95 summer 2006
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FEATURE ARTICLES:Negativland: America’s pre-eminent radio-art and satire group’s latest production
By Gregory Preston and Gayle Young
Article Summary: In May of 2005, Negativland performed the world première of It’s All in Your Head at Kitchener’s Open Ears Festival and again at Toronto’s Deep Wireless Festival. While the band is known primarily for its challenges of copyright law, member Peter Conheim here discusses their work as musicians, the influence of radio, and their opinions on “the ultimate enemy of mankind,” American neo-conservatism. Negativland’s current audio collages are deeply rooted in Don Joyce’s KPFA radio program Over The Edge, from Berkley, California, and many old-time radio techniques are incorporated in their live performances. On stage they use standard audio playback equipment, home-made electronic gear, and vintage equipment, such as analogue cart machines originally designed to play radio advertisements and now used as tools for exact real-time audio collage.
David Mott: A heart connection
By Tilman Lewis
Article Summary: It is commonly accepted that music has
energy—music is vibratory, and vibration has energy. The
emotional intensity of a passionate performance communicates
more energy than cold, mechanical playing. Composer-saxophonist
David Mott proposes a radical expansion of the statement that
music has energy: music is energy. While “music has energy” can
include the impact of vibration upon matter “music is energy”
includes music’s impact upon consciousness as well. It implies a
direct experience of music—or of nada brahma, a Sanskrit term
for the manifestation of the Divine in sound—which occurs with
immersion in the energy of the moment. In the unity of that
immersion, feelings of self and other disappear. The composer’s
task is to enable the performer to realize the state of “music
is energy.”
Music Is Energy: The divine sound in live music
By David Mott
Article Summary: In a personal and sometimes humorous
interview in the basement of his karate studio, David Mott talks
about some themes from his article “Music Is Energy”—notably,
the heart-to-heart transmission that flows from guru to acolyte,
from teacher to student, and from performer to receptive
audience. He describes the life-changing experience of seeing
John Coltrane up close, and how, in a live environment, more can
happen than in listening to a recording. He admits, though, that
there are factors that can interfere, such as a venue that’s too
huge or neighbours who persistently cough. At the end, he
touches on the special opportunity musicians have to cultivate
awareness, because “you can’t play music without listening.”
Download MP3:
Minegishi Issui: The Japanese ichigenkin
The weight of one string
By Randy Raine-Reusch
Article Summary: Minegishi Issui is the fourth Iemoto
(hereditary grand master) of Seikyodo Ichigenkin, the only
direct line of ichigenkin of the four existing styles in Japan.
Although Minegishi has been active in promoting this instrument,
there are less than five hundred people in all of Japan who play
the ichigenkin. It is still so rare that most Japanese have
never heard of it. The ichigenkin is a one-string board zither
unique to Japan that, although not directly related to Zen
Buddhism, carries with it an austere philosophy heavily
influenced by Zen thought and values. The ichigenkin is a gently
curved thin plank of palownia wood, with a vertical tuning peg
and a single silk string that runs the length of the instrument.
Minegishi has commissioned scores by some of Japan’s top
composers in an effort to bring the ichigenkin into the
twenty-first century, premiering these works internationally,
simultaneously bringing the ichigenkin to a wider audience and
contemporizing its expression for the twenty-first century.
3/4hadbeeneliminated: Italian improvisers’ mind games
By Daniela Cascella
Article Summary: 3/4HadBeenEliminated is a group formed
in Bologna, Italy, in 2002 by guitarist Stefano Pilia,
turntablist Claudio Rocchetti, and sound recordist Valerio
Tricoli. One of the liveliest groups in the Italian experimental
and improvised scene today, the three have released two albums
to date as well as a number of solo records. Pilia’s work is
mostly focused on the exploration of drone sounds expanding in
space Rocchetti approaches sound in a very direct way as sheer
matter, mass, and impact, and uses a variety of devices such as
turntables, audio cassettes, samplers, radios, and microphones
Tricoli’s investigations are a sophisticated setup of estranging
interplays between foreground and background. When playing
together as 3/4HadBeenEliminated, the three bridge the spaces
between drone music, field recordings, and turntablism, and are
not afraid of daring musical matches that get to include
songwriting and rock or psychedelic structures, giving way to
layered, eclectic sound constructions.
Kathleen Yearwood: folk music’s dance with the duende
By Andrew Robins
Article Summary: Kathleen Yearwood doesn’t consider
herself a musician although she has practised and studied music
for over thirty years. She calls herself an intellectual who
plays music. She is a singer who plays electric guitar, as well
as skin drum in an Arabic music ensemble in Alberta. The music
she writes and interprets cannot be relegated to a genre. She
has performed in Russia, at the Sergei Kuryohkin International
Festival of new music, and at FIMAV in Victoriaville. In both
places, female audience members were especially grateful to see
her twisting and breaking boundaries, as well as smashing beer
bottles into an amplified pail. Kathleen prefers only blood red
lighting during performances, maybe to represent the duende, a
dark creative force that she believes real artists must listen
for and be possessed by. It is impossible to leave one of her
performances without a strong opinion about what went on.
