Naj (Darius Čiuta) ‘Naj on Naj’

01 Rightangled Coil (29:51)
02 Violetouch (31:20)

Total time 61:11
Cassette released by N D , Austin, Texas, 1996

Lithuanian architect, sound artist and /vyza/ label founder Darius Čiuta, born 1966, self-released many cassettes in Lithuania during the 1990s under the Naj moniker, and was included in the ‘500 Lock Grooves by Artists’ LP on RRR in 1998. A short biography and examples of his work as architect can be found here and here. While Čiuta is known for his noise music during the 1990s, he turned to sparse electro-acoustic music in the noughties. ‘Naj on Naj’ was issued on Daniel Plunkett’s N D label, in the Reference series which also hosted releases by Miroslav Rajkowski and Rod Summer. The ‘Naj on Naj’ cassette features two tracks of musique concrète made from found objects, turntable, tapes and found sounds (e.g.: film dialog excerpts). No electronics in sight. Track #1, Rightangled Coil, is richly textured and avoids any noisy traps while negotiating its bruitist odyssey. Very listenable and comparable to Small Cruel Party. The B side is more abrasive, yet never indulges into anti- or no- music a la The Haters. Čiuta is definitely an aesthete of the genre.

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Naj discography:
See Morning C90
Spoiled Spine Column C60
Akala C90, M&E
Ferumen C90, M&E
Active Spoon C90
Form-material C90
1992 w/ Government Alpha, The Declining Sun, k7, Xerxes
1994 Fixthemeteronthe zeroposition, C60, Tundra Rec.
1995 Resituation Smile, CD, Pure
1996 Naj On Naj, C60, N D
2000 Californian Sketches, CDr, Pasvires Pasaulis
2004 w/ Arturas Raila ‘Baltic Flour Mills’, CD, Autarkeia

Music of Oceania – The Abelam of Papua Niugini

01 Drum Calls For The Slit Drums (1:05)
02 Drum Signal (1:20)
03 Men’s Song (1:59)
04 Antiphony To The Ancestral Spirits (2:52)
05 Nocturnal Song I (4:00)
06 Nocturnal Song II (3:43)
07 Introductory Song To A Speech (:53)
08 Concluding Song I (2:03)
09 Concluding Song II (2:07)
10 Ocarinas And Bamboo Flutes (1:24)
11 Antiphony For Initiation (2:41)
12 Men’s Song For Initiation Rite (4:16)
13 Dance Song Preceding The Yam Festival (1:28)
14 Men’s Song for Yam Festival I (2:55)
15 Men’s Song for Yam Festival II (2:14)
16 Men’s Song For The Ancestral Spirit (1:57)
17 Men’s Song At A Death Ritual (1:59)
18 Songs At A Wake I (2:20)
19 Songs At A Wake II (2:00)

Total time 43:10
LP released by Musicaphon, Disco-Center, Kassel, West Germany, 1980

Nothing can prepare you to New Guinea’s ethnic music. The fact it is not much circulated doesn’t help either. Before I go any further, I shall notice these recordings are either initiation, ceremonial or sacred events, and shouldn’t be considered merely as music, or worse, entertainment. Nevertheless, I will discuss their sonic properties only. The Abelam are a tribe from North of the Sepik River and south of the Prince Alexander Mountains, in North-Eastern Papua New Guinea. The recordings were made by Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin in 1978-83, with a few tracks recorded by Professor Dr. Gerd Koch in 1966, both German ethnomusicologists working on Swiss funding. Here’s how the liner notes describe the record: ‘Side A [tr.#1-10] consists of drum signals, songs and instrumental music connected with the erection and inauguration of a ceremonial house. Side B has excerpts from songs (some with instrumental accompaniment) performed at yam festivals and rites of passage’ [liner notes, introduction to The Recordings chapter]. The Abelam’s music combine microtonal, minimal percussion on hourglass and slit drums, and choir chant, often in antiphony style, that is, alternating male and female voices. Typically, the drums will perform long accelerandos, leading the singers in parallel glissandos.

