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In April 2007, I did a short tour in France with Nom Tom. The set-up I use for this trio utilizes a small amp, a small mixer, and between 2 and 4 cassette decks, as well as 2 snare drums. This produces a fairly specific sound, particularly with what I knew the amp could do with it’s inherent gain settings, etc. So, I figured since they were all small pieces, I’d bring them with, so as to not have any surprises with borrowed equipment. Not being very versed in electronics, I relied on the expertise of my local Radio Shack employee to lead me in the right direction in the way of power converter, since Europe works on a different voltage. The employee seemed very confident in his recommendations so I made the purchase.

Arriving in France the following week (I will omit describing the ordeal involved in hauling this equipment from Chicago to Paris…), we visited the studio of Pascal Battus. I set my equipment up, plugged everything in, and then went to hit the power switch on the power strip, and BOOM, everything blew up. I believe the power strip was the culprit, leaving the amp completely dead, the power strip burning, but fortunately the mixer still worked. We hooked up another amp, and I made do, wondering how I was going to manage for the rest of the tour, which hadn’t even begun yet.

We found an amp for me to borrow, so all seemed well. And it was. However, this changed things slightly as far as my capabilities go. This is the kind of situation one can find themselves in any given day, but when it comes to music, it often seems more critical to have things exactly a certain way. I could comment here about drum tech horror stories, but I won’t. The point I’m trying to make is that as both a musician and a person, we need to be prepared to act in any situation. Not having certain things, or having things just as we want them shouldn’t inhibit us from doing what we do. Find a way. It’s an aspect of improvising music, and it should certainly translate into daily life.

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As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, The Whole is quite different than some of my recent work.  It’s all acoustic, no processing or electronics of any kind, but captures many more things I was aiming for previously, and I hope people enjoy it as much as they might be surprised by it.  Stay tuned here or the label for news on its release.

In the meantime, Type has also posted a mix of Georgian vocal music I put together for them.  You can check it out here, and listen to some of their other interesting “typecasts” here.

Friday, April 23
8PM

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Jozef Van Wissem is a lute player/composer from Holland. Devoted to what he terms, “The Liberation of the Lute”, his compositions for the instrument have involved a dynamic mix of conceptual, minimalist, classical and improvisational strategies. Over the last two decades, he has used cut and paste tactics, created palindromic compositions by playing pieces forwards and then backwards and used field recordings and free improvisation to create a sound world that is at once meditative and surprising, new and arcane. An incessant touring musician, Van Wissem’s hypnotic live shows have taken him all over the world. He has records out on Important Records, BVHaast and his own Incunabulum label and has collaborated with James Blackshaw (as ‘Brethren of the Free Spirit’), Tetuzi Akiyama, Smegma, Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart’s guitarist) and Maurizio Bianchi. Most recently he has begun playing his compositions in a trio with Robbie Lee and Che Chen called, ‘The Heresy of the Free Spirit’.

http://www.myspace.com/vanwissem

Che Chen & Robbie Lee are Brooklyn, NY based multi-instrumentalists who have been steadily and intensively developing their unique approach to free improvisation over the last several years. Using a shifting constellation of instruments that has included bass clarinets, baroque recorders, reed and pipe organs, renaissance keyboard instruments, flutes, saxophones, bowed and plucked strings, little drums, bells, tape machines and their voices, Che Chen and Robbie Lee create earthy, slow moving improvisations that are informed as much by the ethnic folk traditions of the world as they are by 20th century composition and improvisation. Their music places precedent in listening, attention and dynamic interaction in the moment. Chen and Lee have released an LP and several cd-r’s on their own Telegraph Harp imprint.

http://www.myspace.com/telegraphharp

Jon Mueller has been an active drummer and percussionist over the past 25 years, becoming increasingly focused on a physical dialog between situation and material, often bypassing standard approaches to percussion and considering the space in which that sound is presented in order to create a larger experience for those listening. His recordings have been featured in a variety of contexts, from cassette tape to MTV, and he has performed concerts throughout the U.S., Japan, and Europe. He has worked with members of the groups Swans, Wilco, and Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio, as well as being a longtime member of the group Collections of Colonies of Bees, and recently, Volcano Choir. He has also collaborated with artists such as James Plotkin, Marcus Schmickler, Dan Burke, Jonathan Kane, Asmus Tietchens, Lionel Marchetti, Z’EV, Jason Kahn, Jack Wright, and many others.

