Greek avatgarde composer and visionary architect was amogst the pioneers of stochastic electro-acoustic music. His unique approach hinged on applying the science and mathematics of his engineering and architectural background to his musical endeavours. His scores were often written on architects’ design paper rather than sheet music and he employed shapes and vectors to identify instruments, sounds and clusters.
I found out about this fascinating exchibit (which features drawings and audio) just in time through amazing bassist Trevor Dunn. It closes April 8th so I recommend you check it out soon. It was especially interesting to me because of all the music I record, listen to and check out live, it’s basically a look back on some of the origins of it all. Highly recommended.
Have been wanting to see Pharaoh’s Daughter for a long time and finally got a chance tonight at Joe’s Pub. The female-fronted octet features Basya Schecter on multi-lingual lyrics from the scriptures, the song of songs and other jewish-related sources. I had worked with her on Zorn’s vocal masada recorded Mycale (an accappella quartet also feat Ayelet Rose, Sophia Rei and Malika Zarra -the four of them just toured Israel until two days ago) and so I knew she had a very characteristic and beautiful vocal style. Supported by a killer band including Shanir Blumenkranz on bass, Yuval Lion on drums, Mathias Kunzli on percussions, Meg Okura on violin, a flute player, a guitar player and a keyboard player (had seen some of them with Roberto Rodriguez before but never met them before so don’t remember their names by heart like I do remember the names ofthe others, because I worked with all of them in the studio).
They all played beautifully and presented a vast material drawing including originals and non. The band was great and Basya sang and played well, in spite of the fact she was probably super jetlegged.
I’d recommend this group highly to anyone who wants to take an authentic and gorgeous musical trip through time and space, transcending political and religious beliefs, in search of the greater good through beautiful music (and tasty macaroons offered by the band in occasion of Passover). Sababa, shalom to ya’all!
I’ve been wanting to see Ken Butler play live forever but never had a chance and I just learned that he was batteling cancer and hence was absent from the scenes. Luckily he said that he survived it and he seemed in good health.
For those who are not familiar with him pick up his CD on Zorn’s Tzadik records or check out kenbutler.com
Ken is an amazingly creative individual who builds his own instruments out of tennis rackets, walking canes, kitchen and home utensils and a ton of other parts. He basically will put a contact microphone on anything that makes a sound and make music with it.
On this show at the Williamsburg gallery Sideshow he was accompanied by a trio of great percussion players (including Mathias Kunzli), an oud player and his artist/loft-mate on upright. All these instruments definitely gave the show a very groovy orientation and often times the tribal excitment offered by the two djambé’s made the crowd shake it a bit too (pretty unheard of for an experimental music concert, if you know what I mean).
Ken performed about a half a dozen pieces, usually a pedal on a chord with somewhat of a structured theme and a lot of improvisation. Every piece was based around an instrument and the crowd roared every time he picked up a new one. From guitar-like objects with one or two necks made from tennis rackets, canes and hockey sticks to banjo-looking objects made from pots, canes and other materials to umbrellas, knifes, paint brushes, swords, cloth hangers. Everything pretty much was either plucked or picked as if it was a guitar or bowed with an arco as if it was a violin. He even played a bow with another bow and then finished by playing his pants’ zipper and knocking on his head while teething a mic.
It was definitely an impressive and interesting array of sound-making devices from one of the most interesting artists around.
I won’t hide the fact that I think John Zorn is one of the most amazing composers out there so for me it was a real treat to be able to not only see him perform but work with him. On Wed the 17th and Thu the 18th the Lower EastSide theather Henry Street Settlement, also known as Abrons Art Center, hosted an incredible two nights of Zorn music performed by 10 different ensembles. The two evenigs were curated by Zorn who chose the music and the musicians. Every night five 20 minute sets entertained the crowds for 2 hours and showcased some of Zorn’s mighty vast and versatile body of work. Although for me as a live sound engineer it is obviously much harder and more work (10 stage changes, 20 if you consider the rehearsals) I still feel enormously priviledged to be a part of this incredible experience. Those who were present know what I am talking about and those who don’t should try to go to Montreal July 1st or Milan on Nov 8th for thr next two Zorn festivals of this kind. It’s truly the best way to experience his versatility and the vast array of differing moods, nuances, genres of his material.
I’ve always loved Japan, but one thing Japan has never been cool for (in fact downright worse than any other country in the world) is the whaling industry, which along for whales kills 23’000 dolphins a year in the small town of Taiji alone!
