Sunday, 30 December, 2007

Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell - From Hell (1989-1996)

Subtitled "Being a Melodrama in 16 Parts," "From Hell" takes on the most notorious unsolved mystery in the annals of crime, the 1888 "Jack the Ripper" killings of five prostitutes in London's East End. But Alan Moore is more excited by history than he is by any horror show. In his introduction to the series, Moore wrote "It's my belief that if you cut into a thing deeply enough, if your incisions are precise and persistent and conducted methodically, then you may reveal not only that thing's inner workings, but also the meaning behind those workings ... 'From Hell' is a post-mortem of a historical occurrence, using fiction as a scalpel."

Open "From Hell" and you may involuntarily draw back -- it feels like the dark, sooty atmosphere of Moore and Campbell's Victorian London could seep into your own living room. Campbell renders "From Hell" in a scratchy, drippy black and white, with each panel seemingly drawn using a blend of London's chimney ash and tabloid ink. With no campy sound effect balloons, "From Hell" unfolds in an eerie silence, its pauses worthy of Harold Pinter. Although it's still a suspense-driven thriller, "From Hell" condemns the urban destitution and the maltreatment of women of the time in the starkest possible terms, with Moore and Campbell peering into the darkest corners of the victims' squalid lives.

Inspired by the Ripper's centennial, Moore found himself sucked into the lore of "Ripperology," where wild suppositions and fierce factions rival the theorists of the Kennedy assassination. "Watchmen" is replete with Pynchonesque paranoia, and "From Hell" posits a similarly complex conspiracy at the heart of the slayings. Inspired by "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution" by the late Stephen Knight, "From Hell" suggests that Prince Albert "Eddy" Victor had fathered an illegitimate child, and when four Whitechapel prostitutes attempted to exploit this information, they were executed (the fifth victim was allegedly a case of mistaken identity). Complicit parties include Scotland Yard, the Freemasons and Victoria herself, while such London notables as Oscar Wilde and James "Elephant Man" Merrick make cameo appearances.

(...) Moore's larger point is that the Ripper murders were the fullest expression of 19th century injustices and hypocrisies (...) Moore and Campbell refuse to avert their eyes to even the most brutal or despairing content. Not only do we see the victims plying their trade in the least glamorous ways possible -- hurried couplings against filthy alley walls for a handful of pence -- but the murders are captured with ghastly precision. The book reaches its zenith (or nadir) in Chapter 10 with the last and grisliest of the killings, shown in such detail that it's all you can do to keep your eyes on the page. Still, the graphic novelists aren't in it for splatterpunk shock value. "From Hell" asserts that the Ripper killings provided a catalyst for the 20th century, both figuratively -- the murders and their coverage anticipated tabloid journalism and the modern fascination with serial killers -- and literally. As Gull goes about his dreadful business, he experiences increasingly vivid visions of London in the 1990s.

"From Hell" is as heavily researched as any scholarly work. Although the appendix is superfluous in the human body, here it's as crucial as the heart. Almost every page features end-notes in which Moore not only cites his historical sources but muses on everything from London's "dionysiac" architecture to streetwalking lingo like "thrupenny upright." (...)

To read "From Hell" is to temporarily become a Ripperologist yourself, jazzed by the case's facts, myths and weird coincidences. As you go, you realize that the hero isn't Abberline pursuing his investigation but Moore conducting his own. In "Appendix II: Dance of the Gull Catchers," Moore and Campbell use the comic form to recount, with tongue often in cheek, the strange history of Ripper theorizing. Ripperologists are shown as a mob of manic men with butterfly nets, and Moore himself eventually joins their ranks.

Curt Holman


To read this you can simply unzip the file and read it as a PDF document.
Alternatively, you can use a CBR reader. Find it here (windows) or here (mac).