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‘Sound in Context’ documentary

Sound in Context from Vimeo

‘Visual art is something you can collect. [But] how can you make sound pay? Mostly, you can’t. So it has to develop an other kind of economy. The economy of music in general is in a freefall at the moment. It’s desintegrated’.
David Toop

‘If there is a huge amount more of research to be done on the audio culture, then there are plenty more ideas for artists to work with in sound’.
David Toop

This film by Jonathan Web and Ashley Wong was blogged before by Displaced Sounds. It’s a 30mn documentary film from interviews with sound artists, journalists and curators, including: Seth Cluett (artist), Benedict Drew (artist/curator, Unter Radio host), Barry Esson (director, Arika), Anne Hilde Neset (deputy editor, The Wire), Hans Ulrich Obrist (co-director, Serpentine Gallery), Mike Stubbs (director, FACT), David Toop (writer/curator), Richard Whitelaw (programme director, Sonic Arts Network). While David Toop looks extremely tired in his interview (even more than in the Sub Rosa DVD from last year), his comments are insightful and thought-provoking (see above). Other interviewees come up with interesting point of views, like Richard Whitelaw (Sonic Arts Network) on financing sound art: ‘No one commissioned the Futurists’, or Arika festival director Barry Esson on sociology: ‘The noise fans are so conservative’.

Salvador Dali ‘Je suis fou de Dali !’

In conjunction with Ubuweb

01 La Folie (:21)
02 Le Génie (:52)
03 Le Cinéma (:57)
04 La Conquête de l’Espace (2:41)
05 L’Hibernation (2:22)
06 Le Sport (5:52)
07 La Jeunesse (6:38)
08 Dieu (1:48)
09 La Méthode Paranoïaque Critique (2:07)
10 L’Amour (:55)
11 Don Juan (4:07)
12 Les Anges (2:28)
13 Le Pet (6:07)
14 La Mort (1:51)
15 La Liberté (2:46)

Total time 41:40
LP released by Sonopresse, France, 1975

A year after the release of his Cathar audiovisual opera-poem Etre Dieu, with music composed by Igor Wakhevitch, Salvador Dali (actually Dalí) released Je Suis Fou de Dali !, a collection of well-chosen excerpts from an interview in French with 3 journalists: François Deguelt, Jean-Pierre Mottier and Simon Wajntrob. If truth be told, half of it is pure wackiness, the other half self-promotion, and the difference is tenuous at times between surrealism and senility. But if we set aside the many scatological jokes, some excerpts are simply mindblowing, genuine audio equivalents of a Dali Surrealist painting. It is also close to some of Dali’s books, like his autobiography ‘La vie secrète de Salvador Dalí’ (1942) or collection of short texts ‘Oui’ (1971).

Usual Dali-esque topics recur here and there: sexual impotence of all great artists ; self-proclaimed Catholicism as a means to shock the avantgarde ; scatology, including a warm eulogy of fartiste Joseph Pujol, after which Dali mentions Benjamin Franklin as a dedicated farter (!) ; Dali’s own death and immortality is addressed during an exhilarating excerpt on Walt Disney’s (mythical) cryogenic freezing after his death in 1966, something Dali wishes for himself as well. Quotations abound from great writers and mystics like Cervantes, Montaigne, Stendhal or San Juan de la Cruz.

Track #6, Le Sport, focuses on Le Tour de France, the famous annual bicycle race. It is for Dali, as for Kraftwerk, an aesthetic epiphany: while he listens in awe to the radio reports from his studio, his mouth wide open and salivating, a little scab forms at the corner of his mouth, which he licks with delight, helping it grow thicker. When he is tired of licking, flies come landing around his mouth and onto the scab. Dali then slowly closes his lips to gently capture a fly between his lips. He’ll only release the insect after delighting in the fly’s efforts to escape.

Gulp!

Blowhole ‘Gathering’

01 Gathering – side 1 (21:38)
02 Gathering – side 2 (21:34)

Daniel Barber: assorted percussion
Patrick Barber: electric bass
Amy Denio: alt. saxophone, voice
Catherine Holmes: amplified cello
Jeph Jerman: drums
Ernst Lung K.: trumpet & amplified trumpet
Nick Sherman: electric guitar
Mary Shokes: electric violin
Adem Tepedelen: electric guitar
Hyla Willis: amplified loom, voice

Total time 43:12

LP coreleased by Giardia Recordings, Fusetron and Carburetor Records, WORM 003 – FUSE 006 – BRT 004, USA, 1995.
Hand-painted cover with stickers.

