Articles

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RIP Ligeti



 Gyorgy Ligeti, Central-European Composer of Bleakness and Humor, Dies at 83 Gyorgy Ligeti, the Central European composer whose music was among the most innovative of the last half of the 20th century — sometimes eerie, sometimes humorous usually fantastical and always polished — died yesterday in Vienna. He was 83.

His family confirmed his death but declined to divulge the cause, saying only that he had been ill for several years.

Mr. Ligeti produced much of his pioneering music against the backdrop of a Europe in turmoil. Born into a Hungarian-Jewish family, he survived the Holocaust but lost his father and brother in it. With the war's end he felt Soviet repression and fled when liberal revolution was smashed.

Mr. Ligeti became widely known when extracts from his work appeared on the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968 and caught the public's fancy. The works — the Requiem, for voices and orchestra; "Lux Aeterna," for unaccompanied chorus; and "Atmospheres," for orchestra — are characterized by dense texture and very slow change. They were used in the film to suggest the desolation of the moon and the discovery there of a mysterious monolith. The music was not the film's well-known fanfare, composed by Richard Strauss, but it won Mr. Ligeti a worldwide audience.

The moon music was indicative of only one of his expressive modes, however. After fleeing Hungary in 1956, he also showed himself to be a master of a fast, mechanical and comic sort of music. Between these two poles — the "Clocks and Clouds," to quote the title of a later work, alluding to an essay by the philosopher Karl Popper — he created works of exuberant variety and range.

During the late 1950's and 60's, he was close to leaders of the European avant-garde like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez. He had always been more skeptical than others in that circle, but he still felt adrift when the rule of modernism began to break down in the 1970's. His initial response was a comic opera, "The Great Macabre," his most ambitious work, which was first produced in Sweden in 1978.

He had difficulty in regaining his creative direction after that, but the appearance in 1985 of his first six Etudes for piano signaled a return to vitality. The pieces were prompted in part by the wild, irregular rhythms and processes of Conlon Nancarrow's player-piano studies, and in part by Mr. Ligeti's ability to find new stimulation in recorded music from around the world, including that of Afro-Caribbean dance bands and Indonesian percussion orchestras. From all these sources he distilled his unique late compositions.

Fastidious and self-critical, Mr. Ligeti demanded high standards from those around him. But where he felt sympathy, he could be warm and generous. He knew his worth, but he did not make that a barrier between himself and life or let it dampen his curiosity.

"I am in a prison," he once explained. "One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape."

Gyorgy Sandor Ligeti (pronounced JURGE SHAN-dor LIG-ih-tee) was born on May 28, 1923. His family lived near Cluj (Kolozsvar to Hungarians), the principal city of Transylvania. The region was part of Romania then, and is now again, but in 1940 it was granted by fascist Germany to its ally Hungary.

The annexation seemed to have had little effect on the young composer at first. Between 1941 and 1943 he studied with two of the more important Hungarian composers of the post-Bartok generation, Ferenc Farkas in Cluj and Pal Kadosa in Budapest. He also wrote the earliest pieces he was later to publish, a pair of movements for piano duet.

But in 1943 his education was halted when he was drafted into a military labor corps to support the front-line Axis troops. Mr. Ligeti considered the conscription a lucky break, because it exempted him, as it did other Jews in the service, from deportation to concentration camps, a fate that befell his mother, father and brother. Only his mother returned.

In September 1945, Mr. Ligeti enrolled in the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied with Farkas again and with two other eminent members of the same generation, Sandor Veress and Pal Jardanyi. Life in the new socialist Hungary was propitious for a young idealist, and Mr. Ligeti was able to extend his creative horizons. But in 1949, when he graduated, the country fell under the grip of Stalinism. Only music that was optimistic and close to folk song had a hope of being published or performed.

Mr. Ligeti supplied works of this type, chiefly songs and choruses, while also taking a teaching position at the Liszt academy. The more radical works he was writing at the same time, like "Musica Ricercata" for piano (1951-3) or his First String Quartet (1953-4), had to be kept private.

Later, Mr. Ligeti spoke disparagingly of himself during this period as the "prehistoric Ligeti," emphasizing the lack of information in Hungary about artistic movements in the West, the moratorium in his country on modernism (even Bartok's modernism), and the compulsion to be upbeat and nationalist.

He left Budapest with his wife, Vera, a Hungarian psychiatrist, in December 1956, after the Russians had sent in tanks to crush the more liberal government of Imre Nagy. His destination was Cologne, where Mr. Stockhausen had arranged a stipend for him at the electronic music studio of West German Radio. At the age of 33, he was starting anew. The first works he produced in the West were electronic.

In 1959 he moved to Vienna, eventually became an Austrian citizen, and began "Atmospheres," whose first performance, in 1961, made his professional reputation. Though other composers, including Mr. Stockhausen, had begun to think in slow-moving sounds and tangled webs, Mr. Ligeti's orchestral mastery was unrivaled.

His sense of humor was also unusual. After "Atmospheres" came "Adventures" (1962) and "New Adventures" (1962-5), miniature operas for three singers who express themselves without words but very concretely, by means of musical gestures from a nonsensical phonetic text.

Crazy and comic, these works are also touching. The singers, deprived of language, bravely go on trying to communicate their fears, joys and jealousies. And in the sighs, moans and excited outbursts of Mr. Ligeti's music, they do so effectively.

In the Requiem (1963-5), he responded to the subject of death as both ominous certainty and black joke. The Requiem, with its depictions of damnation and pleas to avoid it, shows how much he had learned as a musician in Western Europe, and how much he had learned as a man who had lost his family in German concentration camps and had suffered severe creative strictures at the hands of Nazi occupiers and their Soviet successors.

