Big Other is a blog Lil discovered, and it's fast becoming one of my favourites. Their writers mix up short posts with longer posts where they intersperse essays on the avant-garde or experimental art with YouTube videos that illustrate what they're saying. It's one of the better advantages blogging has over more traditional essay-writing. I like the interactive nature, and the ability to illustrate what you are talking about - especially music or cinema - in the body of the work, rather than it being extraneous, an "appendix".
This morning, I read a post entitled "What Is Experimental Art?". As well as having a few very useful things for me about the origins of the term "avant-garde" in artistic circles, it curates some wonderful serial and minimalist music. I think I'd like to write on minimalist music one day, I absolutely love it.* This piece by La Monte Young caught my eyes and ears. I'd vaguely heard his name bandied around at the edges of conversations, but never looked into him in any serious way.
A D Jameson, the author of the Big Other piece, quotes Young:
"The very first sound that I recall hearing was the sound of the wind blowing through the chinks and all around the log cabin in Idaho where I was born. I have always considered this among my most important early experiences. It was very awesome and beautiful and mysterious. Since I could not see it and did not know what it was, I questioned my mother about it for long hours.
During my childhood there were certain sound experiences of constant frequency that have influenced my musical ideas and development: the sounds of insects; the sounds of telephone poles and motors; sounds produced by steam escaping, such as my mother’s tea-kettle and the sounds of whistles and signals from trains; and resonations set off by the natural characteristics of particular geographic areas such as canyons, valleys, lakes, and plains. Actually, the first sustained single tone at a constant pitch, without a beginning or end, that I heard as a child was the sound of telephone poles, the hum of the wires. This was a very important auditory influence upon the sparse sustained style of work of the genre of the Trio for Strings (1958), Composition 1960 #7 (B and F# “To be held for a long time”) and The Four Dreams of China (1962)."
You can hear that in this piece, also in the Big Other post. (The quote comes from here):
* POST-SCRIPT: Actually, thinking about it, there's something particularly "everyday" to the minimalists. It seems to me that this music gets very close to the sensation of being alive - variations on a theme; that amazing capacity to simultaneously restrict experience to a few notes whilst opening up what seems like the whole universe; the repetition and the exultation; the apparently spiritual in the apparently mundane. Think about that in relation to this Philip Glass piece:
Suddenly the choice of Glass to score The Hours makes beautiful sense.
Showing posts with label experimental. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experimental. Show all posts
22.8.09
Goings on at the 13th Note
Me and Lil went last night to a gig our friend Ben had put on at the 13th note. It featured a Glasgow band called Nackt Insecten, Ben himself doing a free-vocal performance with his friend Pascal and calling themselves Electric U-Boat for the evening, a Belgian guy from Ghent with a little electronic box of tricks and a band whose name I don't know at the end.
I'm not going to review them all, in fact not really going to review any of them, but rather note down a few thoughts that occured to me whilst watching and which I quickly typed shorthand into my mobile phone.
We came in halfway through Nackt Insecten's set. Featuring a guitarist, a knob-twiddler and a drummer they played a jazzy-droney-improv set that I enjoyed a lot. Particularly the drumming, which reminded me of reading about syncopated jazz-style drumming rather than pounding rock-n-roll drumming and kept the wilder parts of the improv/wall-of-sound stuff connected to something other than their own wildness. Of the experimental-improv-drone scene stuff I've seen recently -- and that's quite a lot, always on Ben's recommendations -- I find myself gravitating more to the jazzy end, especially if that jazz influence is filtered through percussion. Nackt Insecten's set reminded me of seeing Chris Corsano at the CCA a couple of years ago, which I really loved, and really opened my eyes to this music.
Ben was on next. His main band, with his girlfriend Hannah and friend Greg, is called Helhesten but this was just him on vocals and Pascal on drums. We'd gone round to Ben and Hannah's the night before for dinner and to meet their two new kittens (called Robinson and Friday, v. cute!) and he was rather nervous, not having done a stripped down vocal improv set before. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about, it was great, perhaps the best set of the evening.