Blowhole was founded in 1987 in Colorado Springs by percussionist Jeph Jarman and the Barber brothers, with Scott Hiller, Fil Rodriguez and Dr. Soule. At one point there was one Blowhole in Colorado Springs and another branch in Seattle when Patrick Barber moved there. Starting 1987, Jeph Jarman also ran his Hands To solo electroacoustic project, turning to what he calls ‘concussion’ when playing with Blowhole – actually, an assortment of scrap metal objects including hubcaps, as is the case on this LP. Blowhole issued nearly 50 releases between 1987 and 1998, with some CD-R reissues in the 20th century. The music on ‘Gathering’ is culled from live and studio recordings from 1994. The fairly short tracks are interwoven to form 2 long suites. Some tracks are straight free jazz numbers with prominent saxophone and regular drumming, while others are more noisy rock affairs. Some are group efforts, while others are solos by one band member. The music would work perfectly as a soundtrack to a Rauschenberg painting: large scale, ironical and collage-like. This incarnation of Blowhole includes 4 women: Amy Denio, Catherine Holmes, Mary Shokes and Hyla Willis, the latter credited with ‘amplified loom’, an interesting nod toward Industrial Age, I guess.
Great album.

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Below: ‘Gathering’ LP alternative covers found on the net (each unique):

Architect’s Office ‘Caswallon The Headhunter’

01 Prelude (11:31)
02 Prewar (7:59)
03 War (5:08)
04 Exhausted – chorus of Pregnant Women (8:03)
05 Parly/Party (4:37)
06 Epilogue (3:01)
07 Postlude (7:26)

Cast:
Denise Judson: voice, breathing
Lloyd DeMause: voice (interview)
Robert McFarland: voice
Paul Lundhal: ocean tape
Jane and Rarc Brakhage: brook recording
S.G. Hägglund: percussion
Stan Brakhage: conversation recording, 1949
Rick Corrigan: synth
Claude Martz: bass clarinet
Joel Haertling: tape, French horn, electronics

Total time 49:40
LP released by Silent Records, USA, 1986

CASWALLON’S COUSIN, BENDIGEID VRAN, THE GIANT WHO SOON WOULD LIE DYING FROM A POISON DART IN THE FOOT AFTER HAVING CONQUERED AND KILLED EVERYONE IN EIRE EXCEPT FIVE PREGNANT WOMEN IN A CAVE, WAS TO SAY TO HIS MEN: “TAKE MY HEAD AND CARRY IT WITH YOU WHEREVER YOU GO AND FOR EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS MY HEAD WILL BE UNCORRUPTED. AND ALL THAT TIME THE HEAD WILL BE AS PLEASANT A COMPANION AS WHEN IT WAS ON MY BODY. AND WHEN THE EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS ARE OVER, BURY IT AT THE WHITE MOUNT IN LONDON, FACING GAUL AND FOR AS LONG AS IT IS BURIED THERE, THERE WILL BE NO INVASION IN ALL OF THE ISLAND OF THE MIGHTY.” [from Jane Brakhage's booklet]

When King Arthur eventually dig up the head 400 years later, the Island of Britain was soon after ravaged by Viking and Saxon invasions. The story of Caswallon is inspired by 13th c. Welsh manuscripts where he is known as Caswallawn, a chieftain who led the defense against Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 54 BC. In her play, Jane Brakhage describes the battle episodes, the 5 pregnant women in a cave, and of course Flower, or Fflur in Welsh, the beautiful woman with whom both Caswallawn and Caesar were in love. For this historical setting narrated by various voices (principally by Denise Judson), Architect’s Office conceived an ambitious soundtrack of musique concrète sounds, synthesizer and real instruments. The music would stand in itself as great electroacoustic music, yet it never interferes or distract from the narration. The extraordinary Postlude is a beautiful group improvisation by Claude Martz on bass clarinet with electronics provided by Corrigan and Haertling.

Joel Haertling was trained as a classical musician (French horn) in Boulder, CO, during the mid-1970s. He began making experimental super 8 and 16 mm films while in high school. He founded the experimental music group Architect’s Office in 1983, the name possibly inspired by his own father’s trade as an architect, to which he later dedicated a website. Haertling published Zamizdat Trade Journal from 1984 to ‘94, a zine dedicated to underground music, self-releases of post-industrial and electronic music. He played the Faust part in Stan Brakhage’s Faust series of films, 1987-89, and contributed music to 5 more, including Kindering, Loud Visual Noises, I… dreaming, and Fireloop. The latter was Brakhage’s contribution to the multimedia show ‘Caswallon The Headhunter’, written by Jane Brakhage in 1986 for the collective of Boulder artists The Sunday Associates, of which both Haertling and the Brakhages were members. The project included dancers, singers, lighting, slide projections, costumes, films and music. Brakhage: “When I moved to Boulder, Joel introduced me to some very gifted young people and we formed a group, The Sunday Associates and started an Arts Series with shows every Sunday at the Boulder Art Theater. They were my chief collaborators on Faust [...] I greatly admired Joel’s collage abilities – he did an amazing track for my hand-painted film, Fireloop, in which I use fire as a metaphor for the light and sound process that accompanies moving visual thinking.” [Interview with Suranjan Ganguly, from: In Focus, Experimental Cinema, The Film reader, by W. W. Dixon and G. A. Foster, ed., Routledge, 2002].