Besides surveying its composer's past, the score includes something new: the pristine pleasure of simple intervals occurring within a complex context. Mr. Ligeti was then able to recover something of the sound of the Romantic orchestra in "Lontano" (1967), and gradually to elaborate a new harmonic-melodic language that was, as he liked to say, neither tonal nor atonal.
In 1971 he made a visit to San Francisco, where he was impressed by the music of Harry Partch, whose unconventional tunings began to have an effect on his harmony. He was also drawn to the work of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, to whom he paid musical homage in the middle part of his triptych "Monument — Self Portrait — Movement" for two pianos (1976).

In 1973 he took a teaching post at the Hamburg Music Academy and remained in Hamburg until a few years ago while always wishing, he said in an interview, that he were somewhere else. During those years his wife remained in Vienna with their son, Lukas, later himself a composer. Both survive him.

Mr. Ligeti's first big project in Hamburg was "The Great Macabre," whose subject was again death and the end of the world. Again, too, the subject was treated both as an awesome calamity and as a trick played on humanity. The opera had its premiere in Stockholm, where the composer and his music had found an eager audience since the 1960's. It was later produced in a revised version at the 1997 Salzburg Festival.

After "The Great Macabre," the Horn Trio of 1980 turned out to be a false trail in leading back to more conventional kinds of phrasing and form. Mr. Ligeti found a new path for himself in his first book of Etudes for piano (1985), whichd the door into a style of extreme virtuosity, both creative and re-creative, and for which in 1986 he received the Grawemeyer Award (at $150,000 the largest prize in classical music). Complex rhythms and dazzling speeds combined to produce music of wonder and wit, and he went on to write a second book of Etudes (1988-94) and begin a third.

Meanwhile he explored the implications of his new style on a broader scale in concertos for piano (1985-8), violin (1989-93) and horn ). A second opera, on the Alice books of Lewis Carroll, was long contemplated but not seriously begun. His last new work was his 18th Etude, "Canon" (2001). Soon after writing it, he returned to his wife's home in Vienna, where his health slowly worsened.

Mr. Ligeti's late works, fast and busy, are very unlike the music of "2001," but not so far from the compositions he had produced as a young man in Hungary. He was returning to what had always interested him: the scales and rhythms of Central European folk music, if now within a style of much greater sophistication. Long into his exile, what obsessed him was the notion of home.

As a man who grew up in Hungary under German and Soviet tyrannies, when home was exactly where you did not want to be, who moved to Western Europe after the Russians extinguished Hungarian independence, and who had been footloose ever since, Mr. Ligeti had no simple notion of where he belonged, and this feeling informed his work.

One movement in his Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano from 1982, for example, is composed, as he put it, of "an imaginary, synthetic folklore of Latin-American and Balkan elements"; another recalls "the Gypsy music which affected me so strongly as a child."

What, Mr. Ligeti asked himself, is being expressed here: "Nostalgia for a homeland that no longer exists?" And there he put his finger on something: home is not just a place, but also a time.

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Pateras/Baxter/Brown interview
Bob Baker Fish

PATERAS/BAXTER/BROWN

I did this email interview with Sean Baxter last weekend for the street press. They’re launching their new trio album Gauticle (on Synaesthesia) with Francis Plagne and Walls/Fusinato/Ambarchi at the Spanish Club in Melbourne this Sunday night. It’s a good lineup and the last show they’ll be doing for at least 6 months as Pateras is off overseas If you’re in Melb it will be well worth checking out, if not here’s a bit of context for the album:  


Bob: You’ve played together a lot more since you recorded the 1st album. Has this live experience altered much in the way you approached your second album

SB: Our second album was recorded on tour in Europe late in 2004. The first session was at the BBC and coincided with the start of the tour. At that stage, we had played intently in Melbourne, and the recordings from that session reflect, in many ways, some of the stuff we were doing then. Also, we were provided with some killer equipment, including and awesome Premier 24 inch kickdrum with an amazingly deep resonance. So the London sessions are a combination of stuff we were trying at home before the tour and explorations contingent on the equipment we were supplied and the acoustics of the studio we recorded in. The fact that the studio we recorded in was the same one used by Napalm Death for their Peel Session back in the late 80s early 90s was not lost on us by the way. The sessions recorded in Vienna, were more the result of what we had been exploring musically on the road in Europe. This session was recorded at Christoph Amann’s studio in Vienna about 2 weeks after the BBC session. By this stage, we’d played about 12 gigs in various countries throughout Europe on some vastly different equipment (great pianos and shit pianos, great bass drums and shit bass drums, etc, but all with unique properties). During the Vienna recording session, we were very aware that the quality of the instrument was not as important as the approach to preparing that instrument or applying varied extended techniques to it. So, we approached this session very much from a purely sonic level—how could the available sounds be integrated with one another, and how could we still create a coherent and musically identifiable Trio sound-world given the continuous variations in equipment? Similarly, we were excited to play on strange equipment because this allowed, or more precisely, forced us to explore new sounds and how they could be integrated into our group. I think it was this aspect, more than any other, which differentiates the second album from the first.


Bob: In fact has this or anything else altered what your original intention was for the project?


SB: Our original intention has not altered since we began. We’ve always been interested in exploring a shared sound world through extended technique. The idea being that that these three very familiar acoustic instruments, each with traditionally unique sonic identities, have been approached by us in ways where their sounds become very unfamiliar. All this to the point where it is often difficult to tell even which performer is producing which sound. Being forced to use unfamiliar tools has only compounded this desire and strengthened the original intent.


Bob: Can you talk briefly about the circumstances surrounding the second album, I understand you recorded in Europe.

SB: see above


Bob: Do you talk much before you play? Is there a set list of songs these days or is it still very much improvised? If it is how do you communicate any sense of parameters before you play?


