“Noise” (Used 102 times)

It happened in just one weekend. Three musicians, three crazy musicians, got isolated in a studio in Guadalajara –the legendary 9Corners. For hours they just jammed and recorded. Two guitars and an arsenal of electronic noisy junk. One sunday night, as they had nothing else to record, Delirio sin esperanza (Hopeless delirium), was born.

Who are they? You may ask, and you won't be surprised finding out: Arturo Ortega (aka Piscis, aka .RR, head of the AMP Recs netlabel) in electronics, Lalo Padilla (once a guitar wizard by the name of Molloy & his Bike, director of the extinct Dog Eared Recors netlabel,  founding member of Umor Rex, and still an aloof poet and videogame adict) and Andrés Orozco, another great guitarist now playing fulltime with Sutra, his band for more than a decade.

This tracks got lost in time. They were recorded some years back (maybe 2007?) and now they came to you from a lost dimention. They still feel fresh, great music never gets dusty. Here are for you to wear them out play after play until you get lost in space and, maybe, just maybe, wake up in Mars, with your own personal paradise. And, just as the name of the EP dictates, this music was born as a delirium with no hopes of ever geting played live or, even, get its three creators together as Hawaii en Marte again.

More about the musicians of Hawaii en Marte:

Arturo Ortega http://rr.amp-recs.com/
Molloy and his bike http://www.myspace.com/pingpongpavel
Andrés Orozco http://www.facebook.com/Sutramx

FUN—as I've come to know the Philadelphia-based combo, its sounds and membership, I realize how truly appropriate the name is for what they do. FUN are able to apply clever, inventive, fresh ideas to their improvised music-making, minus all the beard-stroking and pretentious, high-minded, music-conservatory-based conceptualization and back-patting that often accompanies similar activities.

For their FUN Go! America! tour, a 50-year project that involves one performance a year, each in a different state, on the very date that that state was inducted into the Union, FUN came to New Jersey on December 18th, to WFMU's Studio B, to render two unique, smartly conceived and individually distinct long-form improvisations. The concept of the tour alone is staggering, and relies upon FUN's members having access to interstate transportation, and living long enough, to execute the mass concept in its entirety.

Backed by an American flag, adorned with their name in silver duct tape, and a host of gear ranging from plastic soda bottles to radically modified electric guitars, Mat and Jonny donned Kennedy and Nixon masks ("lifelong enemies") to render their first set, which begins with the delicious sound of carbonated-beverage-pouring, and takes flight from there. Set two, entitled "A Stroll In Jersey City," involved a studio-stationed, close-mic'd cel phone, into which they called in, while walking around the neighborhood of WFMU's building, making music from whatever they encountered on their walk.

Engineer Bob Bellerue and myself certainly had a great deal of FUN, recording the sets and watching the action put forth live and in person. These sets were broadcast the following Friday a.m. on My Castle of Quiet, though it was critical to the concept that they were recorded on Dec. 18th, the very date of NJ's 224th anniversary of statehood.

Thanks again to Mat, Jonny, and their friend Kevin, all of whom were present for the rendering of similarly intriguing sets on the Castle on the last day of December 2010, that material also resulting in a dynamic set of remixes, aired on the show the following February. Thanks as always to Bob, for his invaluable, sterling engineering skills, and to Tracy Widdess, for once again rendering my performance photos into art.

Academic credentials have I not, but to my experienced ears, Rust Worship's live set, from my program of 27th May, would be a ready thesis for any student of "serious" electronic music, both in its breadth and voluminous content. It also proves, beyond any doubt, that "noise" is no longer even a serviceable adjective for the newer, DIY brand of electronic, improvised music. I point to composers like Bayle and Parmegiani often (perhaps too often, I admit) in the case of performers like Paul Haney, because these are not only my favorite of the INA-GRM school, but also because their best works have gravitas as well as innate listenability, buoyancy even, in comparison to their contemporaries like Varèse.

I met Paul Haney at No Fun Fest 2009, as I was preparing for a return to WFMU's airwaves, as the concept behind My Castle of Quiet the radio program was gelling in my mind. Paul was instantly very open with me, very personable and bold with his opinions and personal points of view, on any number of subjects, not merely music. He was eager to talk, to express himself, and it's this amiability that shines through in Paul's music, and it's been enjoyable for me, as a fan of Rust Worship, to witness Paul growing the project, to the point where experimental stabs and jolts evolve into thoughtful, in-the-moment composition of great variety and emotion.

