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

‘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’.

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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Akio Suzuki ‘Soundsphere’

01 De Koolmees Suzuki Type Glass Harmonica, 1973 (23:46)
02 Analapos A – Voice Composed, 1970 (14:44)
03 Analapos B – Multiple Stand, 1973 (22:33)
04 Analapos C – Object For A Single Person, 1970 (9:20)

Total time 70:23
Book+CD released by Het Apollohuis, The Netherlands, 1990

‘Soundsphere’, Akio Suzuki’s acclaimed masterpiece, was meant by Paul Panhuysen, director of Het Apollohuis, as an introduction to his sound work, with a book detailing various instruments Suzuki created, as well as diagrams and documentation on previous performances from the 1970s and 1980s. It was conceived during an artist-in-residence time Suzuki spent at Het Apollohuis. The 36-pages booklet edition came in an oversized cardboard box and was limited to 1,000 copies. The disc focuses on 2 instruments only: the De Koolmees, a self-build glass instrument already described in a previous post, and the Analapos, a long spring attached to a pair of cylinders, played either by plucking the string or singing through a cylinder. As customary with Suzuki, all sounds are out of this world, hardly ever sounding like man-made music at all. On track #1, Suzuki uses 2 of his glass instruments at the same time, making various use of them: rubbing or percussion, or a combination of both. The whole disc is extraordinary.

Music (133mb) and pictures (13 scans) provided by Olivier Prieur. Thanks!

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Barbara Golden ‘At The Corner of Alive and Jesus’

In conjunction with Ubuweb

At The Corner of Alive and Jesus (36:29)
Self released cassette, San Francisco, 1988

Written by Melody Summer Carnahan
Barbara Golden, Robert Ashley, David Cremin, Sheila Davies, Barney Jones, K. Atchley: vocals
Mary Oliver: violin and viola
Maggi Payne: flute
Larry Polansky: guitar
William Winant: percussion
Barbara Golden: keyboards
George Brooks: saxophone

‘At The Corner Of Alive And Jesus: A Cantata‘, as it was first called,  was premiered in San Francisco in 1987, with the following performers: William Winant (percussion), Sarah Willner (viola, vocals), Barbara Golden (narration, keyboards), Mary Oliver (violin), Laetitia de Compiegne & Sheila Davies (vocals), Miguel Frasconi (pan pipes), Larry Polansky (guitar) – information according to this source. Robert Ashley hadn’t joined yet, apparently. Barbara Golden (b. 1941 Montréal, Canada) graduated from Mills College in 1982, studying with Robert Ashley, Terry Riley, Maggi Payne and Lou Harrison. The wonderful gamelan music of the latter probably led her to join the Gamelan Sekar Jaya orchestra with which she still performs to this day. She also plays in bands WIGband, & Shroomy.com and host a radio show called ‘Crack o’ Dawn’ on KPFA, San Francisco (listen to past shows here).

Melody Summer Carnahan (b.1951) started as a mail artist in the late 1970s and later graduated from Mills as well, where she had started writing texts for avantgarde composers (see bio). Her best known disc is ‘The Time Is Now’, Frog Peak Music, 1996, where she invites composers and musicians to create music from her book of the same title, Burning Book Press, 1983, and including the participation of Joan LaBarbara and Robert Ashley. Her writings have extensively been set to music by US composers.

The narration tells the story of one ‘Barbara’, an eccentric woman whose original and funny behavior is told by Barbara Golden in a poetic and dreamy voice. The story is pure American Surrealism, with strange apparitions and unusual events. Musical interjections are used to dramatically or poetically enhance a scene or event, according to the situation (Mary Oliver’s joyous fiddle, Maggi Payne’s dreamy flute, George Brooks’s tender saxophone). Robert Ashley appears at 29:05 as The Voice in a dream Barbara experiences. The dream itself (including broken marble columns, pink clouds, orange flames, a Tiny Hooded Lady and a monkey) is hardly different from Barbara’s own everyday life. The whole passage is brilliant with its heavenly female choir and irresistible Ashley tone.

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To the Ubu page

Announcement

We agreed on a new partnership with Ubuweb creator Kenneth Goldsmith, joining our efforts to archive on Ubu some of the relevant releases appearing on Continuo’s. Kenneth kindly offered unlimited disc space on the Ubuweb servers, allowing permanent availability to my sound files. As far as I’m concerned, Ubu made a decisive move late 2007, archiving the  entire Tellus tapes series.

Consequently, in the future, a portion of my posts will have sound files available directly on Ubu, while pictures and information will be hosted on Continuo’s as usual.  The symbol below will signal such joint-releases:

In conjunction with Ubuweb

I guess the possibility to get rid of the burden of download services shall not be missed and consider this opportunity as allowing wider recognition for some of the artists championed on this blog for the past 2 years.

• Kenneth Goldsmith @ Wikipedia
• Ubuweb @ Wikipedia
• Ubuweb.com

Continuumix #5

Continuumix #5 – Palais Des Hautes Herbes
01 Speaker Announcement (1:55)
02 Palais Des Hautes Herbes (62:15)

Total time 64:10
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/    /    /    /    /     T  R  A  C  K  L  I  S  T  I  N  G    /    /    /    /    /