He had two microphones, wired up slightly differently, and would switch between them, sometimes putting one in his mouth and sometimes using one against the other, creating mini-feedbacks. I wrote in my phone "connects sound and body". I think what I was thinking was how it singled out the human voice and by extension the body and used it as an instrument. Not in a way that R&B singers modulate and whatnot but in a more instinctive way, conjuring up strange repetitions, interesting one-offs, veering between garbled words in (invented?) languages, low groans, high shreaks, long drawn-out moans and clicking, tapping percussive sounds. It made me think about improvisation and decision-making, how apparently unconscious and random sounds are actually split-second choices, not necessarily of the conscious kind but of a sort of body memory or intelligence, as if it knows what it's going to do without the brain having to tell it. Or perhaps it's a question of getting the body into the right context or atmosphere, controlling it from afar so-to-speak, assuming that if one creates the right conditions for it, it will create different and interesting sounds, almost like writing a computer programme.
The Belgian guy -- whose name I will get from Ben -- started his set with an impromptu Ivor Cutler song about bees, which moved into a set played entirely from a small box with lots of knobs, and which reminded me of shifting the radio tuner or a kind of aural equivalent of image-overload. In a good way. Every now and again techno-ish beats would rise out of industrial sounds, only to be distorted and sped up. He was a very skinny guy, and his arms would flail out like a conductors after getting the precise knob-twiddle he wanted. He looked very nerdy, and was a very shy microphone presence, but very nice too. I should get his name.
I'm not going to review them all, in fact not really going to review any of them, but rather note down a few thoughts that occured to me whilst watching and which I quickly typed shorthand into my mobile phone.
We came in halfway through Nackt Insecten's set. Featuring a guitarist, a knob-twiddler and a drummer they played a jazzy-droney-improv set that I enjoyed a lot. Particularly the drumming, which reminded me of reading about syncopated jazz-style drumming rather than pounding rock-n-roll drumming and kept the wilder parts of the improv/wall-of-sound stuff connected to something other than their own wildness. Of the experimental-improv-drone scene stuff I've seen recently -- and that's quite a lot, always on Ben's recommendations -- I find myself gravitating more to the jazzy end, especially if that jazz influence is filtered through percussion. Nackt Insecten's set reminded me of seeing Chris Corsano at the CCA a couple of years ago, which I really loved, and really opened my eyes to this music.
Ben was on next. His main band, with his girlfriend Hannah and friend Greg, is called Helhesten but this was just him on vocals and Pascal on drums. We'd gone round to Ben and Hannah's the night before for dinner and to meet their two new kittens (called Robinson and Friday, v. cute!) and he was rather nervous, not having done a stripped down vocal improv set before. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about, it was great, perhaps the best set of the evening.
He had two microphones, wired up slightly differently, and would switch between them, sometimes putting one in his mouth and sometimes using one against the other, creating mini-feedbacks. I wrote in my phone "connects sound and body". I think what I was thinking was how it singled out the human voice and by extension the body and used it as an instrument. Not in a way that R&B singers modulate and whatnot but in a more instinctive way, conjuring up strange repetitions, interesting one-offs, veering between garbled words in (invented?) languages, low groans, high shreaks, long drawn-out moans and clicking, tapping percussive sounds. It made me think about improvisation and decision-making, how apparently unconscious and random sounds are actually split-second choices, not necessarily of the conscious kind but of a sort of body memory or intelligence, as if it knows what it's going to do without the brain having to tell it. Or perhaps it's a question of getting the body into the right context or atmosphere, controlling it from afar so-to-speak, assuming that if one creates the right conditions for it, it will create different and interesting sounds, almost like writing a computer programme.
The Belgian guy -- whose name I will get from Ben -- started his set with an impromptu Ivor Cutler song about bees, which moved into a set played entirely from a small box with lots of knobs, and which reminded me of shifting the radio tuner or a kind of aural equivalent of image-overload. In a good way. Every now and again techno-ish beats would rise out of industrial sounds, only to be distorted and sped up. He was a very skinny guy, and his arms would flail out like a conductors after getting the precise knob-twiddle he wanted. He looked very nerdy, and was a very shy microphone presence, but very nice too. I should get his name.
23.3.09
Revisiting Koyaanisqatsi
I bought Koyaanisqatsi as a reward for getting a part-time job in London when I was a student there. The job only lasted one weekend because it was so horrible, but I still have the DVD.
My mind periodically comes back to it, almost without me realising it. I'd never think to name it as a favourite film, but in a way it is. I was astounded by it, it's stuck with me, and I still enjoy it whenever I watch it again.
I don't know what brought it up this morning, but there we go. Thinking about it now, I imagine the film would almost look like a period piece, or, rather, it captures the final days of an extravagant, more-more-more culture; the culture whose acts we are desperately now trying to undo.