SONIC GEOGRAPHY:
We¹ve begun a new section of the magazine with this issue, called sonic geography, in which writers describe aspects of their local music communities. In issue 93 we have:
Alberto Martínez in the
Canary Islands
Eric Leonardson in Chicago
David McCallum in
Gothenburg, Sweden
Steve Heimbecker in
Montreal
Randy Raine-Reusch in
Vancouver
Piano Performers of Today: Artists or music historians?
John Cage as a stepping stone to new music
By Tzenka Dianova
This article briefly examines the separation between composers,
performers, and audience which occurred in the early twentieth
century, when historical recitals became the norm and performers
neglected contemporary repertoire, a practice that still
continues. It relates pianist Tzenka Dianova’s experience in
using John Cage’s prepared-piano music as a bridge between older
classical and avant-garde music, and recommends this both for
audiences and performers.
Music Without an Audience, part 1: The avant-garde music
business
The importance of commodification of new music recordings
By Donal McGraith
Article Summary: Cultural commentator Donal McGraith discusses
the business aspects of the culture of avant-garde music, and
sketches the political economy of the community: distribution,
new technology, and the notably different reception of the
visual avant-garde as compared to the musical avant-garde. The
business aspect of experimental music is a necessary component
of its relatively modest success, even if is not highly
profitable. The CD package as a whole, with its cover design and
liner notes, is an important and valued artefact, and to many a
collectible one. The viability of this business may be
threatened by new developments in technology that bypass the
standard seventy-four-minute CD through downloading.
CD CONTENTS
1| Continuum (2003) 6:54
by/par David Mott
Composed and Performed by/composé et interprété par David Mott
Download MP3:
2| Eclipse: The Dark Shadowed Moon (2006) 9:12
by/par David Mott
Performed by / interprété par Christina Petrowska Quilico
3| Suffering: War (2003) 7:11
Composed and performed by / composé et interprété par David Mott
4| Kagen no Tsuki (2000) 9:11
Composed by / composé par Aizawa Shirotomo
5| Suma (traditional) 5:54
anonymous
6| Memory Man (2004) 8:52
by/par 3/4HadBeenEliminated
7| Labour Chant (2005) 5:27
by/par 3/4HadBeenEliminated
8| Night Falls (1992) 5:11
by/par Kathleen Yearwood
Performed by / interprété par Kathleen Yearwood
9| No Business (2000-2005) 4:15
by/par Negativland
10| Favorite Things (2000-2005) 2:00
by/par Negativland
11| It’s All In Your Head FM (2006) 4:55
by/par Negativland
REVIEWS:
Events:
Merce Cunningham Dance
Company in Ithaca, NY
SEND + RECEIVE in Winnipeg
the Vancouver New Music
Festival
Soundtravels on the
Toronto Islands
Recordings:
Vincent Barras, Jacques
Demierre on Editions héros-limite
David Behrman on XI
Records
Olivia Block, Tomas Korber
on Cut
Rose Bolton
Anthony Braxton Quintet on
Leo
Bill Brennan
John Wolf Brennan on
Creative Works
Thomas Buckner on
Mutablemusic
John Carey on Planet Bass
Bruno do Chènerilles on
Audiorama
Chris Cutler on ReR
MEGACORP
Hugh Davies on Ants
Avram Fefer, Bobby Few on
Boxholder
Paul Flaherty, Chris
Corsano on Family Vineyard
Steven Feld on VoxLox
The Musical Bells of
Accra, Ghana on VoxLox
Jon Gibson on Tzadik
Herbert Henck on ECM
Records
Music of Kyrghizstan on
Inedit
Joëlle Léandre, India
Cooke on Red Toucan
Robert Marcel Lepage on
Ambiances Magnétiques
Lethe
Aaron Lewis on Agile
David Liebman on hathut
Alvin Lucier on New World
Records
Manuel Mengis Gruppe on
hathut
The No-Neck Blues Band on
5 Rue Christine
NOW Orchestra, Marilyn
Crispell on VICTO
Pauline Oliveros on Deep
Listening
Gianfranco Pernaiachi on
Ants
Mick Rossi on OmniTone
Andrew Sterman on Breath
River
Tony Wilson on Drip Audio
Words:
Michael Edward Edgerton,
The 21st Century Voice: Contemporary and Traditional Extra-Normal Voice
(Scarecrow Press)
Priscilla McLean, Hanging
Off the Edge – Revelations of a Modern Troubadour (iUniverse)
V. Rizzardi and A. De
Benedictis, eds., New Music on the Radio, 1954-1959 (Rai-Eri)
P. Donati and E. Pacetti,
eds., C’erano una volta nove oscillatori… (Rai-Eri)
Visions Of Sound
Chiyoko Szlavnics