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Obscure #8: John White/Gavin Bryars ‘Machine Music’

John White
01 Autumn Countdown Machine (5:30)
02 Son of Gothic Chord (10:04)
03 Jew’s Harp Machine (2:31)
04 Drinking And Hooting Machine (4:42)

Gavin Bryars
05 The Squirrel and The Ricketty Racketty Bridge (20:45)

Total time 43:30
LP released by Island Records, UK, 1978

Two slices of pure Systems Music by the inventors of the genre. John White (born 1936) is a composer, pianist and tuba player. He founded Promenade Theatre Orchestra in 1969 along with Christopher Hobbs, Alec Hill, and Hugh Shrapnel. He was also a member of The Scratch Orchestra, Garden Furniture Music and the Farewell Symphony Orchestra (see Systems Music Timeline). The John White’s Machine Music featured on this LP refers to a set of rigid rules imposed on the interprets in order to limit their selfishness, exuberance, virtuosity and showmanship. In Son of Gothic Chord, the scale of the music is limited to one piano octave only, while Jew’s Harp Machine is written for an extremely limited instrument, as is Drinking And Hooting Machine, for glass bottles. Exquisite, self-restrained music, in any case. Gavin Bryars‘ Ricketty Racketty Bridge is for 4 guitarists playing 2 table top guitars each. Interprets play the strings with fingertips like a keyboard. Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Brian Eno and Gavin Bryars play different kind of guitars (see liner notes above). The result is a steady, semi-aleatoric web of soft notes where all personality and selfishness from the guitarists have been erased. Calling this Minimalist Music would be to miss the point entirely. The process is much more ironic.
Music offered by koshka. Thanks.

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See also:

• Obscure #2: Hobbs/Adams/Bryars ‘Ensemble Pieces’ >
• Obscure #4: David Toop/Max Eastley >
• Obscure #6: Michael Nyman ‘Decay Music’ >

Raymond Boni ‘Rêve en Couleurs’

01 Chanson pour Indio (7:43)
02 Thème Imaginaire (5:57)
03 Les Clowns (4:35)
04 Tu viens Bastien (1:06)
05 Rêve en Couleurs – side B (19:25)
– Face au Soleil Couchant (0:00 ~5:32)
– Invitation au Rêve (~5:32 ~14:06)
– Rêve en Couleurs (~14:06 ~19:25)

Total time 38:40
LP released by Palm, France, 1976

French guitarist Raymond Boni (b. 1947) is known for his various partnerships with leaders of the European improvisation scene (André Jaume, Claude Bernard, Gérard Marais, Joe McPhee, Terry Day), and released only a handful of solo albums, of which this is the 2nd, after 1971’s L’Oiseau, l’Arbre, le Béton on Futura Records. Raymond Boni famously played his guitar with typical Flamenco technique and gestures, while playing his own take on radical Free Improvisation. Boni plays 2 kinds of guitars on this LP: an acoustic Carbonell model, the brand used by Django Reinhardt and typical from other Gypsy guitar players ; and an electric Jacobacci model, probably a Gimenes from the 1960s (it’s the one shown on the back cover above). He’s heard mostly on electric guitar on side A, using a lot of effect pedals and re-recording. The music is based on virtuoso technique and a quest for unusual sounds. He’s consciously playing like no one else at the time, his strange, angular chords grounded deep in dream and humanity. Side B is a Suite dedicated to Dream (Rêve) with interwoven tracks, alternatively on acoustic and electric guitars. The somnambulist guitar playing on the longest track, Invitation au Rêve, is an apt evocation of dream, a lucid-dream-cum-improvisation on slow mode and a lot of delay+reverb effects. Sounds like sleepwalking guitar playing at times, to this listener.

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See also:
1978 Raymond Boni & Claude Bernard ‘Pot-Pourri Pour Parce Que’ >