The film was released in 1982, and its sequel Powaqqatsi in 1988. Naqoyqatsi, the third part, was released in 2002. Koyaanisqatsi could be seen as marking the transition between the old culture and a new one, one of the "green agenda" and "eco-consciousness". Certainly the director, Godfrey Reggio, has been at the forefront of progressive politics in America for some time.
It's hard to find actual clips from the films on Youtube, but the two here are. They're wonderful.
My mind periodically comes back to it, almost without me realising it. I'd never think to name it as a favourite film, but in a way it is. I was astounded by it, it's stuck with me, and I still enjoy it whenever I watch it again.
I don't know what brought it up this morning, but there we go. Thinking about it now, I imagine the film would almost look like a period piece, or, rather, it captures the final days of an extravagant, more-more-more culture; the culture whose acts we are desperately now trying to undo.
The film was released in 1982, and its sequel Powaqqatsi in 1988. Naqoyqatsi, the third part, was released in 2002. Koyaanisqatsi could be seen as marking the transition between the old culture and a new one, one of the "green agenda" and "eco-consciousness". Certainly the director, Godfrey Reggio, has been at the forefront of progressive politics in America for some time.
It's hard to find actual clips from the films on Youtube, but the two here are. They're wonderful.
21.3.09
Nights at the Chapel
I've been to the university chapel twice in the last week. Last Sunday me and Erik went to a Haydn concert by the university orchestra and choral society, and last night was the first night of the Instal festival.
On both occasions I found myself thinking about the relation between the music and the space. At the Haydn I remembered a thought I'd had before, and which Lil had talked about, when we visited the cathedral in Florence: that religious or not, one couldn't help but be amazed and moved by the monuments that belief had built. The university chapel is not particularly remarkable, but in combination with the music - selections from across 40 years of Haydn's life - an atmosphere was created that reminded me of that thought.
Whilst overall it was a bit too religious for my taste, the piece I enjoyed the most was "Motet, Insanae et vanae curae" (which translates as "mad and groundless cares"). The "lyrics" are about sticking with God, and not being tempted by "earthly things". What I liked about it was its very dramatic opening which gave way to a much calmer middle section, before getting dramatic again at the end.
Having said that, what has stuck with me more than any of the music was this little story about the second piece, the Organ Concerto in C major:
"When he left choir school, Haydn remained in Vienna. He lodged with a wig-maker who had two daughters, Maria Anna Aloysia Apollonia, who would later become Haydn's wife, and Therese, who was his true love. Sadly, Therese and her parents were determined that she, as the younger daughter, should become a nun. On 12 May 1756 she took her vows and entered the Order of the Poor Clares. The music for the ceremony was directed by Haydn."
I tried to detect moments of longing and sadness in the music, and thought of poor Haydn directing musicians playing a sort of farewell song to his beloved. I thought what a great film a depiction of that day would make.
Last night, I saw Toshimaru Nakamura and Jean-Luc Guionnet perform. Nakamura "is one of the great Japanese minimal improvisers" and Guionnet is "a French saxophonist/ composer/organist/field recording artist."
The Instal website describes them thus: "Toshi turns his mixing desk into an instrument of fizzing electric potential by looping the output back into the input, creating a feedback system. Jean-Luc's blasts of electronic sounding sax/organ always sit best next to the static fuzz of abused hardware."
The words I noted down on my mobile phone, knowing I'd write about the performance, were these: seance, summoning, scary, site specific. Now, apart from a strange conclusion that Nakamura and Guionnet's work conjures thoughts of the letter S, what I suppose these words mean is that the hard/soft dynamics - similar to Haydn - of the piece were attempting to call something up, to manifest something. It felt particularly apt in a chapel. Erik said their sound was like the walls crashing in. There was this curious miz of destruction and creation in their music. (You can hear it here).
The second performance last night was by Hermann Nitsch, "one of the great visual/live art/performance artists of the 20th Century". The programme notes detailed Nitsch's history as a founding member of the Aktionists (from Vienna, like Haydn), "who developed an artistic, critical response to the strict, conservative society of post-WWII Austria ... in a blend of shock, ritual, the ethics of religion and sacrifice, [and] our culture's fixation with violence", inticingly describing his performance art pieces as "juxtapositions of quasi-religious and ritualistic icons, including staged crucifixions, robed processions, nudity, animal sacrifice, the drinking of blood, drunken excess" etc etc.