This 45-minute journey in sound is album-like in its movements and complexity, such that it cannot be easily digested in a single lump; hell, it's taken me a week and a half, and multiple listens, just to assess how I feel about it, and to analyze its successes. And as I began to launch into my post-performance spiel that evening, the one many bands and soloists have heard, about how it's wise not to immediately rate one's live radio performance, but to judge it over several listens and come away from it for a while, etc., Paul said, "I feel pretty damn good about it right now," and he's been just as quick in the past to hang what he thought was a poor Rust Worship performance—not an egotist or a back-patter, just honest.

So it's my suggestion to listen to "Suite of Exhaustion/Recipe of Problems" good and loud, on a good system, over and over a few times; take it in like any good work of art, sonic or otherwise, and don't race to the finish line. There's a lot going on in this piece. 

In a few short months after that first meeting, Paul was guest DJ'ing on The Castle, and I found him to be a person of excellent taste, and ready always to spill over with praise for the music he loved (his Obsolete Units label and its excellent track record being further evidence of this.) His live solo Rust Worship performance on the show now brings things full circle, to the point where Paul's work must be praised and analyzed, much like the live and recorded work of the icons that got him there. The piece's guitar-based coda serves to remind us that our performer cut his teeth listening to Dead C and Skullflower records, and the grand tradition of abuse of signal-processing gear that got the whole ball rolling in the first place.

Thanks to Castle listeners, for giving in-the-moment praise where praise was due, and to Bob Bellerue for sterling and sensitive session engineering, certainly due in part to witnessing Rust Worship develop as I have. This week's photo of Rust Worship in action was taken by your host and author, at a RW performance in Nyack, NY, and photostepped—"Rusted," if you will, by Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting fame. Thanks especially to Paul Haney for bringing it, even after local public transportation had had its way with him, hence the piece's title.

I recorded this music (at the link below) in 2010 from melodies and ideas that had been fermenting in my head for years.  I needed to release the album by 2011 to feel like I had accomplished something while there's still time.  Although, it's rather crude, for me, i's nice to have record of where I have come from.  What do you think of it?  Does it make you want to play or is it simply a musician at work?  Please be the judge.  If anyone is interested in sharing these recordings, please do.  (Contact me if you'd like to talk business.)

The specifics: I used an old keyboard and a four-track recorder.  I recorded loud in order for the base to ring true and the keyoboard to carry a fuzz.  As a result of the loudness in these songs, I don't reccomend listening with headphones as you could hurt your ears playing it at the appropriate volume.  Use a speaker system that bumps base so loud you can feel it to truly hear this music.  In the end, its really up to you. I recorded the whole thing using headphones and I only have a slight ringing in my left ear now. Only that and nothing more.

Click here to listen: http://triangularconception.bandcamp.com/

As soon as one really starts listening to Ryan T. Dunn's sonic creations as Instinct Control, one realizes that as much as they are improvised, the project name is no accident, as the end result is very much an experiential journey with the composer/performer as guide, "intent" unfolding as it happens. I envision Ryan a bit lost in a pyramid, but far from panicking, he's gradually mastering the texture of the glyphs along the wall, patiently and deliberately finding his way. It's good chaos, like that scene in Tarkovsky's The Mirror, all shaken-out hair and falling plaster rendered in slow motion.

Ryan is a real-time composer, who really knows his instrument, and where you could say this about many in the circuit-bending crowd, when listening to Instinct Control, one really feels the journey—every corner the music turns, every choice the player takes, is an exploration of feeling, a joyous journey, and lucky you get to ride along.

These two sets were rendered absolutely live, on the My Castle of Quiet program of February 18, Ryan seated on the floor, thus somewhat hidden from view to engineer Bob Bellerue and myself. Seemingly very lucid, quiet and confident, Ryan sat before his instrument and found his way, for as long as the journey made sense. And though by the common standard, this is raucous, intense music, to me these are soul-stirring trips—the more I explore these sets, the more I appreciate their energizing quality, their sure power and uplifting vibrance.

Thanks to Bob Bellerue for exposing me to Ryan's music and setting up the meet, as well as engineering the live session. Thanks as always to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting for stomping colorful life into my iPhone capture of the artist at work; buy a radical balaclava from her today—reasonably priced original Canadian folk art it is. And thanks most of all to Ryan T. Dunn for these ever-more-uplifting performances. Hallelujah!