SB: It is all still freely improvised on the spot. Occasionally, we will impose some parameters such as duration or structure. For example, in one set we might play three 15 minute improvisations all of which feature a solo at the end by each of us. So, one song will end with a piano solo, the next with a guitar solo, and the final song of the set with a drum solo, for instance. Apart from fairly general limitations like that, we strive to develop the pieces themselves, in the moment, through intense concentration and reactive listening.

Bob: The last few times I’ve seen you guys play I’ve been vaguely reminded of gamelan orchestras. Do you draw upon any references in the way in which you approach playing with the trio?


SB: Our sonic references are more abstruse than that, as are our individual and collective influences. We knew from the beginning that there would be this echo or reminiscence of the Gamelan because of the nature of preparing stringed instruments in the way that we do—namely in a very percussive manner where all sorts of microtonically pitched sounds were possible. Speaking for myself, I think that, in terms of timbre, we reference extreme forms of electronic, noise and classical music and are viscerally influenced by extreme metal including grind and doom. I think you can extract sonic references to these areas in any one of our performances,


Bob: How does the notion of improvisation apply to the trio? I remember certain gestures that you have repeated over the last few times I’ve seen you guys play, the dropping of the sticks, tearing the bowl apart  etc.

SB: Dropping the sticks and ripping the enamel bowls are just extra sounds in my palette. They are extra-percussive approaches I use to complement and echo sounds that both Anthony and Dave produce through preparations applied to their own instruments.


Bob: Is this the last show in Melbourne for a long time? How have you reconciled Pateras’ relocation?

SB: Yes, this will be the last Trio gig for at least 6 months. Pateras is in Berlin until October, and the Trio will tour Europe again in November/December. We will definitely try and play in the short window between him returning to Melbourne and us embarking on the next Euro tour. In the meantime, we just recorded a new record at the ABC with Chris Lawson on the weekend. So, musically, we’ve got plenty to keep us busy in the meantime.

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Pateras/Baxter/Brown - Gauticle
Francis Plagne

Being a family affair, mr plagne has (off his own accord) written a review of the new PBB cd. This will (i think) be published by the great foxydigitalis web magazine in the near future. I hope Mr Rose you do not mind us posting it here also.

Pateras/Baxter/Brown - Gauticle (syn019) cd

The Melbourne based trio of Anthony Pateras, Sean Baxter and Dave Brown use prepared piano, percussion and prepared guitar respectively to create an improvised music that focuses on the effacing of individual musical personalities in favor of rich ‘meta-instrumental explorations’ . On record, the simple act of identifying each instrument becomes almost impossible. Of course, many improvisers operating in the idiom that could be described as ‘post-AMM’ surrender their personalities to the ‘greater’ whole, so much so that this is one of the great cliches in speaking about modern improvised music. But while for many this process mostly involves a reduction both in volume and density, Pateras/Baxter/Brown are remarkable in that, while working with a sound so unified that its constituent parts are difficult to tell apart, they often work at both high speed and high volume, creating a unique, crackling, acoustic stream of sound. Their improvisations do not, however, mark a return to the ‘classic’ British improvisation sound exemplified by Evan Parker, Barry Guy etc. Rather than allow ‘natural’ dynamics to structure their pieces they have sought ways to join their respective instrumental sounds into a more unique whole. On their first cd, “Ataxia”, this took the form of (what sounds to me like) loosely composed structures, or central ideas to the individual pieces, where one track would be aggressive, another spacious etc. On “Gauticle” they have progressed to such a stage of instrumental interplay that compositions seem to create themselves out of thin air. All five pieces are roughly ten minutes long, and none are unified in vocabulary or (spontaneous) compositional technique. Each track sees the creation of many miniature structures, lasting between a few seconds and three or four minutes; repetitions of short phrases, homogenous textures (often percussive, in the upper ranges), sections of only one instrument alone.
There is a boldness to these miniature sections that was not present on ‘Ataxia’, with long stretches of near silence, abrupt stops and bursts of relentless acoustic noise interrupted regularly by quiet. Some sections (as ridiculous as this may seem) have the rare (for improvised music) flavor of aleatoric composition, as the individual parts combine in ways that, speaking strongly of the confidence of the players both as individuals and as a group, seem not to relate directly to one another in the way that was usually so important on ‘Ataxia’. The tennis match interplay of Ataxia’sng track “Bulbous” is still present but in a less linear form; often only two players involve themselves directly, while the other occupies a different space.

A good example of this sort of increased compositional confidence is evident on “Vienna Two” (three tracks were recorded in Vienna and the other two in London on the trio’s 2004 tour of Europe). The piece begins with Dave Brown performing an e-bow feedback solo (interestingly enough often the only sound, heard a few times throughout “Gauticle”, that breaks the illusion that one is listening to one gigantic percussion instrument), building to great intensity before Baxter and Pateras join in with cymbal scraping and a rising and falling two note prepared piano motif, making me think what the three piece AMM may have sounded like if they had concerned themselves with the palette they explored on “The Crypt”, before Pateras interrupts this steady movement with a quick Cecil Tayloresque phrase and it falls to silence, only to reemerge instantly in almost exactly the same form it had taken before that beautifully timed interruption.

“Gauticle” is an incredible document of an exciting (and perhaps revolutionary) improvising group who, rather than repeating what has been done for the last thirty years, are truly exploring the possibilities of group improvisation.

Francis Plagne

Many Ice cream vending machines have a touch screen front door. Most ice Cream vending machines have coin changers, and bill stackers. Generally, ice cream vending machines are decorated with striking accessories such as logos, side covers, hub caps etc.

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Brothers of Occult Sisterhood interview
stolen from a mailing list - published last year!

1. First of all, could you present Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood ? Who are the members, and what instruments do you use ?

