Fun with Nuns on stage for another sonic assault, prepare!
31st of May @ Department Of Music Studies of A.U.T.H. university. Their act will be part of a Cage-ian Musicircus. No more info on other appearances, if you have any drop me a line.
A casket full of aural oddities, this is the title of a new merzbau post series, inaugurated by the present one. I could have started a separate blog for these [I've seen others doing so] but I chose to stick with my current entity. Merzbau after all was, is and will remain a casket full of oddities.
There is no clear line to separate what belongs to these series and what not. Generally small run releases limited or not, sonic products on which little, fuzzy or incoherent information is available, outsider sound art, found music and in general everything dmtls considers obscure or weird enough will find its place here. Frequently bought in large volumes and/or rather cheap, found in all places possible these recordings have a special beauty of their own.
The idea for these posts came after a package was received from Finland, a package I could only describe as A casket full of aural oddities.
Presented here are two cdrs from the aforementioned package.
Paraffin Affiliates is [or was, unsure about their current state as the last signs of their existence found over the net, date five to six years ago] a Finnish free jazz impro/noise unit. Our music is noisy and furious, and yet intuitive. It is more a question of variations in intensity than of structure says Joonas Virtasalo, clarinetist of the band and he is putting his finger exactly on how Paraffin Affiliates works sound like. Squeaks and skreaks, noise and chaos. Wild free improvisations featuring clarinet, guitars, bass, drums and even accordion in a couple of tracks, make for a study of variations in intensity while retaining that little something [structure of some kind?] that keep these recordings from falling apart , from making another dull noise statement
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Shopping for records and cds in Berlin can prove really fruitful.
Starting chronologically. The first ’boutique’ record store I visited during my very first hours in Berlin was the ‘notorious’ newly opened Staalplaat store, home also of Staalplaat label. Unusual and rather artistic in its approaches and tastes. Browse around while stumbling on variety of weird objects, rest you eyes on peculiar wall paintings and of course look everywhere [from old fridges and drawers to just plain selves for every audible curiosity you may or may not imagine. Alga Marghen boxes and cds, Col Legno, ridiculously small pressings of home productions, French avant-rock, PSF + other Japanese beauties, Luc Ferrari, Merzbow, Legendary Pink Dots, Evan Parker and a whole lot more.. Serve yourself a cold beer from the fridge and make sure that you have lot of time to spend.
Check pictures:
Address: Torstraße 68, 10119 Berlin
Opening hours : Tue-Sat: 14.00-19.00
On the end of an alley, out of the dreams of an urban fetishist, lies the entrance to Neurotitan. Up a couple of floors using the stairs, walking by tattered and painted walls you reach the store. Not simply a record store but literally an art store. Featuring small edition books and magazines, comics and unique art pieces along with records and cds. There is also a separated space used as gallery equipped with a bar. Sparse furniture and open spaces, feels like a loft. Concerning music there is an expectable selection ranging from extreme electronics and noise, to improvisation and industrial. Look closely for some rare specialties. A lot of gabba and breakcore on wax. Shop around to your heart's content and rest assured that everything you buy is or feels unique.
Check pictures:
Address: Rosenthalerstraße 39, 10178 Berlin
Opening hours: Mon-Sat: 12.00 - 20.00, Sun: 14.00 - 19.00
[gelbe] Musik
Far from uber-hip Mitte [as if wilfully, to make a statement] [gelbe] Musik can be found. As minimal as it gets starting from the plain sign that reads Musik to the inside of the store neat, simple and tidy. Home of the ’serious’ avant-garde. Its boxes and selves are crammed with old magazines, books, cassettes, vinyl records and of course cds [most of them due to their volume are available only as booklets for browsing] of intellectual music, contemporary composers, free improvisation releases and some Fluxus audio documents. There is also a decent selection of ethnographic audio recordings and even some early music. You can of course hear to anything that interests you while looking for more. In case you are the only customer at the moment [probably not only then] you can enjoy what you have already chosen not through restricting headphones but on the shop’s speakers for complete freedom of movement. Owned and run by Ursula Block, whom you can see working on her sleek ibook one moment and the other one hear her typing on her typewriter. A visit to [gelbe] Musik is more than essential, dmtls was impressed.
Check pictures [dmtls 'on the work']:
Address: Schaperstraße 11, 10719 Berlin
Opening hours: Tue-Fri: 13.00-18.00, Sat: 11.00-14.00
There is no website but there is an email gelbe[dot]musik[at]berlin[dot]de for mailorder.