Check comments for more Moore related material

Saturday, 29 December, 2007

Rick Roderick - Nietzsche and the Post-Modern Condition

Nietzsche and the Post-Modern Condition
by Rick Roderick

Eight Audio-Lectures on Friedrich,
Published by The Teaching Company

1. Nietzsche as Myth and Mythmaker
2. Nietzsche on Truth and Lie
3. Nietzsche as Master of Suspicion and Immoralist
4. The Death of God
5. The Eternal Recurrence
6. The Will to Power
7. Nietzsche as Artist
8. Nietzsche's Progeny

This post has been deleted by Blogger. There was a complaint regarding copyright infringement some weeks ago. We removed the link for the lectures, although this share was for educational purposes and therefore under the umbrella of "fair-use". Despite us removing the link, Blogger then took the liberty of deleting the entire post - therefore deleting reader's comments, our own art-work, etc.
We have written a letter to Blogger in order to get some clarification on this issue.
In the meantime, you can read their original letter to us:


Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that content in your blog:

allegedly infringes upon the copyrights of others. The content in question
is located in the following posts:

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying
information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling
Effects at We do this
notice online at the link provided.

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for
online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement.
Please see for more
information about the DMCA, and see for the process that Blogger
requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

We are asking that you please remove the allegedly infringing content in
your blog. If you do not do this within the next 3 days (by 5/12/08), we

the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter
notification and a link to a sample counter notification, see

further remedial action taken against your Blogger account.

If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain
notification, please let us know.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Blogger Team

Wednesday, 26 December, 2007


François Couture, All-Music Guide.

Noah Wane in Splendid E-Zine, June 22nd 1998

2. Geneviève Letarte - La Ragazza
3. Martin Tétreault - Leurs Personnalités
5. Robert Lepage - La Sourire de la Joconde
6. Jerry Snell - Hope
7. Évidence - Criss-Cross
8. Les Granules - Le Tango Qui Ne Finit Jamais
9. Danielle Roger - La Muette
10. André Duchesne - Elle
11. Justine - Bon Appétit
13. René Lussier - Les Foins
14. Bruire - Les Deux Mégots
15. Geneviève Letarte - Les Fictions
16. Jean Derome et Les Dangereux Zhoms - Zuripari


Tuesday, 25 December, 2007

Texturizer (2003)

Texturizer is:

Nikos Veliotis: Cello
Coti K.: Electronics

.a _ 14'14''

.b_ 08'59''

.c_ 16'17''

.d_ 09'44''

Recorded live at Agios Georgios Church, Halandri - Athens, Greece/ January 2003. Antifrost Records__afro2018

Link1 | Link 2


About Texturizer:

The Athens duo of cellist Nikos Veliotis and electronic dronescaper Coti K recorded this glacial four-part drift in a local church, and there is certainly something mediative and reverential about the music. It's far from tentative, however, as from the first moment low rasping feedback tones ring out proudly, as Veliotis tries to prise open some space for himself with insistent scratchy harmonics. [...] The bowing of the cello within the brooding stasis of Coiti K's treatments adds a reassuring human warmth to what would otherwise be a rather forbidding experience; in this "Texturizer" recalls the driftworks of Pauline Oliveros, without quite managing to reach the same time-confounding plateaux." by Keith Moline, in THE WIRE (UK)

"Texturizer seems to me a very apt chosen name for the duo work of Nikos Veliotis and Coti K. The first one plays cello and Coti plays the electronic part. Apperentely this new CD was recorded in the Agios Georgios Church in a suburb of Athens, but they could have fooled me. No huge amount of natural church reverb, but a nice set of four pieces. Texturizer, who can it be different, play drone music, using cello and electronic processings thereof and field recordings (maybe those of motors, fans etc, basically anything that sounds drony), and of all these closely related sounds fit together very well. Overall, I found this drone music of a more louder nature, without saying it's aggressive or anything, it's just more present and more audible, and less blurry then some of the other music in this area. Since you may know me as a sucker of good drone music, I can't be wrong this one: very nice work." by: FdW, in VITAL Weekly (NL)

Ibn Báya Ensemble - Música Andalusí (1995)

"The musical heritage of Al-Andalus, the hispano-muslim Spain that flourished for more than seven centuries, was mutilated when the hispano-arabs were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. In Christian Spain this heritage was diluted in popular musical traditions, in language, and in the oriental thematics of los romances and other forms of erudite music. In North Africa it took shelter in oral traditions, in what is today known as the Andalusí-Magrebí.