We are primarily kristina and michael, also others may come and we may go.we use whatever instruments/devices we can.strings,percussion,electronics,found items,abused technologies,enchanted insects.we are all
nonmusicalchemulti-instrumentalists

2. You have released three albums which already show a great interaction between the different instruments and a nice cohesion : how and when the band was formed ? Did you "practice" a lot before recording the first album ?

We formed in late 2003,with the intention of creating musics based upon improvisation and experimentalism,hence we do not practice and consider every performance to be a valid manifestaion of our craft.the first album came from our first performance/recording session..there was no practice and very little discussion.when we play we focus heavily on ritualistc metaphores and ecstatic release .we see playing as a sacred act .

3. Listening to these albums, one can hear a lot of different styles/influences in them : of course, folk music -sometimes with a kind of oriental sound which reminds Robbie Basho- but also, drones, krautrock, jazz... It appears clearly that all these elements meet each other in a very natural way, so I guess your influences appear more unconsciously than consciously (not like if you were saying "ok, now let's play like Amon Düül II"). What is your process of writing ? Does everything comes from a few ideas or is it more prepared/written before recording ? How would you describe the places of composition and improvisation in your music ?

Being music obsessives has of course had a huge impact on our styles and the influeces you mention are all present. all songs begin as improvisations,but because our number is often small , we will repeat this process in layers
until a suitable vibrational depth is obtained.beyond that it can go either way....some tracks remain as pure improvistaions,all captured in single takes,while others are built upon in a more traditionaly composed
sense.there is no strict rule or purist pretention.

4. By looking at the artwork of "Animal Speak" and also by reading the song titles, it seems that there is a link to mythology: is there a relationship between your music and legends, or a sort of mystic/spiritual vision ? It seems also that the music is deeply linked to Nature, the wood is something very present... and just by looking at the titles of musicyourmindwillloveyou catalogue, it's a notion that seems to be shared by the others bands of the collective.
I also read that Kyogle is located in the south of Australia, in a region of forests : so, are you influenced by Nature ? Or in a more general way, do you consider that you are influenced by your
environment ?

There are no conscious spiritual intentions other than the obliteration of structure which we see as the great obstacle of true knowledge. We are indeed influenced by nature.the patterens,chaos and beauty that surrounds us is a limitless source of inspiration. Many trees and animals gather about our music making,they transfere minute
inflections into our soundings...birds and insects are always close at hand,making known the secrets of the woods. So yeah,i would say we are influenced by this part of the world.

5. Your music appears very polyrythmic : you are using drums and various percussions, often giving a sort of tribal atmosphere. This element seems to be very present in the music of several bands from Australia and New Zealand, like if it was an heritage from aborigen culture : do you consider that you are influenced by that ? And if yes, do you use (or maybe in the future) some traditional instruments (didgeridoo, clapsticks...) ?

We pursue the dillution of all instrumentation into rhythmic forms and all rhythm blurred into freedom....or the opposite....haha....sound must be made free. As far as being influenced by aboriginal culture,i think that we are
influenced by the same things that helped shape their culture,namely this ancient landscape and all her spirits and majiks. There are no traditional aboriginal instruments used by the brothers of the occult sisterhood yet,but one of the main elements in one of our other collective projects , 6majik9 , is the didgereedoo of nada baba.its a
powerfully grounding instument and we intend to fully explore its possibilities in the times to come.

6. There are a few vocal elements in your music (vocal samples, "psalms", sometimes you sing also). How do you see the place of the voice ? Is there a lot of "premeditation" or is it something you use instinctively, like any other instrument ?

The voice occurs naturaly within the context of the moment,no intention or design,we speak no language and seek to express meanings beyond understanding.the use of vocal samples is a tactic of deception and is
intended to confuse and misdirect the ear.

7. "Run from your Honey Mind", the record you've released on c-psi-p seems to be less based on melodies, more on delay effects, drones... It appears to me as the most experimental album among your three first records. Was it a way to express a totally different atmosphere ? Maybe, more tension ?

We didnt set about recording this disc with any real thoughts in mind.but i agree it has a sense of tension about it. Whatever we as individuals were going through at the time has obviously manifested itself in the music.

8. You recorded and mixed "Animal Speak". I'd like to know if you are doing this only for your own projects or do you produce (I mean, as a sound engineer) some records of other bands ? Also, I noticed the good quality of the sound definition, there's also a good balance between the different layers, which is pretty different from many bands in the
same style, who have a more "lo-fi" approach (like, for example, some records from Jewelled Antler). How do you see your work as a producer/sound engineer ?

As a sound enginer i work on most of the core material on our label, usually in cunjunction with the artists involved .
we are searching for sounds thatpathways , and will use whatever equipment we can get our paws on...analogue , digital , broken. I still love to work with lofi techniques but with botos we are trying to bring as much clarity to the chaos as posible...to bring it out into the light as such. Many of the other mymwly projects work within the lofi context , 6majik9 for example , record straight to four track via two strategicly placed mics

9. Nowadays, I have the feeling that there are a lot of very prolific bands... and sometimes, I think they are not very selective. In an interview, Neil Campbell (from Vibracathedral Orchestra) was explaining that his band was only releasing 10% of what they are recording. Do you record a lot of sessions ? And then, do you try to have a self-exigent behaviour, by being very selective on what you are going to release, or do you consider that a session is one moment among the others and "everything" deserves to be released so the listeners will see the evolution of your work better ?

Yeah..we record alot...but because its all improvised we really cant see that one peice is different to another..they are all valid manifestaions of the same pursuit in this sense we have no problem releaseing everything ,of
course we wont because that would be a waste of everybodies time,so only the bits we really like get released for wider consumption.

