Erstwhile is certainly a breath of fresh air into the improv field. I kind of got bored of free-blowing sessions and anything-goes-approaches but the Erstwhile artists' aesthetics still sounds interesting and innovative to me. Although AMM have been around for decades, it's good to have them more or less concentrated in one label of reference, together with other emergent artists (I'm sure emergent is not the word for Otomo or Müller but in comparison...) It's certainly challenging music (maybe my intellect is too narrow) but I get the feeling that there's always something happening in those minimal, slow-paced developments, something I can't quite grasp. The Erstwhile albums are not something I'll play on a daily basis, but it's certainly CREATIVE music which has become an overused adjective (you just have to attend the Sonar Fest to check it) --- Ryan William Blum <rblum@fas.harvard.edu> escribió: >
With the recent talk of Otomo activity, including collaborations with the incomparable Gunter Muller, I though it'd be fitting to share excitement about Erstwhile records and the work that Jon Abbey is doing in bringing together improvisers like those two and Keith Rowe, Toshimaru Nakamura, et al.
There's a new 7 CD/DVD boxed set out documenting a festival in Tokyo from 2002 which is mindblowing. The recording of Otomo and GM is astonishing in the range of their sonic worlds and the way that territory unfolds over the performance. There's a beautifully clangy part in the middle which is documented on the DVD, so you can see Otomo bashing cymbals on his turntables and GM smacking contat mikes attached to metal sheets on anything available. That leads into this incredible thick foamy hum until the end.
The Cosmos (Ami Yoshida and Sachiko M) performance contains more stillness than I've ever heard, and the DVD section is very nice, especailly for those of us (don't we all?) who want to see more female improvisers. They are masterful.
Other Zornlisters opinions of these records? They've been of profound interest for me lately, and listening to this stuff, and the stuff that Toshimaru Nakamura makes on his solo cds and in collaborations on Erstwhile, has latey been bending my ears in funny, wonderful ways.
Thanks for indulging off-topic.
Ryan
PS By the way, my radio station (WHRB.org) will be playing the entire Erstwhile catalog plus interviews with key artists like Otomo and Keith Rowe sometime during our Orgy period in the month of Jan. Also up this season: the Mark Dresser orgy.
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