Finally there is KutlurKaufhaus Dussmann. It is your one stop for everything from books and DVDs to music. A huge, multileveled store open from 10.00-24.00 daily except Sundays. A big selection of everything you might ask with a lot of ‘New Music’ titles on separate department found on the classical floor. Not really that cheap when it comes to common editions and releases [compared to other chain record stores / super markets] but with many many interesting titles in its inventory. There is also a cafe that might [probably] come in handy.
Address: Friedrichstraße 90, 10117 Berlin
There is also Cover, advertised as the biggest used cd and records seller/buyer in Berlin. Not really impressive on cd collection, nor on vinyls. There are although many ‘classic’ classical and opera vinyls rather cheap and a fairly good choice of hardcore/punk and techno/electronic on wax. For some cheap cds [seen cheaper] you should try one of the Saturn chain stores. Lastly you can always try your luck in flea markets.
dmtls reporting from Berlin part 1.
Free jazz-noise-improvisation collective from Greece. No fixed line up as anyone is free to join and blow his guts out. Absurdism and dada seem to be sacred and profane values for the deviant nuns. Imagine Borbetomagus, Smegma and Art Ensemble of Chicago along with Zorn at his extremes doing their tricks all together, throw some Murray, Ulmer and Ra in the melting pot, add some solid noise and industrial influences [a bit on the ritual side] and you have a jam for ‘pataphysics seminar. Unfortunately there are still no releases available from nuns but you can enjoy them over @ their myspace.com page, funwithnunsinspandex.
Stay tuned I can hear great things coming.
A series of four 55 minute films shown on Channel 4 TV in the UK in early 1992. To say this was the best and most intelligent analysis of improvisation to be screened on UK television is probably unnecessary: it has in all likelihood been the only televised programme on this form of music-making. Written and narrated by Derek Bailey, produced and directed by Jeremy Marr, it developed out of the first edition of Bailey’s book on improvisation (the broadcast almost coinciding with the publication of the second edition) and attempted to provide a world-view of the subject, not being bound by country, musical genre or preconception.The four programmes were:
* 1: Passing it on
Broadcast 2 February 1992 this programme featured: Douglas Ewart at Haynes School in Chinatown, Chicago; improvisation in Mozart with Robert Levin, piano and the Acadamy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood; John Zorn and Cobra; improvisation in religious and devotional music and communities with: Naji Hakim - organ improvisations in Paris; Gaelic psalm singing on the Scottish Isles of Harris and Lewis; and Indian singing with Pundit Hanuman Misra.
* 2: Movements in time
Broadcast 9 February 1992, tracing the effects of migration on improvising links across continents and the production of new styles from the combinations: qawwali from the Sufis in New Delhi, Northern India; Hindu music of Rajistan with Ram Narayan; early medieval music performed in Andalucia by Symphony (Stevie Wishart, Mark Loopuy, Jim Denley); improvisation in dance with: Mario Maya, flamenco; Indian kathak mime and movement; and Egyptian gypsy music; the mixture of Cuban music and jazz with Eddie Palmieri.
* 3: A liberating thing
Broadcast 16 February 1992, concentrating on jazz based and free improvisation. With Max Roach at the Harlam School of the Arts; Butch Morris conducting (with, among others, Shelley Hirsch); Sang-Won Park and Korean music; Max Eastley’s sound sculptures; Derek Bailey (solo and fleetingly with Phil Wachsmann, Steve Noble and Alex Ward); Steve Noble and Alex Ward duo; Nashville musicians including Buddy Emmons; Eugene Chadbourne.
* 4: Nothin premeditated
Broadcast 23 February 1992, with Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead; Buddy Guy; George Lewis and computers (and in quartet with Douglas Ewart and sound and video generation); mbira music from Zimbabwe; music of the Tonga people; concluding with a house party on the Lower East side.
See Part 1 and 3 @ the treasure-trove called UBUWEB
If anyone has the rest, dmtls would be very happy to hear from him/her.
*Edit:* Part 2 available @ dailymotion.com . Thank you very much kji!
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Now playing: Paul Roland & The Hellfire Club - Walter The Occultist
via FoxyTunes
It’s been 10 days since last post. Days passing. More reading needed. Nothing on tv [as always], no interest for most things. No meaning. A period of long days and nights, just breathing stale air. Got to get out of it soon.