10. About concerts... Is it a place where you are still trying new things, or do you try to "focus" more on several elements you defined before going on stage ? Also, I saw that Damo Suzuki, during his perpetual world (or intergalactic, maybe!) tour, was recently in Australia : he performed with Oren Ambarchi, and you were also playing with him during one concert. I guess it must be very exciting to play with a phenomenon like him, how was the concert ?

Botos do not perform live at the moment due to a key members desire to remain apart from the wider community.i do however play live in several other projects.not completely dissimilar to botos,majik is the monster of
the collective..it has a floating membership and is more about the concept of the 'live ritual',also based on improvisation but has deeper roots in noise.

The damo show was truely mindblowing...it went beyond performance / music...into the realms of ritual and catharthis.damo is a shaman of the highest order....and we were honored and bewillered to have had such an
oppurtunity.

11. You are also involved in Terracid. How would you describe it ? Do you (you or the other members of BOTOS) have other side-projects ?

Terracid is more psych orientated,with a slightly heavier emphasis on composition.its an outlet for my obsessions with classic cosmic musical forms...krautrock,acidfolk and modern composition techniques,and getting toasted.

12. Last year, you launched your own label, musicyourmindwillloveyou. How would you describe its spirit/philosophy ? Is there an interaction (mutual artistic inspiration, spiritual influence...) between the different bands ?

hm....we needed an outlet for what we were doing.i have always been a huge fan of my friends and their art,i saw a need for us all to be unleashed upon the world. We are all heavily influenced and inspired by oneanother. as far as a philosophy, i think on (dinmuck#f) summed it up best many years ago with his scream into the void..'smash the control system!'

13. Your first release was a compilation, then you have released other ones. I feel that there's a real desire to show the works of the ensemble more than one band in particular. But do you also consider that "union makes the force" or in other words, do you think that, by doing like this, you'd get more chances to spread the music ? And was it inspired by recent collectives/labels such as Tower Recordings, 267 Lattajjaa, Jewelled Antler or Fonal ?

We hope to create a base of artists that can move freely amongst projects without the heavy burden of individual identity and personality.of course it is this very individalism that is the essence of any artist,but by loosening
the constraints of the ego we hope to unleash the delicate beauty of the cosmos.

I personaly was definately inspired by the likes of jeweled antler, acid mothers temple ect...and charles manson .

14. Talking about spreading the music, what is your point of view concerning the technology: I guess that the fact you can burn CDR releases helps a lot, but what about the Internet (from file sharing to blogs, webzines, mailing-lists, boards...) ? Do you think it plays a decisive role to export the music, particularly for you (I mean that, to me, it seems more difficult for nz/australian bands than for north american/occidental europe ones) ?

i think its great...people are free to trade and swap and do whatever they want with our music...im not sure if all the bands on our label would agree,but i for one see no problem with music being shared freely , i know i
have gotten a lot of incredible life altering music this way, that i would never have otherwise heard...and as an artist that is like a free education. And yeah,being lost in the australian wilderness can have its disadvantages
as far as making contact with like minded people and more recently the internet has had a huge impact on our level of exposure ect.

15. Who are the contemporary bands/labels you would consider as neighbours in terms of vision, style ?

There are many...but our oldest and deepest influence would have to be the japanese scene...bands like ghost and amt,the boredoms ect...labels like psf...all so honest and devoted to their art. And of course there are many current bands and labels we feel a kinship with...digitalis industries , jeweled antler , sunburned hand of the man,no
neck ect....and the whole new zealand scene has been a contsant soursce of inspiration,and more recently the fin scene ...so yeah.its all good.

Also, how did you enter in contact with Campbell Kneale from c-psi-p ? Same question for Digitalis/Foxglove, who seems to have ears in Australia as they already released an album of The Lost Domain, last year.

i sent campbell a demo and asked him if he was interested in releasing it, he was so it was all good. i was put in touch with brad from digitalis by mats gastufson of broken face after i discovered the music of the lost domain .



musicyourmindwillloveyou

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EYE AND EAR CONTROLLED AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVE NYC 19 May 11 June
Joel Stern

In May 2005, Joel Stern travelled to New York to attend 'Eye and Ear Controlled', a festival of films by composer/filmmakers held at Anthology Film Archive. This article reveiws the festival, focussing on the work of Tony Conrad, Mauricio Kagel, Alvin Lucier and George Manupelli. The article originally appeared in REALTIME in August 2005

Eye and Ear Controlled‚ at Anthology Film Archive, NYC 19 May ˆ 11 June

Anthology Film Archive is central to America‚s avant-garde film tradition, its history closely bound to successive generations of visionary‚ filmmakers, critics, artists and outsiders.d in 1970 by Jonas Mekas,
Anthology played a major role in establishing recognition and critical engagement for avant-garde film and 35 years on is more vital then ever, housing the worlds most important collection of avant-garde film material; ultra-rare film prints, negatives and incomplete fragments of work, plus prescribed and unprescribed medications, record collections and personal ephemera left behind by inspired artists like Harry Smith, Jack Smith and Maya Deren. At 82, Mekas is artistic director, with much of the running passed on to inventive and informed young cinephiles help negotiate
Anthology‚s ongoing place in the contemporary New York cultural scene.

Over three weeks in May and June, Anthology hosted Eye and Ear Controlled‚ films and talks, curated by Andrew Lampert and Jim O‚Rourke, featuring artists who infiltrated both the avant-garde film and music camps, making
compelling contributions to both. These include Tony Conrad, Alvin Lucier, Mauricio Kagel, Phill Niblock, Michael Snow, and Charlemagne Palestine. This article looks at Conrad, who is now well recognised in both worlds, and
Mauricio Kagel and Alvin Lucier who are primarily considered composers. All the artists were, in fact, moving freely and frequently between a number of forms. As Fluxus artist Dick Higgins wrote in ŒStatement on Intermedia
(1966) ŒA composer is a dead man unless he composes for all the media and for his world.