• Speaker Announcement: Continuo introduces the mix with a few words and accompanying Jal-Tarang music or जल तरंग (Indian water bowls) by Milund Tilankar – from official website.
• Jem Finer’s project ‘Score for a hole in the ground’ is a giant suikinkutsu in the middle of a Kent forest. This is a mashup of some of the sound recordings available on the official site.
• Rain and thunder field recording made at Puget Sound, Washington State, by Carl Lierman. Thick, realistic layers of raindrops hitting the pavement and surrounding rooftops.
• Will Menter ‘Slate tinkle’. Self made slate marimba Menter calls Llechiphones, or lithophones, with a remarkably poetic sound.
• The Earth makes music. Michael Mideke is a pioneer VLF (Very Low Frequency) recordist who coined the term ‘Natural Radio’ in 1989 to describe Earth’s natural radio emissions. He was the first to record whistlers, burts of radio energy caused by lighting storms. Two rare examples of whistler storms recordings are used here (sourced from this archive): San Simeon, California (August 1990) and Paradise Valley, Nevada (October 1989). Note the picture above actually shows Mideke’s colleague Steve McGreevy
• The Cybraphon is a kind of steampunk mechanical instrument created by the Edinburgh-based collective FOUND (Ziggy Campbell, Simon Kirby and Tommy Perman). It makes beautiful sounds like a regular 19th century music box. The track uses here is titled ‘Aeolian Ode’.
• Crystal clear field recording made on a foggy day on the Felixstowe beach by Simon James French. From his blog.
• Formerly known as electroacoustic project Toy Bizarre, French Cédric Peyronnet retained his real name for his ‘K146′ field recording endeavours. In 2006-08, he documented an entire river (the Taurion river near Limoges, central France) with field recordings collected along its way. I’m using 2 of his recordings:
  - Gentioux-Pigerolles, 2006 [+]
  - Gentioux-Pigerolles Le Luc, 2006 [+]
• ‘En Face’ is an excerpt from the 1976 ‘Clouds’ LP, by Swedish electronic music composer Lars-Gunnar Bodin (b.1935). Refined electronic tones mingle with Peyronnet’s river recording.
• ‘Suite for 4 Trombones in Quarter-Tone System, Op. 72′ by Czech microtonal composer Alois Hába (1893-1973).
• Alain Daniélou ‘Ahata Anahata (excerpt)’, 2006, played by Igor Wakhevitch on the Sémantic Daniélou keyboard, a synthesizer created by French musicologist and Indologist Daniélou (1907-1994).
• Birdsongs recorded by Belgian field recordist Philippe Vilain. The track is called ‘Matin des oiseaux’ and is uploaded on his website, among many other great outdoors recordings.
• Antoine Schmitt and Jean-Jacques Birgé created the ‘Nabaz’mob’, an orchestra of 100 Nabaztags, electronic wifi enabled rabbits. They make great shows and wonderful music. The kids love ‘em!
• Benedict Drew, The Balloon Episode, an excerpt from an Unter Radio show on Resonance FM. Drew and his assistant conflating 150 rubber balloons and making all kinds of strange noises with them.
• ‘See you in Budapest!’. Kraftwerk audience noise from live recording, Paris, 2002 – Hungarian fans who run the Kraftwerk.hu website.
• Rain and thunder at Puget Sound, slight return. Field recording by Carl Lierman.
• Mirra Alfassa (aka Mirra Richard, 1878-1973) became The Supreme Mother of Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram in Pondichery, India, in 1952. She launched there an International Centre of Education and founded Auroville, the City of Human Unity, in 1968, 10kms North of Pondichery. During the 1950s and 1960s, she improvised on reed organ on important occasions, especially every New Year’s Day. This is an excerpt from ‘New Year Organ Music of 1955′, from the archived recordings at the Ashram’s official webpage (11 hours worth of music!).
• The Lamelo-skud is part of a self-build instruments collection by the French music collective H.A.K. Lo-Fi Records. It has a thumb piano glued on a vinyl disc and recorded via the cartridge’s pickup, with additional sound effects. The demo track was created by Denis Mc Carty [+].
• Field recordings of dinosaurs by Jean-Luc Hérelle on his groundbreaking CD ‘Jurassic Soundscapes’, Frémeaux & Associés, 1995. Electronic renditions of the dinosaur’s whereabouts. Mp3 from Rummage Through The Crevices blog.
• Jal-Tarang music again, this time by Tomoko Sauvage and her special water bowls. Track ‘Making of a Rainbow’ from her debut CD ‘Ombrophilia’ on and/Oar. And what does Ombrophilia means, by the way? ‘caracterized by large amounts of rainfalls’, says the dictionary. I new there was something about rain!

Dieter Roth ‘Die Radio Sonate’

Die Radio Sonate (42:35)

CD-R published by Dieter Roth Estate, Seedy CDs and Boekie Woekie, 2006 [mp3 from Virtual Circuit]

The sound file for this comes from a welcome CD-R reissue of these infamous talkative piano improvisations recorded by Dieter Roth (1930-1998) in a German radio studio in 1977. It was originally released as an LP in 1978 by Edition Lebeer-Hossmann (Brüssels/Hamburg) and Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Stuttgart, Germany, The original black and white LP cover had the words ‘adio Sonate’ handwritten with felt pen, either in green or red. The letter ‘R’ was printed, so that the release is sometimes called ‘The R adio Sonate’, though disc’s label states ‘Radio-Sonate’. Like on several of his other music releases, Dieter Roth is recorded unceremoniously improvising on piano while drinking schnapps and joking with the sound technician. His chair is creaking, he makes a lot of noise with his glass, burps and makes all manner of unwanted noises. European Free Music certainly sounds inhibited and conformist compared to this exhilarating recording. Note: LP cover and label above from original 300 copies LP, as exhibited in Galerie Immanence, Paris, 2008. ‘Wer War Mozart ?’ (Who Was Mozart?) artist book, 1971, from the same exhibition.

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Information from:

• Dirk Dobbke ‘Dieter Roth: Books and Multiples’,
  Edition Hansjörg Mayer, London, 2004
• Ursulla Block & Michael Glasmeier ‘Broken Music’,
  DAAD galerie, Berlin, 1989
• Amsterdam artist bookstore Boekie Woekie release page