The Ibn Báya Ensemble, formed by Moroccan and Spanish musicians, wishes to create a meeting between these two Al-Andalus heritages that for centuries have been separated and ignored. Two cultures that today wish to unite through the Mediterranean Sea, hoping to reach the "essence" of these traditions in the quest for a novel way of interpreting this monumental musical heritage, and drawing inspiration from the ancient masters (avoiding the Oriental style).

The name of Ibn Báya refers to the musician and philosopher Avempace (Zaragoza 1070 - Fez 1138), who lived both in the Andalus and the Morocco of the 11th and 12th centuries".

Omar Metioui: Egyptian Lute, Andalusian Lute, Alto Viola, Tar, Chant
Eduardo Panagua: Medieval Flutes
Luis Delgado: Andalusian Lute
Gloria Lergo: Chant
Mohamed el Arabi Serghini: Solo Chant, Alto Viola, Darbuka


Bravo Clippings #20

Obi strip (The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet, Japanese CD, 2006)

Please send your obi strips' pictures to Sue Ellen's email

Monday, 24 December, 2007

Sonic Youth - Bad Moon Rising (1985)

Michael Freitag

Sue Ellen Ewing


"seven days and seven nights
I dreamt a sailor's dream at sea
seven days and seven nights
I dreamt a sailor's dream of me"


It's running down the street with white power sneakers


"She comes into my mind, twisting thru my nerves


"Love starved backwood teaser farm girl hot eyed bride
stone cold blonde a quivering menace atomic wallop...







Julian Cope

1. Intro
2. Brave Men Run (in my Family)
3. Society is a Hole
4. I Love Her all the Time
5. Ghost Bitch
6. I'm Insane
7. Justice is Might
8. Death Valley'69 (w/ Lydia Lunch)
9. Satan is Boring
10. Flower
11. Hallowe'en
12. Echo Canyon

link@ 320











in Sonoloco Record Reviews



Terre Thaemlitz - Means From an End (1998)

by Sean Cooper, in All Music Guide


08 15:33:63 01:11:22 commentary
09 16:45:10 00:49:10 resistance
10 17:34:20 03:19:70 resignation
cd 63:56:69_total

link1 | link2 all@256

Still about "Means From an End"



Saturday, 22 December, 2007

Luc Ferrari - Le Banquet [Patajaslocha - 1984 / L'Escalier des Aveugles 1991]


Suite de danses (1984)

1. Paso-doble; 2. Tango; 3. Java; 4. Slow; 5. Cha-cha-cha

durée: 27'52''

L'escalier des aveugles (tracks 6 to 18 on this cd)

Recueil de Nouvelles (1991)

1. L’escalier des aveugles; 2. Intermède; 3. Suzanne et le clochard; 4. Interlude; 5. El cuerpo inglés; 6. Intérieur; 7. Hommage à Lorca; 8. Izaskun et la pomme; 9. Interférence; 10. Sans savoir pourquoi; 11. Nada; 12. Madrid, kilomètre zéro; 13. La nouvelle de l’escalier.

durée: 34'21''

link1 (Patajaslocha)

link2 (L'Escalier des Aveugles)



About L’escalier des Aveugles

"Œuvre créée sur commande du Centre pour la diffusion de la musique contemporaine (CDMC) et de Radio Nacional de España, Radio-2 (RNE-2). Coproduction du CDMC, de RNE-2 et de la Muse en circuit. Réalisée au studio de la Muse en circuit (Vanves, France). Tous les matériaux sonores concrets de l’œuvre ont été enregistrés à Madrid par l’Auteur, avec les actrices Ana Malaver, Julia Gil, Suzanna Cantero, Izaskun Azurmendi, Laura Notario et Gloria de Pedro. Producteur délégué de RNE-2: José Iges. À l’occasion de la Journée Européenne de la musique, l’œuvre a été donnée en première à RNE-2 le 21 juin 1991.

