkive.blogspot.be/2014/04/sun-ra-is-turning-100-it-is-time-to.html
https://soundcloud.com/user7162896/sun-ra-solo-works

La scorribanda psichedelica di Eugene Chadbourne la sera del sabato santo a Glasgow in compagnia del locale trio Deadly Viper Guitar Squad - ribattezzato per l'occasione Psychedelic Flea Circus - è tracciata in un video pubblicato su YT. Tra mille citazioni - al solito beffarde e ironiche, ma molte assai rispettose - e allusioni a ben altre e imminenti resurrezioni, il sessantenne Dottore non esita a citare il 'miracolo' occorsogli dopo una recente operazione agli occhi, grazie al cielo andata a buon fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbWuFYzSJRw

Ogni due mesi c'è un appuntamento al bar Honeyflash di Warabi (Saitama, Giappone), dove ci si ritrova dopo scuola o dopo lavoro a strimpellare all'insegna del rock progressivo. Qualche settimana fa, senza particolari prove, in quattro si sono cimentati con un sacro testo dei National Health, epoca Of Queues and Cures: The Collapso!

http://honeyflash.info
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhVS8ty2Vfc