Conrad conceived of The Flicker (1965), his first film, as alternately, a science fiction film („but not the kind where people dressed as robots fall in love‰), a disruption of abstract art‚ and as ideosensory phenomena an
intrusion into interior spaces where totally different rules apply. Essentially The Flicker is a series of alternating pure black and white film frames projected in sequences of rapid acceleration and deceleration. Conrad wasn't the first to explicitly explore the approach, Peter Kubelka‚s Arnulf Rainer(1960)and Dwinell Grant‚s Colour Sequence (1943) are earlier examples, but where these are objects of cool‚ minimalist contemplation, Conrad‚s Flicker is deliberately aggressive and confrontational, specifically setting out to attack and distort the frame, which Conrad associated with abstract art. A faintly satiric epilepsy warning, stating a physician should be in attendance, was Conrad‚s tactic for weeding out squeamish, uncommitted spectators. In fact, very few have suffered the much feared fit, although
photogenic migraines‚, lasting a week, have apparently been more common. For all the fighting talk and mythologizing, experiencing The Flicker today is comparable to listening to Conrad‚s minimal music of the same period. Mesmerising, complex work operating along a minimal perceptual register, but hardly violent, dangerous or even as irritating to the senses as it might have been intended. The Buchla Synthesiser piece on the soundtrack was
directly inspired by Stockhausen‚s Kontakte (1960). A stream of stereo pulses shift in pitch according to the ear‚s proximity to speakers and the geometry of the listening environment. Conrad applied complimentary structures to sound and image producing a kind of phantom‚ synchronicity, afeeling of transsensoriality‚, the senses as connected channels or highways rather than isolated territories or domains.

Straight and Narrow (1970), Conrad‚s second flicker piece, untangles the eyes and ears into clearer disrelation. A raucous Terry Riley/John Cale jam accompanies what Conrad describes in his introduction as structural film
gone funky. Just like a mobile Bridget Riley, Straight and Narrow uses black and white stripes to produce uncanny spinning shapes and colour bursts. The music gives the film a euphoric psychedelic edge, in contrast to
the unflinching Morse code austerity of The Flicker. Conrad‚s other abstract films are less known but equally interesting. Film Feedback (1972) is an experiment in instant filming, developing, projecting and refilming, all on
a continuous 14 minute strip. The technical process is barely fathomable but what results aesthetically, is a particularly fragile meditation on rerecording, degeneration and time, a silent companion to Alvin Lucier‚s
piece for voice and tape recorder I am sitting in a room‚ (1969). Eye of Count Flickerstein‚ (1967) is another silent study, of TV static in wiggly microscopic detail. Projected large on a new luminous print, it is stunning.

The highlight of the Conrad series, however, is Coming Attractions (1970), the only feature film. Conrad‚s filmmaking start came through Jack Smith; he soundtracked Scotch Tape (1962) and worked on Normal Love (1963). In Coming
Attractions, Conrad borrows Smith‚s trademark unhinged aesthetic delirium and his actor from Flaming Creatures (1961), Arnold Rockwood. Conrad is credited producer‚, his wife Beverly Grant on directorial duties, however
who did what is impossible to discern as the film is so completely manipulated, bizarre, and manifestly incoherent. Ostensibly an exploration of the relation between extreme formal and narrative devices, Coming Attractions consists of trashed and hysterical stars‚, filmed in Tantacolor‚, rambling, screaming and writhing through a set of radically
skewed orgiastic trailers‚ (ie. coming attractions). Conrad physically altered the footage so much that he saw Coming Attractions not as a film, but rather as many fragments of film in various stages of preparation. The sound is brilliantly collaged from unreleased pieces commissioned‚ by Conrad and performed by LaMonte Young, Terry Riley, John Cale and Charlemagne Palestine amongst others, highlights being Young‚s slow-motion vocal impression of a lonesome cowboy, and the bleating group performance, sacred shriek symphony.‚

Conrad‚s characteristic irreverence is on full display for the disarmingly charming and entertaining lecture/performance, Filmmaking as a Critical Intervention. Sitting cross-legged on stage amidst papers, projectors, food,
and cooking utensils, he reflects insightfully on the development of ideas on film, music and culture, acknowledging the early influence of Henry Flynt‚s anti-cultural activism at Harvard and in New York, through to the domestic‚ qualities of life at the Media Lab in Buffalo, where Conrad moved in 1972 along with filmmakers Paul Sharits and Hollis Frampton. Creative domestic‚ life is demonstrated in Curried 7302, a beautiful film made in the traditional Indian manner. The faded orange hue of the print suggests it might have been a mild Korma. In Bowed Film, a loop of celluloid stretches between Conrad‚s head and the floor and he enthusiastically describes the private screening experience to the bemused audience. The effect is enhanced with vigorous violin bowing, the film apparently dances, and the sound is a monstrous multiphonic wailing. Throughout the lecture Conrad prepares Sukiyaki, an exquisite Japanese noodle dish, mixed with pieces of antique film. Sukiyaki is projected‚ according to the Latin meaning, to cast
forward‚. The anthology screen ends up splattered with vegetables, noodles, sauce, and various length fragments of film. Conrad apologises profusely to the staff whilst everyone applauds.