Tout au début, quand je parlais de mon projet de conte radiophonique, j’avais employé le mot «clip» pour évoquer la forme que j’imaginais. Et puis, en travaillant, je me suis rendu compte que ce que j’étais en train de faire était une métaphore sonore de la technique littéraire des «nouvelles». En effet: forme courte, qui raconte chacune une histoire, une situation, une ambiance, mais dans un climat d’ébauche, une manière indirecte de conter, allusive, irréaliste tout en employant des matériaux réalistes. Une manière aussi de laisser l’auditeur (j’allais dire le spectateur) en suspens, peut-être frustré de n’avoir pas une fin pour chaque anecdote.

Chaque nouvelle est construite sur un petit événement: un son, une atmosphère, un mot anodin porteur d’émotion par la voix qui le prononce, un cliché entendu. Et ainsi, l’ensemble se tisse à l’intérieur de multiples langages: le musical, le bruitiste, le réaliste, le synthétique et enfin l’espagnol et le français, proposant au public des pistes à suivre et à délaisser. À propos de chemin, celui-ci est un escalier qui revient comme un thème: l’idée qu’un lieu de Madrid s’appelle L’escalier des aveugles m’a fasciné, comme une réalité poétique, ou plutôt comme une surréalité; mais aussi comme un symbole de ce que j’étais en train de faire, une composition avec des sons et pour la radio. Et comme chacun sait, la radio est pour ceux qui ont des images pleins la tête." in

"A passionate journey into Ferrari's obsessions with Spain and Sexuality; enchanting, ironic, beautiful, humorous, sometimes glorious. An absolutely unique listening experience: where else would you find the dialects of pasodoble, chamber music, cha cha cha, field recordings and electronics merged into a single, coherent language?" The Ewings Short Reviews

Thursday, 20 December, 2007

Miles Davis - Big Fun (1974)

A few months after the Bitches Brew sessions that broke jazz-rock out like Phoenix from the flames, Miles Davis returned to the Columbia recording studios with the intent to push his music in yet another startling direction. This time around, Miles took inspiration from classical Indian music, interpolating it into rock and jazz structures as the Beatles, altoist Toby Harriott, and others had done before. But, as expected from Davis, he did it in an entirely new and unexpected manner.

Personnel: Miles Davis, trumpet; Steve Grossman, Carlos Garnett, Wayne Shorter, soprano sax; Bennie Maupin, bass clarinet, clarinet, flute; Sonny Fortune, soprano sax, flute; John McLaughlin, electric guitar; Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, electric piano; Joe Zawinul, electric piano, Farfisa; Lonnie Smith, Harold I. Williams, piano; Larry Young, organ, celeste; Khalil Balakrishna, electric sitar; Bihari Sharma, tambura; Ron Carter, Dave Holland, acoustic bass; Harvey Brooks, Michael Henderson, electric bass; Al Foster, Billy Hart, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, drums; Airto Moreira, percussion; Badal Roy, tabla; Mtume, African percussion.

Disc I

1. Great Expectations — 27:23
2. Ife — 21:34
3. Recollections — 18:55
4. Trevere — 5:55

Disc II

1. Go Ahead John — 28:27
2. Lonely Fire — 21:21
3. The Little Blue Frog — 9:10
4. Yaphet — 9:39

Link@320 Disc 1 :: Disc 2

Wednesday, 19 December, 2007

Tetsu Inoue - Psycho-Acoustic (1998)

"Perhaps the most interesting electronic music since the classic period of Stockhausen and Xenakis. Tetsu Inoue is a composer and sound artist who has worked in a variety of musics - ambient, sound installation, dance music, techno and is a frequent collaborator of Bill Laswell and Haruomi Hosono. This CD features some of the most intricate and fascinating computer generated compositions you've ever heard. Literally thousands of hours went into the creation of these miniature masterpieces charting a world of sound as yet explored. Also included is a powerful duet with brilliant electronic percussionist Ikue Mori." tzadik's website.