Got Ornette’s Of Human Feelings a couple of days ago. I was blown out. Until last Tuesday I had the strong belief that free-jazz/funk was not the thing for me. Of Human Feelings proved that I was wrong. For sure not an average pick from the lot, it is a great release, maybe one of the greatest in this genre. Not having heard that much of it, I am sure Ornette came up with a milestone [of all his work in similar vein this is the most highly praised]. A beautiful cover, Japanese only release [at least on cd, to my best knowledge] and full of energy. “All killer no filler”. It may be a little expensive to get hold of but it worths it.
Nefertiti by Miles Davis is another cd for the days past. ‘The fourth and final all-acoustic studio installment from the famed mid- to late- 60s Miles Davis Quintet [Davis, Shorter, Hancock, Carter, Williams]‘. All music on Nefertiti was composed by others than Miles, but every single tune bears the sign of his mastership. Buy it for Fall [Wayne Shorter] alone.
Two more were Live Evil [electric Miles] and Brotzmann’s solo Nothing to Say. Still not listened to first properly. The last one sounding a little bland, I dare to say. Yes it ‘masculine, it is ‘brutal’ but on the first spins I had the feeling of ‘I know this, I have heard it before’. Maybe it is the first impression, maybe not. Surely of a high standard and faithful to the European flavored free music of FMP, not at all a bad record, not also that ‘revolutionary’ though.
It is over two weeks now I have a closed envelope containing a cd that arrived from ebay. That is a record for me. Not a cd still sealed left untouched, not another cd left unheard but a cd still in the envelope it came within. Having already achieved a cult status, I plan to open it on a special occasion.
Not reading books. Just browsing magazines.
Only one film seen. Flic Story, Alain Delon and Jean-Louis Trintignant. A classic French crime/drama/gangster film. I have a soft spot for these movies and this one did not disappoint me at all. Great atmosphere and a swinging Bolling score.
Waiting for more mail to arrive. My only joy for the time being.
Oh and two more songs. Obscure, dirty and simply amazing. Late 70s post-punk to hit the dance floor. Hear and enjoy. [found in Mutant Sounds archives].
Taken both from 7″s. No info about DNV. Quads formed in 1978 in Birmingham,UK. Their single, There Must be Thousands is one of the 140 favourite records, which the great John Peel carried around with him in a box. Nothing more to add.
P.S. Go and get Sebastian Gandera’s cassette “Un Soir…” over@ continuo’s blog. If you are in or close to the mood of this post’s first two lines it will serve as a fitting soundtrack, especially a favourite from it, Un Soir… II .
P.S.2 Also do not forget to check Salah Ragab’s - Latino in Cairo . Perfect afterplay, following long synth-melancholy sessions like Un Soir [found via orgy in rhythm].
I am currently working on a new forum. It will hopefully be a discussion board for all things merzbau blog deals with. For starters there will be two main sub forums focusing on the works of Hermann Nitsch and Jani Christou. I am waiting for your feedback on this. Please send me any suggestions you might have in order to make this new forum an interesting meeting place. Anyone willing to help is more than welcome.
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Stay tuned tomorrow for Logothetis cd 2/2
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Now playing: Les Rallizes Dénudés - Night of the Assassins
via FoxyTunes
Episode from The South Bank Show, a long running UK tv series. Aired March 12, 1989.
Documentary on the New York experimental scene focusing on John Zorn and Sonic Youth. I’ve seen references to a 75 minute version that also features performances from The Ambitious Lovers and Hugo Largo, neither of which feature in this version. John Zorn talks about the gestation of “Spillane” and is seen performing at a rehearsal space and at the Knitting Factory with Spy Vs. Spy. Sonic Youth perform in a rehearsal space and in an industrial building of some kind, and are interviewed/filmed in various New York locations. They discuss the NY experimental music with John Cale, and goof around a lot. Both artists are commented on by various NY contemporaries, including Lydia Lunch, Glenn Branca, Ikue Mori, and Christian Marclay.
A must see.
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Now playing: Les Rallizes Dénudés - The Last One
via FoxyTunes
Here is an e-book on Albert Ayler called: Albert Ayler: His Life and Music, by Jeff Schwartz
Note:There are more interesting works by Jeff Schwartz also available online
see:
Jeff Schwartz is also a musician. Put in his own words, My primary instrument is the contrabass, and I work mainly in jazz, improvisation, and experimental music. I double bass guitar if asked and have played guitar seriously in the past. …
You can hear his works on his myspace page and on soundCommons
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Now playing: Albert Ayler - Holy Family
via FoxyTunes