The Dr Chicago films, directed by George Manupelli, have been whispered about for years, but rarely seen. Manupelli and Alvin Lucier, with Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley, were key players in the Once Group in Ann Arbor,
Michigan (Manupelli also founded the Ann Arbor Film Festival) and although the associated music has been widely circulated, not so Manupelli‚s films. The prints screened at Anthology are in fact the only in existence, having
been rescued, thankfully in fairly decent condition, from lab storage. Manupelli, Ashley (who designed the sound) and Lucier take turns introducing, sharing witty anecdotes on the spontaneity and drunkenness that fuelled the films. Lucier reveals the crippling embarrassment he still feels when seeing himself on screen, and, indeed, sitting a row in front of me, I hear him groaning and cringing through his scenes. He needn‚t have worried. Uncannily resembling a young Dennis Hopper, Lucier is a revelation as Dr Alvin Chicago, the charismatic but deluded sex-change surgeon running from the law. Dr Chicago (1968), the first film, is all luscious black and white cinematography, full of subtly ludicrous monologues delivered by Lucier to his mostly drowsy and silent entourage of troubled young women. Ride, Dr. Chicago, Ride (1970) sees the Dr. and his gang befriending itinerant nomads (including composer Pauline Oliveros) in the deserted wastelands near the Mexican border. The third instalment, Cry, Dr. Chicago (1971) takes place in a Riviera villa, with Chicago repeatedly poisoned by his nemesis, a confused and bad tempered French playboy. Remarkably the bugged black jellybeans have no effect. The pace of the films will be familiar to those who appreciate Lucier‚s music, a slow creeping logic and humour built upon the placement of gestures across the mostly empty space of the films‚ narrative. Indeed, Lucier‚s whole delivery is intensely musical; he feints, stutters, pauses
and picks his way through sentences, flirting with resolution, establishing an unstable, hypnotic logic. The gentle cumulative absurdities of the films make them enjoyable on multiple levels; almost Tati-like in tone, they are
intensely funny without ever being directly comic.

Mauricio Kagel's anti-establishment pedigree as a composer is well recognized in avant-garde circles, however surprisingly few realise that he has also made over twenty films in which his signature themes; absurdist physical theatre, psycho-religious reverie, and the gleeful parody of high cultural seriousness, are explored in abundance. Screenings outside of Germany, where most of the films were made, have been almost non-existent, a remarkable fact considering their evidently unique brilliance. Solo (1967) features three deranged orchestra conductors staggering aimlessly amidst the rubble of an abstracted classical theatre. The only sounds are their demented humming, the swish of frantic baton waving, and the inadvertent impact of collision with percussion objects and discarded instruments strewn across the set. Duo (1967) is more complex and reflexive, a meticulously
conceived surrealist play on chance, nonsense, fragmentation, and improbable synchronisation, strung together with detuned scrapes, plucks and thuds from various instruments and non-instruments. Duo culminates with its characters
wandering into a theatre in which Solo is screening, and wildly improvising along with it until the two films merge and collapse in hallucinatory flashes of light and ripped celluloid. If Solo and Duo possess their share of abnormality, they pale in comparison to Hallelujah (1968). Beginning inside anscreaming mouth, the camera lolls outward into a psychotic world of ritualised hysteria. This might be Kagel‚s grand statement on the disintegration of meaning, an advocation of animal impulses and mass incoherence. Kagel constructs spectacles of perverse choreography between bodies, spaces, and objects (often music instruments). In the end, it is hard to describe them as anything other than serious cacophony.

Eye and Ear Controlled‚ presented an extraordinary opportunity for audiences to experience significant but rarely screened work, in an environment rich with history and mystique. Conrad, Lucier, Manupelli, Ashley, Michael Snow and Phill Niblock all attended and helped generate an atmosphere of relaxed intimacy without any of the unnecessary formal pretension that a museum or major institution would undoubtedly have brought to the event. Very few cities would have the resources to stage an event like this outside of the institutional scene, and, as always, New Yorkers
are the infuriatingly lucky ones.



anthology film archives

_
ENTER CAR DOOR, EXIT AMBULANCE
Jamie Hume

For those who don't me my name is Jamie Hume and I play metal percussion in the six piece Brisbane free-noise outfit The Perfect Lovers. On December 12 2004 we played at the Straight Out Of Brisbane Closing Night/Zed Birthday Party at the SOOB Festival, 35 Misterton St, The Valley. I little suspected that a bizarre set of circumstances would see me in hospital that evening. During the course of proceedings an audience member spontaneously joined in on metal percussion and the metal bar wielded by him bounced off the car door striking me around the left eye area resulting in bruising, swelling, trauma, bloodloss & a torn eyelid. After I was struck Chris Nylstoch put down the bar and carried down to the bar area where I was tended to by various Zedders and SOOBers. After they finished playing for another 3-4 mins after I was struck my bandmates came down. Marek(Rygielski-gtr) brought my mobile and Rin (Healey- vcls) took my metal gear. Chris accompanied me in the ambulance with Michael
(Baker-kbds) following in his car. I was taken into the casualty ward where at one point Michael & Chris were actually allowed in to see me. Marek, Adam
(Park-bass) and George(Staines-The Deveraux) also waited a couple of hours for me along with Michael & Chris. The latter two stayed till midnight seeing me before they went. It took me ages to be attended too. At one point I started shivering but a kindly nurse got blankets for me and let me sleep. It was very early morning when I was finally treated. Due to the nature of the injury my eyelid had to be skin-glued back into place without anaesthetic, after they washed the blood off my face. After it was done I washed the blood off my hands (it also ruined a good shirt) and contacted Michael who came and got me. I was discharged at 3.34 AM. My eye remained swollen shut for a number of days after when it finallyd again on Thursday morning. But even after that I had to keep it shut due to the fact that vision became blurred and fractured when I tried to use both eyes. By Thursday the following week I was able to use both eyes again but due to sensitivity to bright electrics and direct sunlight I had to wear sunglasses for a time. Full vision was restored in the New Year.