http://www.myspace.com/resonatingface

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The Sugar Maple
441 E. Lincoln Ave.
Milwaukee
$7
21+

Friday, April 9
8PM

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Daniel Burke and Travis Bird

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1960, Daniel Burke is a sound artist, photographer, painter, and graphic designer. After seeing – and being inspired by – the final 2 performances of Throbbing Gristle in 1981, Burke began exploring the use of sound. His playing and compositions have also been influenced by pop, rock, minimalism, classical avant-garde, and Improvisation. In 1983 he started a project now known as Illusion Of Safety. In addition to his solo and group work as Illusion Of Safety, Burke has collaborated on live performances and recordings with Jon Mueller, Randy Greif, Darrin Gray, Thymme Jones, Cheer-Accident, Jim O’Rourke, Thomas Dimuzio, Kevin Drumm, Big City Orchestra, Jeb Bishop, Ben Vida (Town and Country), Crash Worship, Eric Lunde (Boy Dirt Car), and Jeff Jerman (Hands To). Since that time he has released over 20 CD’s as well numerous vinyl and cassettes releases as Illusion Of Safety.

Since 2006, multi-instrumentalist Travis Bird has been active in several Chicago projects, ranging from pop and the art punk of Team Band to the psychedelic noise rock of the Leavitt Ours and the industrial-pastoral evocations of Dense Reduction. His playing is inspired by repetition, accidents, calculated chaos, and the idea of restrained technical virtuosity. He himself is inspired by the struggle toward willful ignorance of great beauty experienced in the past, and by the desire to evoke said beauty with perfect clarity.

http://www.myspace.com/travisbirddanielburke

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Jon Mueller
solo percussion

Jon Mueller has been an active drummer and percussionist over the past 25 years, becoming increasingly focused on a physical dialog between situation and material, often bypassing standard approaches to percussion and considering the space in which that sound is presented in order to create a larger experience for those listening. His recordings have been featured in a variety of contexts, from cassette tape to MTV, and he has performed concerts throughout the U.S., Japan, and Europe. He has worked with members of the groups Swans, Wilco, and Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio, as well as being a longtime member of the group Collections of Colonies of Bees, and recently, Volcano Choir. He has also collaborated with artists such as James Plotkin, Marcus Schmickler, Dan Burke, Jonathan Kane, Asmus Tietchens, Lionel Marchetti, Z’EV, Jason Kahn, Jack Wright, and many others.

http://www.myspace.com/resonatingface

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The Sugar Maple
441 E. Lincoln Ave.
Milwaukee
$7
21+

For more information on the times, locations, and Sture’s work, see the Events page, and I hope you can make it to one of the shows if you’re in the area.

3/10/10
9:30PM

Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia
Chicago

Please join us for an evening of improvised music featuring Swedish reedist Sture Ericson, and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. I had the pleasure of playing with Sture in the summer of 2009 in Denmark and am very glad to have the opportunity to play again with him, and Fred in Chicago.

About Sture’s work:

“Sture Ericson (S) tenor-, baritone-, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet emerged during the 80-s and 90-s as a member of the internationally acclaimed Swedish group Position Alpha which during some years of extensive touring in Europe and with four LP-s and 2 CD-s recorded (”Don´t bring Your Dog”, “The Great Sound of Sound”, “Credo”, “Möte i Monsunen”, “Greetings from the Rats” and “Tit-Bits”) made its impact on the European free music scene. In 2000 after having started collaborating with German free trumpet virtuoso Axel Dörner, the two formed The Electrics along with Swedish drummer Raymond Strid and Norwegian bass player Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. The Electrics combines elements from European Free Improvisation and Free Jazz and this personal brew has received warm response from audiences as well as critics at international festivals in Vancouver, Seattle, Nickelsdorf, Tampere and Mulhouse. The Electrics has released the album “Chain of Accidents” on Ayler Records. 2001 the trio Per-Son-Ell was formed with Martin Klapper ­ amplified objects, lo-fi electronics and toys, Sture Ericson ­ reeds and Rex Casswell ­ electric guitar with preparations. This free impro-unit explores electronics and sounds created by extended techniques on their instruments and made their international debut last year with a successful tour in the UK. Per-Son-Ell has also collaborated with Rhodri Davies, Phil Minton and Roger Turner. Apart from these working bands Ericson has during the last years taken part in collaborations and performed with, among others, Derek Bailey, Steve Beresford, John Edwards, Michael Formanek, Barry Guy, Wilbert de Joode, Thomas Lehn, Poul Lovens, Andrea Neumann, David Stackenäs and Otomo Yoshihide.”

The aim is to introduce any number of basic actions which then are developed and amplified by various means: the room, and what the listener hears.  Generally, that approach holds infinite possibilities, as each position within the room, and each person and their understanding, hearing, thoughts, etc, have an effect on what the outcome is.  That experience is then the focus.  Not how “well” I played, but what happened when the playing occurred, for each individual.

This approach is not based on a pre-determined message, designed to communicate something specific, or make people uncomfortable, or irritate them, or oppress or confront in any way.

For me, there is a strong positive feeling that occurs when consumed in sound bouncing around a given space – particularly when combined with the physicality of generating the sound, and hearing it change to the point of complete transformation.  It is only my hope that there are others who find the positivity in that as well – the sense of wonder, of unknown familiarity that can occur when judgments are removed, patience is practiced, and listening is active.

How did your direction regarding sound take form? Did visual art play a role, formal training, etc.?

This has been a distillation of many different mainly musical experiences throughout the years. In my early teens I studied music notation and trumpet but abandoned it after a couple of years because I didn’t enjoy it very much. In the 80’s I was involved in a few local projects that out of deception gradually made me discover new musical forms which I developed in my work with Noise-Maker’s Fifes throughout the 90’s. Around 1992 I also worked as a sound engineer for a couple of years but stopped with it because I didn’t enjoy to spend my time and ears with loud and often boring music and I also was not interested in technical aspects of audio that mostly seemed to be more important than the music itself. It really had an opposite but positive effect on me; I only desired to play music on ‘living room level’ without the use of technical applications. Another aspect that was important to my sound direction was the fact that I had the luck to get a huge collection of abandoned classical music instruments from a music school for a symbolic price. For several years I intensively studied the qualities of all these different instruments in a personal and spontaneous way, without trying to develop a proper technique. As I really enjoyed these experiences I never thought of choosing one single instrument to continue with, in contrary I got interested in creating instrumental combinations more profoundly. This has been a process in constant evolution which is still continuing to evolve.

Since the mid 80’s I have also been listening intensively to various types of free music from which I learned a lot. For a certain period in that time the use of drugs also played a significant role in my perception of sound, visuals and life in general. Furthermore since I’ve been living on the country side for the biggest part of my life the surrounding of nature with its non-cultivated irregular, organic forms also has been a constant important value in my life, thus in my work. These nature elements are also reflected in my photography work, which I have been experimenting with quite a lot since 2002. The last few years I enlarged this field of visual experience to the application of various printing techniques which I’m studying at the moment. All these elements definitely have a valuable correlation with the musical experiences and the other way around.

How do both improvisation and composition play a role in what you do?

All my work starts from pure improvisation; playing music in an intuitive way as a sensual experience without employing the mind. For years I’ve been playing like this almost on a daily basis, often without recording but just as a joyful captivation of the moment, some kind of meditation. That way I concentrated quite intensively on various string, wind and percussion instruments in order to taste and to explore their timbral vibrations and the different moods they can create. These experiences have been valuable moments for me but don’t necessarily have an artistic or musical value.