1. Q Tip
2. Tonic Bit
3. Dot Hack
4. Psycho Plastic
5. Modu Lotion
6. Rebeat Reduction
7. All Natural
8. Plug
9. Tom & Tone


Thursday, 13 December, 2007

Bravo Tubes #3

Kinky Friedman - "The People Who Read People Magazine"

Wednesday, 12 December, 2007

The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed (1969)

"Proving that [The Rolling Stones' previous album] Beggars Banquet wasn't a fluke, the Stones actually expand on the formula introduced on that classic record of '68 by playing even looser acoustic jams and tightening up the rockers until they are positively terrifying! Okay, they aren't terrifying at all, but darn it, you read enough critiques of this album that call "Gimme Shelter" and "Midnight Rambler" terrifying and, by golly, after a while, you start to believe it! Still, "Gimme Shelter" is an awfully spooky way to start off an album. Ever heard it? A scary quiet electric guitar line introduces it, then some voices go "ooo ooo ooo" and a threatening sorta lead guitar line comes in, then it all kicks together and Mick sings "ooo, a storm is threatening my very life today / If I don't get some shelter, you know, I'm gonna fade away!!!" Boo! Spookin'!

But that's about the extent of it, really. If you survive that one, the rest of the record is much more welcoming. Their stunning cover of the old blues standard "Love In Vain" shows exactly how far they've come since their early days as a fast-paced "blues" combo, "Country Honk" hicks up their hit single "Honky Tonk Women," "Live With Me" has a groovy-as-horseshoes bass line, and the title track is absolutely gross ("we all need someone we can cream on / and if you want to, well, you can cream on me!"). Plus, "Monkey Man" is a cool piano-guitar rocker, "You Got The Silver" features weak vocals courtesy of Keith, and if you're looking for epics, just stop here for a moment. "Midnight Rambler" is a seven-minute celebration of mass murder set to a sinister rockin' beat (with eerie slide guitar laid on top!) and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is a gospel song! A real honest-to-goodness gospel song! And good? Ho! Ever heard Joan Osborne's "What If God Was One Of Us?" Imagine the exact opposite. IT'S THAT GOOD! An earthy bluesy country real-life no B.S. American album made by a bunch of British drug addicts. Go figure. And check out the album cover. Their best ever. Better than the zipper, even.

Oh yeah. They threw out Brian Jones while they were making this album. A couple of months later, he drowned in a swimming pool."

Mark Prindle,

link @320

John Cage - Quartets I-VIII / Music for 17 (1976 - 1992)

1. "Quartets I-VIII" (1976) for 24 instruments 37'18''

2. "Music for Seventeen" (1984-87) 30'05''

about "Quartets I-VIII"

"Quartets I-VIII" is among Cage's most beautiful works. While there are no restrictions in the score for the number of performers, no more than four can be playing at any one time. None of them are in conscious harmony with one another. The sources of his material are eight early American hymns, all of them known as "shape note hymns." Shape note singing is notated by large drawings on paper for those who didn't read music so they could find the pitch. Harmony was not paid strict attention to; emotions, rather, were to inspire singers and listeners. Cage's lifelong disrespect for musical harmony is held in abeyance here, not because of the hymns -- which have been deconstructed and reconstructed using the I Ching for guidance -- themselves, but because in such a system, over such a large number of pitches and overtones, harmony is bound to occur, perhaps not in specific places, but the chances of it not happening are rare. In the recording, with so much left to the individual, it seems to occur more often that it does not, coming as it does from terribly fragmented material. The result is a shimmering, spare piece of emotional music that reflects the harmony of nature -- human nature"
about "Music for Seventeen":

"In one of the interviews in Joan Retallack's "Musicage. Cage muses on Words Music Art" John Cage explains that he started writing this composition for the Ensemble 13. Being mistaken about the number of players and the ensemble disliking the microtonal writing, he stopped working on it and composed Thirteen instead. Since no manuscripts of Seventeen exist in the New York Public Library, Cage probably refers to Sixteen instead."

This recording was realized by San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Stephen L.Mosko, Music Director. Joan LaBarbara, Soprano.