Why is this so awful? Many reasons, first and foremost the fact that dolphins are probably the smartest animal known to man (think smarter than dog, to the point where some scientists agree they should be granted the same rights humans have). In addition to that dolphin meat (which very few people eat, even in Japan where most people don’t even know that dolphin meat is sold) is one of the most mercury-loaded meats, and mercury is the most toxic non-radioactive substance known. However Japan’s fishing industries are quietly selling dolphin meat in supermarkets marking it as whale meat, which is obviously illegal and dangerous to consumer’s health.
The press release reads: “In The Cove, a team of activists and filmmakers infiltrate a heavily-guarded cove in Taiji, Japan. In this remote village they witness and document activities deliberately being hidden from the public. To really make an impact on this issue, we must get the word out in Japan and urge action from our own leaders. We believe that once the world and the Japanese people know, they will demand change. Help us save Japan’s dolphins.”
You can sign a petition here.
You can read more about the movie here.
You can read about the Ocean Preservation Society who created this movie here.
Or you can text the word “DOLPHIN” to 44144 to get news on how to help.
Anyway, long story short, a very interesting documentary that you should see.
Here’s the trailer:
My friend Bridget O’Neill has always been a comedian but as far as I know this was the first time she took the stage (the Moth at the Bitter End in NYC) for more people to appreciate her hilariousness… This is the PG rated version and it’s funny already, but I hear she’s got a rated R version that she performs privately for friends… I’ll have to ask her next time I see her.
P.S.: She’s funny and nutty alright, but did I mention she is single? I guess if you look like a firefighter and you think like an artsy person you stand a good chance with her ;-)
Don’t know who the others are because of their Halloween masks, but I recognized Robert Musso jamming in the middle of 10th st and 1st av, with a drummer, a bassist and a saxophonist…
Every once in a while someone comes along and does something so extraordinarily out of the order that it blows your mind away and shatters whatever preconceived notions you might have. Kenny Wollesen was that person for me tonight. I knew how talented he is from having seen him play drums and vibes with John Zorn many times and I knew he had manu other side projects as well (some of which I’ve seen and some I have not yet). When he told me about this event, it sounded so interesting that I couldn’t pass it up, so even though I was at a rooftop dinner party, I just left for an hour to go check out Wollesonic Laboratories’ “Touchless Kaleidophonic Sonic Massages”. It was sooooo worth it!
Held at the new Gallery 151 on the Bowery (co-curated by the talented urban/pop singer Miz Metro), the free donation-supported event basically consisted in two opposite rows if yoga mats where you would lay down, close your eyes if you wanted to (if you didn’t there was a psychedelic light show being projected on the ceiling) and absorb all the sounds created by Kenny’s populous crew (dressed in official looking white lab coats with woven names). For about 30-45 minutes I laid there relaxing and breathing in and out silently while the crazy professor and his assistants shuffled from one end of the gallery to the opposite making some kind of sound. Rain carousels, hellophones, sleep grinders, wind wands, rotorifics, magic cat boxes, rubber band contraptions, spinning baloons and other crazy looking things… If you can imagine it in your wildest dreams, Kenny probably built it! The sounds were pretty subtle, but every now and the there would be a subsonic rumble that you could feel in your spine through the wooden floor. I was terribly torn between wanting to keep my eyes closed to focus on the sounds and wanting to take a peak to satisfy my curiosity about what object on earth would produce such cool sounds. For those on the receiving end, if you let yourself be transported by this sonic massage you could pretty much enter an outlandish Tim Burton-esque parallel fantasy world where huge bugs hover over your head, mysterious creatures surround you and other amorphous sounds contribute to the creation of this dreamy sonic realm (which I bet might sound pretty scary if you didn’t have the comfort of knowing that they were created by friendly humans from planet earth). The spatiality and movement of the sounds makes it so much more special… Here’s an example: while you are feeling the air and focusing on the sounds of a giant butterfly flapping its wings above your head, suddenly a cricket-type sound punctures the silence from behind you on the left and when you least expect it dog comes up really close to your right ear and breaths… the Wollesonic touchless crew is pretty tactful and quiet while they run up and down the gallery and if they were even more silent it would be scary!
It was a blast. I highly recommend anyone interested in experimentation with found sounds and new sonic experiences in general not to miss this event if/when it comes around again. I know I won’t.
I ventured through the swamps of the Gowanus channel to make it to this beautiful new (at least to me) place called Littlefield where Suphala tonight just finished playin a show to an intimate crowd of about 50 world music loving concert goers. Suphala is one of the leading tabla players out there and her latest project features an oud player, a cellist and a violinist. I didn’t get the right spelling of their names but they were all exceptional players which brought their musical backgrounds to the table and together offered a mixture of Indian, Arabic and American moods and melodies. Truly beautiful sounds and interesting musical influences to create an inspiring soundtrack to this full moon night.