So to bring everything into a more musically challenging context for myself I started to combine various instruments through improvisation in order to form multitimbral (micro) structures or loose arrangements. Through overdubbing the newly added improvisations become structured because while adding, the previously recorded parameters like time, volume and tone are intuitively taken in account; they become improvised compositions. I find this a very interesting way to work as it leaves the opportunity to interact or react on previously recorded actions, while still keeping the spontaneity of improvisation (which is different from group improvisation where everything mostly happens at once). This way of working sometimes also creates unexpected surprising combinations of sonic twilight which is most exciting.

Afterwards, through post-production, mostly mixing, sometimes editing I try to shape the improvised compositions into a balanced unit, which can also be considered as part of composition. This is generally the process for my solo work as Af Ursin. In collaboration or group situations the way of working is often different, depending on the nature of the project.

With the degree that technology allows anyone to produce recordings, what are some of the criteria that deem projects you do worth pursuing, publishing, etc.?

When I start working on a music piece I have a certain vision of what I want to do, but still I leave it open enough for ‘the heat of the moment’. This leaves place for the unknown aspect or unpredictable directions, either positive or negative. By all means it’s always a challenge to try to capture the ‘right moment’. It’s hard to define what makes a piece satisfying enough for publication but a definite criterion is that the music needs to cause some kind of magic spark, an emotion that lifts it above a mere musical level. This is purely a personal value based on feeling which differentiates it from other recordings I have made. I have plenty of recordings which are interesting to a certain extent but they don’t trigger that little spark of magic and I don’t feel any need to release these recordings at this point. However they might have potential in a later stage when I get back to them from a distance and possibly encounter the missing link.

It’s a positive evolution that it became more affordable and easier to publish music. Anyone can release a record these days which is great but from the other hand through this overwhelming technical ease I sense the profoundness often gets lost or overshadowed by quantity of production. It’s a typical sign of the time where everything needs to go fast in an expanding mode. I prefer to take the time it needs to let an idea incubate and sprout in a natural way as a flower grows from a seed and gradually flourishes. And as in nature some seeds will never flourish.

You self-publish your work (as well as other people’s). What are some of the benefits of working in this manner as opposed to seeking an outside publisher? Is it difficult to balance art and business?

With Noise Maker’s Fifes in the early 90’s we had been seeking for a publisher for more than one year to get our first album released. As there was no interest we decided to do it ourselves. Once it was done it felt quite rewarding. Later on, when I decided to focus more seriously on my solo work it was obvious to choose for auto production, which was the start of La Scie Dorée in 2002. A deliberate choice in order to retain all artistic freedom and to have most possible control in every step of the production process. It feels really good to have that freedom and independence without needing to make compromises. Additionally there has been enough interest to get the publications distributed which also helped to generate finances for future releases. Business and art are opposite activities but they have always been connected to each other, but not always done by the same person. If an artist lives from his work he needs to sell his art somehow which implies business. I think it’s always good to manage ones own work or interest. In a creative period (inner activity) I minimize the business (outer activity) and once a work is ready to be published I don’t mind the business part. It detaches me from the created work and somehow brings me back to social life while the creative part is much of a solitary activity. In my case the business is quite low profile anyway so it remains limited. But as said it creates more independence which has always been important in my life. Of course I’m still depending on distributors to get my work distributed which is less obvious these days because of economic recess, overproduction, increasing postage cost etc. From the other hand, with growing internet facilities, people can order directly from the artist which is a natural and positive evolution. In the meantime I have the habit to work this way and I’ve hardly worked with an outside publisher apart from a few occasions which left me with mixed feelings but it would be nice to do that more again in the future. I feel confident with the offer of Robot Records and United Dairies to get my first albums rereleased on CD probably later this year.

With the artistic direction you’ve chosen, what do you hope listeners/audiences take away from it?

I never really considered this. Once a work is published, out of my head and out of my hands it will lead its own life anyway. Listening is always a personal subjective matter so everyone will have his own experience which is great. But of course I hope listeners will enjoy the music and its physical presentation or even better that they will perceive a magic spark transcending the music. For live situations it’s more or less the same, I appreciate to get sincere feedback which is always constructive to future development.

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More information can be found about Timo’s music and record labels at www.lasciedoree.be and www.metaphon.be.