Recorded digitally at Skywalker Sound, Marin County, California, USA (no dates mentioned). CD released in 1993 © Newport Classics

linkpart1 | linkpart2 @256

Tuesday, 11 December, 2007

Purple Trap - Decided Already the Motionless Heart of Tranquility, Tangling the Prayer Called "I" (1998)


1- Who decided the number 1?
2- Reassembling place of dispersed holy murderous thought, The
3- I already know the settlement of iridescent happiness
4- I can hear a scream... a scream resembling a scream
5- Only half of an imitation or your imitation of yourself
6- Come to this side... sadness
7- Supposedly generous possessors of death meet a warning while napping


1- Just let us continue to say farewell
2- Decided...already the motionless heart of tranquility, tangling the prayer called "I"
3- Sudden accident protesting production methods, A
4- Where shall released time go next?
5- Continuously draw a gentle spiral... red death!
6- Ask a so-called sage who speaks only plausible excuses the meaning of the volition "further..."

Keiji Haino (vocals, guitar)
Bill Laswell (bass)
Rashied Ali (drums)

Monday, 10 December, 2007

Karlheinz Stockhausen - in memoriam: 22.08.1928 - 05.12.2007

"Mikrophonie I/II" (1964/65)

Mikrophonie I: 26'35''
[for tamtam, 2 microphones, 2 filters and controllers]

Mikrophonie II: 14'28''
[for choir, Hammond organ, and four ring modulators]

about Mikrophonie:




We at Bravo Juju profoundly dread the lost of one of the most brilliant electronic music composers of the 20th century.
As our personal homage to his great genius and work we post this wonderful work "Mikrophonie I/II" and the official press release of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, about the passing of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Stockhausen will continue to influence generations of musicians to come, and remains alive within his extraordinary musical cosmos!!



On December 5th he ascended with JOY through HEAVEN'S DOOR, in order to continue to compose in PARADISE with COSMIC PULSES in eternal HARMONY, as he had always hoped to do: You, who summon me to Heaven, Eva, Mikael and Maria, let me eternally compose music for Heaven's Father-Mother, GOD creator of Cosmic Music. May Saint Michael, together with Heaven's musicians in ANGEL PROCESSIONS and INVISIBLE CHOIRS welcome him with a fitting musical GREETING. On behalf of him and following his example, we will endeavor to continue to protect the music."

by: Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer; in the name of the world-wide family of musicians who love him, together with everyone who loves his music.

Iancu Dumitrescu - Pierres Sacrees / Harryphonies / Grande Ourse (1983 - 1991)

Pierres Sacrées (1991) 17'25''
[pour pianos préparés, plaques et objets métalliques]

Harryphonies (alpha) (1985) 18'10''
[pour contrebasse solo et ensemble]

Grande Ourse (1983) 15'30''
[pour deux bassons, piano préparé, percussion et bande]

Harryphonies (epsilon) (1986) 19'00''
[pour contrebasse solo et ensemble]

(all music composed by Iancu Dumitrescu and performed by the Ensemble Hyperion, except Harryphonies (epsilon) performed by RTV [Orchestre National de Romaine], directed by Losif Conta)

linkpart1 | linkpart2 @256

"Iancu Dumitrescu's music is spectral, is electroacoustic, but above all is a coherent totality grounded in a different conception. Of all living composers, Dumitrescu is the one who has most exploded sound. Dumitrescu's work is a negation, from the depths, of everything in contemporary music symptomatic of distraction, of banalization, and of a radical loss of purpose. His music is not a new convolution in the knot of modern music, but an unravelling of the curse.

Dumitrescu, composer, conductor and musicologist, was born in Romania in 1944. From the age of seven to twenty-two, he pursued conventional musical studies leading to an M.A. in Composition at the National Conservatoire in Bucharest. Towards the end of this period he met Alfred Mendelsohn, who introduced him to the music - then forbidden in Romania - of Schoenberg and Webern. A slight liberalisation of the regime beginning in 1968 catalysed a move towards more personal work amongst a group of composers that included Dumitrescu, Niculescu, Stroe, Vieru, and Olah. In 1973, Dumitrescu met Sergiu Celibidache, who made a profound impression on him and who introduced him to application of Husserlian phenomenology to music. In 1976, Dumitrescu founded the Hyperion Ensemble. With Ana-Maria Avram, he set up the Edition Modern record label in 1990.