Now for your pleasure here are the various black jokes I made about the incident in postings on the Morphine "zine" from December onwards with a whole heap of new ones. Enjoy!:

Here is the soundtrack to Incursion 16( lights were flashing):

"Shellshock" - New Order
"Black Eye" - The Standing 8 Counts
"I Bleed" - The Pixies
"Insight" - Joy Division
"Accidents Will Happen" - Elvis Costello
"Kotton Krown" - Sonic Youth
"Hospital" - The Modern Lovers/John Henry Calvinist/John Lee Spider "One Eyed" - The 3Ds "Shell Shocked And Wounded" - Hyascinthrash/Manic OPera 'Since The Accident' - Severed Heads "I See A Darkness" - Bonnie Prince Billy

Blur
The Black-Eyed Susans

Favourite Boredoms member:Yamatsuka Eye

Like "Dirty Dancing 2" here is the cash-in follow-up:

"Torn" - Natalie Imbruglia
"Flesh And Steel" - SPK/The Flying Lizards
"Stabbed In The Face" - Wolf Eyes
"Blood On The Floor" - Throbbing Gristle
"Destroyed Cell" - Einstuerzende Neubauten
"Blinded By The Light" - Bruce Springsteen(covered by Manfred Mann's Earth
Band)
"Accidentally Misterton Street"(Frente cover)
"The Bright Light" - Tanya Donelley

Nurse With Wound
The Darkness

Label: Black Eye Records

More cheap and tawdry exploitation,the ltd ed bonus disc:
"The Reflex" - Duran Duran
"The Atrocity Exhibition" - Joy Division
"I Scream" - The Hummingbirds
"Wave Of Mutilation" - The Pixies
"Dead Eyesd" - Severed Heads
"Kaleidoscope World" - The Chills
"Senses" - New Order
'Sonic Nurse' - Sonic Youth
"Shivers" - The Boys Next Door
'Bruise' - Various Artists
"Bedroom Eyes" - Kate Cebrano

Britney Spears
Bloodloss
Spear Of Destiny
The Walking Wounded

Label:Squint Fucker Press
Movies:The Big Chill,Visionquest(aka Crazy For You)
Short Story:Eyes


The extra tracks on the CD single:

"Murder On The Dancefloor" - Sophie Ellis Bextor
"Broken Face" - The Pixies
'Collapse' - Einstuerzende Neubauten
"Caesar's Cold" - Died Pretty
"Fall" - The Jesus And Mary Chain
"Love Like Blood" - Killing Joke

Wham

Novel:"Crash" by J.G. Ballard

The second single B-Sides:

"Kick In The Eye" - Bauhaus
"Burning Spear" - Sonic Youth
"Glam To Wham" - The Takeaways
"My True Love's Blood" - The Screaming Tribesmen
"Seeing Double" - The Shy Imposters(covered by The Mark Of Cain) "Perfect Lovers Eyes"(Shuriken cover)

The Scream
The Fall
The Nightcrash
Collapsicon

The hidden tracks:

"Blue Eyes" - Elton John
"The Blood That Moves The Body" - A-ha
"Seconds" - The Human League
"Ow!" - Smegma
"Raining Blood" - Tori Amos(cover of Slayer's "Reign In Blood") "I See You" - Juliana Hatfield
"(The) White Room" - Tycho Brahe/Zoffy
"(I'm) Cold" - The Cure
"Doctor!Doctor!" - Thompson Twins
"Vision Of You" - Belinda Carlisle
"State Of Shock" - Mick Jagger & Michael Jackson
"Sleep" - The Smiths
'The Sound Of Impact' - Big Black

My Bloody Valentine
Burning Spear
Angelblood

Club:Ward 10B

TV Shows:Casualty,General Hospital,The Young Doctors.

Doctor Who story:Spearhead From Space


Tracks spread across various formats of the third single:

"Rebound" - Sebadoh
"Headwound" - Dogmachine
'The Final Cut' - Pink Floyd
"My Bloody Valentine" - Ratcat
"Disappearer" - Sonic Youth
"Cover Me" - Bruce Springsteen
"Gluey Gluey" - Tall Dwarfs

Mute~til~late
GBH
Registered Nurse
Discharge

Labels:In The Red,Shock

Sandman character:Delerium


And here are some previously undiscovered out-takes

"Baby Blue Eyes" - SPK
"Come Undone" - Duran Duran
"Dazed And Confused" - Led Zeppelin
"Vanishing Point" - New Order
"Darkness" - The Human League
'Screaming Fields Of Sonic Love' - Sonic Youth"
To Look At You" - INXS
"Blindness" - The Fall
'Car Door,Car Door'(Boys Next Door cover album)

Inca Eyeball
Blood Stereo
Bright Eyes
The Emergency
M.I.A
Hospital


"Thanks to my bandmates and Chris Nylstoch for being there,the various SOOBers & Zedders who attended to me and expressions of concern & support during and afterwards from Grace Nye,Kath Quigley,Dani Kirby, Lucy Nicholas, Harriet Hudson, Carloyn Harris, Joel Stern, The Grey Daturas,Riva Bohm, Bonnie Hart, George Staines, Kate Geck & Melanie Fulton of Toxic Lipstick, Peta McCorry, Libby Noble and various others I've forgotten. Aw, I'm touched I really am."

thedetailthedetail

_
THUG
BaronCarlos

THUG: (taken from: http://www.everything2.com)

See: Thuggee

"thug" is also a: user
(person) by BaronCarlos (3.6 mon) (print) ?
Sat Nov 13 1999 at 9:03:54

An individual, who is usually hired to take care of an individual's
(owner's) heavy work.

Often used to enforce one's racketeering, and extortion with muscle and threat of physical harm.

Name of a Sydney band from the late 1980s/early 1990s, made up of Tex Perkins, Peter Read and Lachlan McLeod.

Famous for their bizarre, electronic noise which was one part confronting, one part humorous, and one part plain silly. Most famous song was titled "Fuck your dad" which included the following lyrics:

He's over there
He's looking good
Do it now
Fuck your dad

www.everything2.com