We were given a specially commissioned piece for organ, the inspiration for which was "the almost presumptious task to conjure, to sing of, and measure the extent of cosmic space". (In fact, a Google image search for Nitsch comes up with lots of fairly hideous looking animal dissections). In practice it was a very old man playing great organ chords by putting planks of wood on the keys, helped by two middle-aged men. He kept stopping, and no-one was sure whether to clap or not. After clapping in these pauses twice, he leaned over from the organ balcony, and said, rather grumpily "my concert lasts for 1 hour, exactly 1 hour. You can clap then", rather wrecking an mood of cosmic contemplation he was attempting to create.
On both occasions I found myself thinking about the relation between the music and the space. At the Haydn I remembered a thought I'd had before, and which Lil had talked about, when we visited the cathedral in Florence: that religious or not, one couldn't help but be amazed and moved by the monuments that belief had built. The university chapel is not particularly remarkable, but in combination with the music - selections from across 40 years of Haydn's life - an atmosphere was created that reminded me of that thought.
Whilst overall it was a bit too religious for my taste, the piece I enjoyed the most was "Motet, Insanae et vanae curae" (which translates as "mad and groundless cares"). The "lyrics" are about sticking with God, and not being tempted by "earthly things". What I liked about it was its very dramatic opening which gave way to a much calmer middle section, before getting dramatic again at the end.
Having said that, what has stuck with me more than any of the music was this little story about the second piece, the Organ Concerto in C major:
"When he left choir school, Haydn remained in Vienna. He lodged with a wig-maker who had two daughters, Maria Anna Aloysia Apollonia, who would later become Haydn's wife, and Therese, who was his true love. Sadly, Therese and her parents were determined that she, as the younger daughter, should become a nun. On 12 May 1756 she took her vows and entered the Order of the Poor Clares. The music for the ceremony was directed by Haydn."
I tried to detect moments of longing and sadness in the music, and thought of poor Haydn directing musicians playing a sort of farewell song to his beloved. I thought what a great film a depiction of that day would make.
Last night, I saw Toshimaru Nakamura and Jean-Luc Guionnet perform. Nakamura "is one of the great Japanese minimal improvisers" and Guionnet is "a French saxophonist/ composer/organist/field recording artist."
The Instal website describes them thus: "Toshi turns his mixing desk into an instrument of fizzing electric potential by looping the output back into the input, creating a feedback system. Jean-Luc's blasts of electronic sounding sax/organ always sit best next to the static fuzz of abused hardware."
The words I noted down on my mobile phone, knowing I'd write about the performance, were these: seance, summoning, scary, site specific. Now, apart from a strange conclusion that Nakamura and Guionnet's work conjures thoughts of the letter S, what I suppose these words mean is that the hard/soft dynamics - similar to Haydn - of the piece were attempting to call something up, to manifest something. It felt particularly apt in a chapel. Erik said their sound was like the walls crashing in. There was this curious miz of destruction and creation in their music. (You can hear it here).
The second performance last night was by Hermann Nitsch, "one of the great visual/live art/performance artists of the 20th Century". The programme notes detailed Nitsch's history as a founding member of the Aktionists (from Vienna, like Haydn), "who developed an artistic, critical response to the strict, conservative society of post-WWII Austria ... in a blend of shock, ritual, the ethics of religion and sacrifice, [and] our culture's fixation with violence", inticingly describing his performance art pieces as "juxtapositions of quasi-religious and ritualistic icons, including staged crucifixions, robed processions, nudity, animal sacrifice, the drinking of blood, drunken excess" etc etc.
We were given a specially commissioned piece for organ, the inspiration for which was "the almost presumptious task to conjure, to sing of, and measure the extent of cosmic space". (In fact, a Google image search for Nitsch comes up with lots of fairly hideous looking animal dissections). In practice it was a very old man playing great organ chords by putting planks of wood on the keys, helped by two middle-aged men. He kept stopping, and no-one was sure whether to clap or not. After clapping in these pauses twice, he leaned over from the organ balcony, and said, rather grumpily "my concert lasts for 1 hour, exactly 1 hour. You can clap then", rather wrecking an mood of cosmic contemplation he was attempting to create.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Me
- Mark
- I am writing a PhD at the University of Glasgow entitled "The Poetics of Time in Contemporary Literature". My writing has been published in Type Review, Dancehall, Puffin Review and TheState. I review books for Gutter and The List. I am also an editor and reviewer at the Glasgow Review of Books.