Q: One of the first pieces I heard was Pierres Sacrées; I was very struck - as were many other people - by the sound of this music. It seemed quite unlike the usual sound of contemporary composed music. It had far more distortion, noise and violence. There seemed to be a shift away from stable fundamental frequencies, and a greater emphasis on the unstable aspects of sound. Do these characteristics of the sound have a special significance in your musical thinking?

D: First of all, you are quite right to say that there is this distortion, and secondly, it is absolutely deliberate. I myself was in a way surprised by it. When it first came - and during the development of this piece Pierres Sacrées there was a brief but intense period of experimentation out of which came this new sound - I wondered from what part of myself it had come. But I also knew that I needed it. You could say that this distortion in the sound comes from the attempt to release or unveil the god that is living in every piece of base matter. Pierres Sacrées placed me not only in the avant garde but also in the avant garde of deliberate and progressive use of distortion as an integral and necessary part of music...

On the technical level it comes from a kind of artisanal production. In Romania we had, and still have, a poverty and lack of equipment as compared with, say, IRCAM in Paris. Evidently - and this is not intended as a criticism - in the West, composers have at their disposal a massive array of technical possibilities. Unfortunately this tends to produce very conventional, very impersonal music. Music demands a process of introversion, of isolation and introspection. You have to go alone into your corner and concentrate. You can't be always looking around at what's happening, with your attention dissipated. But I don't want to say that this technology is inherently bad - simply that it was my fate to be poor."

in: interview from Tim Hodgkinson [AMM] to Iancu Dumitrescu (this article originally appeared in Resonance Volume 6 Number 1).

Friday, 7 December, 2007

Sakis Papadimitriou - Piano Oracles (1985-87)

"Mythology defines oracle as a ritualistic procedure that gives shape to unknown fears, joys, facts, knowledge... Oracle is a transformation of archetypal dreams into real life facts, of chaotic words to meaningful messages.
Call it a trip or a journey, music is always an oracle that gives form and image to everyday dreams. As an oracle, music has different meanings for different people producing feasts of the mind that start from an unknown world and continue in clear legible forms.
From improvisation to composition and back again: a style that describes life in its purest form. Sakis Papadimitriou combines original pianistic visions in these recordings, creating images that evoke memories of the past and the future, of the ancient and modern world alike. Making an aural movie in which he is the director and main actor at once. Having absorbed almost every aspect that has to do with pianistics, Sakis feels free enough to travel through every little corner of this world called "the piano", transmogrifying sounds of the keyboard or the strings to World Vibrations. We are listening to koto, zither, lute or everything human imagination has learned and is ready to feel and to know through knowledge or fantasy. Giving a human face to these products of the imagination is very easy for everyone: could be Monk or Tsitsanis, Beckettt or Ellington, depending on the listener's self-produced images.

These recordings, made in Athens and at the Le Mans Europa Jazz festival, were formerly available on the original LP "Piano Oracles."
by: George Charonitis _ Jazz & Tzaz magazine [cd liner notes]

Prologue and Ten Piano Oracles 31'45'' (1985)

1. 0'40''
2. 2'59''
3. 2'17''
4. 2'41''
5. 1'45''
6. 2'10''
7. 2'09''
8. 4'25''
9. 3'20''
10. 4'26''
11. 4'22''

BETA Oracles:
Le Mans Piano 22'32'' (1987)


Iannis Xenakis - La Légende d' Eer (1977)

La Légende d'Eer (1977-78) (47:04)
Electroacoustic Work for 7-channel tape


"Iannis Xenakis produced "La Légende d'Eer" in 1977 to celebrate the opening of the Pompidou Centre, that temple of the modern arts located on Beauborg Square in Paris. The 46-minute electronic work moves through a number of soundscapes. First there is soft ambience like one of Kaija Saariaho's "musical environments" (e.g. "Cloud Music", on a Petals disc). There is powerful fluttering designed by Xenakis for maximum impact on the ear, sweeping glissandos, sounds compressed down to a whistle and then expanded again. Whatever possibilities electronic means provide, Xenakis has used them. And yet, it's a much more accessible work than one would expect from the violent composer of "Metastasis" and "Nomos Alpha". Knowing that his piece was going to be played for a large Parisian audience, many of whom certainly didn't care about art music, sheer beauty seemed to be his overriding concern. But reading the booklet, with its description of Xenakis' design for the performance, really made me feel down. As Xenakis was an architect, he came up with a set that would truly complement the music: hundreds of mirrors, coloured lights, lasers. What a glorious experience it must have been to stand in the space and hear the music accompanied by such visuals. Indeed, the texts Xenakis put together to introduce the piece, by Plato (his "Legend of Er" from The Republic), Jean-Paul Richter, Pascal, and an astrophysicist writing on supernovas, mainly describe metaphysical experiences involving heavenly lights, multicoloured and infinite. It's quite remarkable how Xenakis, an atheist like much of the Darmstadt generation, was nonetheless intrigued by the idea of transcendence and the immortality of the soul. And yet, by just listening to this stereo audio recording, we miss out on the half of what Xenakis intended. [...] At least if you get MODE DVD which has the piece in surround sound, you get some of the spatial effects of this eight-track work."
by Christopher Culver

"[...] one of the most extreme electroacoustic music pieces ever produced in contemporary music. Our deepest respect to Iannis Xenakis, he lives eternally in his great music. "
by L. Vanessa



Also check comments for Grasprelease's share of a new mix for Eer. Many thanks for this.

Ryoji Ikeda - 1000 Fragments (1995)

"1000 fragments is a compilation recording released by CCI recordings of several pieces revealing Ikeda's unique sound work produced between 1985-1995. Over a decade of Ryoji Ikeda's artistic work is portrayed on this marvelous CD. For who only knows Ikeda's work from his classical frequencies album +/- (or ), will be surprised and astonished with this album. In the first half [Channel X - 85 to 95] one hears 7 small sound pieces that resemble small electroacoustic radio pieces, where Ikeda's sense of humor [right on the second track one hears a voice saying: "It's the most beautiful ugly sound in the world" and talent for acousmatic composition and sound manipulation is quite evident. Although one can grasp Ikeda's compositional brand on this small pieces [the interspersed chirurgic combination of low and hi frequencies, many times arranged in hypnotic and dense frequencies drone scenarios] here his goal is achieved by creating many different soundscapes and tainted sound-situations that create a delightful hearing experience for the sonic listener.

The second part, named 5 zones [94-95], is an half hour deep sound journey through a musical path of a minimal and progressive electronic sound composition, Ikeda's keen ear for sharp rhythms and "sound-plot abstractions" reveals a very interesting mix of psychoacoustic scenarios and ambiences full of synthesized sounds and field recordings.

Luxus [93] is the last piece and finishes this compilation CD in a royal fashionable way! It's a 16 min. amazing kind of walk into Light itself; it starts of with a sample of an intriguing (whimsical) sparse highly reverberating voice (from a choir ?) and then a synth major accord appears in a glissando and drony kind of way, developing a crescendo over time in intensity (attack & envelope) and entering in a extraordinary mix with the vocals and what seems to be violin or cello strings (synthesized?), the composition reaches its zenith into pure interior bliss resulting in a delightful hearing pleasure, passing on to the listener a deep relaxed state of mind as the composition fades away into silence on the last minutes...
After hearing "1000 Fragments" one understands why Ryoji Ikeda is one of the most impressive experimental electronic music composers."

review by L. Vanessa.

Channel X (1985-1995)

01 testone 0:06
02 trans-missions 1:36
03 this is a recording 0:50
04 radiorange 0:28
05 what's wrong? 0:58
06 holy wood 0:35
07 into the tranquility 3:04
08 all has been changed 0:37
09 abstructures 2:54

5 zones (1994-95)

10 zone 1 7:47
11 zone 2 4:51
12 zone 3 2:56
13 zone 4 6:50
14 zone 5 8:45

Luxus (1993)

15 luxus 1-3 16:18

Total 58:21

[note: this cd is originally mixed in a continuous play mode, T.A.O. (track at once) recording mode is advised with 0 seconds between the tracks]


linkpart1 | linkpart2 all@320