Group improvisation as triangulation? Fierce solidarity? Wet, squishy electrochemical processes? And science fiction, and the fictions of science? In Ettore Garzia’s Percorsi Musicali article, Garzia asks me about my thoughts on “art and on the way we should approach the reality of the twenty-first century”:
As for the present-day hellfire 2.0 of the world, whether from strong-men political figures, or the next tech breakthrough, we’re surrounded by promises of simple solutions, and seductive stories of salvation and redemption. In this context, creative peoples, I think, can offer counter-narratives to complicate and refute those easy solutions; to instead help us face the complex, the contradictory, the uncertain and ambiguous.
As for me, empathy, compassion and solidarity remain the reasons I continue to engage with interactive, social music practices and communities. But these practices and communities are flawed and imperfect—they are deeply, deeply human after all—and I think it’s important that we remain aware of the possibility of violence and abuse in our practices, and work to take consent, power, conflict, desire and agency seriously. [Read the rest…]
Proxemics spreads electroacoustic power and a sense of movement, thanks to many elements, the fragmentation of the guitar, the plethora of unnatural sounds brought into play by Thomas and the small and intermittent manipulations of Lara’s sax. I discover a narration inside, but also a void, a melancholic vein. Is that so?
Lara [Jones] and Pat [Thomas] are doing some of the most exciting work in enrolling electronics into improvised performance right now. Their approaches, as different as they are, are informed by present-day technological developments while being irreverent towards those same tech enterprises; they are as avant-garde as they come while deeply engaging with the electronic dance vernacular.
I also hear that messy, contradictory, rolling narrative side to Juno 3, but, more than melancholy, I hear, with Proxemics, something angrier and confrontational—I feel, at times, that the music spits and snarls. [Read the rest…]
Read the rest of the article to catch me talking about how the works of certain writers and filmmakers have affected my work in refracting improvisation through narrative techniques and tropes; the reason for choosing the trio context (and the differences between Eris 136199, Juno 3 and Gonggong 225088); and whether I would ever return to constructing musical automata in this post-ChatGPT condition.
Track listing: Derealization I (4:07), Derealization II (4:57), Derealization III (3:52), Derealization IV (6:19), Derealization V (5:55), Derealization VI (3:47), Proxemics I (5:05), Proxemics II (3:54), Proxemics III (6:10), Proxemics IV (7:15), Proxemics V (6:10), Proxemics VI: Rumble (5:13). Total duration: 62:44.
Track listing: Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
Track listing: Ballad of Tensegrity I (≥ 5:12), Ballad of Tensegrity II (2:28), Peculiar Velocities I (3:46), Peculiar Velocities II (3:36), Sleeping Dragon (5:22), D-Loop I (≥ 6:16), D-Loop II (5:13), Polytely I (≥ 5:01), Polytely II: Breakdown (5:33), Anagnorisis I (2:09), Anagnorisis II (2:19). Total duration ≥ 46:54.
Proxemics (BAF003), Juno 3’s latest album (digital download and companion cassette tape*), is now available to pre-order! Masterminded by Berlin-based Korean-American improviser and guitarist Han-earl Park, Juno 3 is his trio with London-based experimental producer, saxophonist, and sound artist Lara Jones, and boundless experimentalist and pioneer of electroacoustics in free improvisation, Pat Thomas. Recorded at Cafe OTO, Proxemics (BAF003) captures the trio’s performance as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival’s outer left field.
I love, love, love this recording, and the camaraderie of the artists (and helpers and supporters behind-the-scenes) involved in its making. If the trio’s first performance in the spring of 2022, caught between lockdowns and post-pandemic ‘normality,’ was about that strange sense of cautious relief and optimism, then this later performance was something altogether more strident, brash, at times harsh and ugly, confrontational and combative. What I hear is Lara punching you unremittingly in the mid-rage gut; Pat throwing down beats of glitchy robotic wasps, and of impossible danceability; and my struggles with an unfamiliar guitar (a silver rocker) that wants to make it all a little too easy.
During the mix, I came to realize this unapologetically unrefined music was probably unreleasable, but I also came to love it more for being delicate as a slab of granite. Listen to it, and think of us. Enjoy.
Download: €8.
Cassette tape* plus download: €12 plus shipping.
Description
Elastic, doxastic collisions—
hold two thoughts, both true.
Masterminded by Berlin-based Korean-American improviser and guitarist Han-earl Park, Juno 3 is his trio with London-based experimental producer, saxophonist, and sound artist Lara Jones, and boundless experimentalist and pioneer of electroacoustics in free improvisation, Pat Thomas. Recorded at Cafe OTO, Proxemics (BAF003) captures the trio’s performance as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival’s outer left field. Proxemics is the follow-up to the eponymous Juno 3 (RAM-163CD, 2023) described as having “wonderful energy, constant motion, and roiling in noise. And immense amount of grit and power” (Corey Mwamba, Freeness, BBC Radio 3).
The music was recorded with efficiency (and with a boldly creative live-mix) by Kevin Shoemaker, and mixed and mastered for release by Han-earl Park. If the trio’s previous album was an expansive and joyous flow of intergalactic urban transit, then Proxemics is altogether something more prickly, difficult, and at peace with its confrontational nature.
Recommended reading: N. K. Jemisin. The City We Became (Orbit, 2020).
Derealization I (4:07), Derealization II (4:57), Derealization III (3:52), Derealization IV (6:19), Derealization V (5:55), Derealization VI (3:47), Proxemics I (5:05), Proxemics II (3:54), Proxemics III (6:10), Proxemics IV (7:15), Proxemics V (6:10), Proxemics VI: Rumble (5:13). Total duration: 62:44.
Cassette tape: Proxemics A (18:11), Proxemics B (17:27). Total duration: 35:37.*
Recorded live November 13, 2023, Cafe OTO, London.
Recorded/live mix by Kevin Shoemaker. Mixed and mastered by Han-earl Park.
Design and artwork by Han-earl Park.
Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Community.
Note on the cassette tape
* The cassette tape release does not duplicate the digital album, but offers a complement to it. In contrast to the digital download album, the cassette album is the room mic recording of the second set only (corresponding to ‘Proxemics I–VI’). The cassette presents a vérité, ‘bootleg’-vibe documentation of the performance as heard by the audience on the night.
Track listing: Orbital Dusk I (6:04), Orbital Dusk II (4:20), Orbital Dusk III (2:29), Orbital Dusk IV (6:03), Diel Vertical Migration I (6:31), Diel Vertical Migration II (4:38), Diel Vertical Migration III (4:33), Diel Vertical Migration IV (7:36), Metastability (7:24). Total duration: 49:36.
Coming soon! Proxemics (BAF003), the new album by Juno 3 (Han-earl Park, Lara Jones and Pat Thomas). Proxemics (BAF003) will be available as a full-length, digital download album, and a limited edition companion cassette tape.
The music is strident, brash, at times harsh and ugly, confrontational and combative—it’s unlike anything else I’ve been a part of—and I’m very excited to share it with you, and very, very curious to know what you make of it. More soon!
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Thanks to On Yee Lo, Fielding Hope and everyone at Cafe OTO, Wesley Stephenson of Jazz North East, Corey Mwamba of Out Front! and a very special thanks to Alex Ward for the loan of his guitar. The performance was presented as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, and with funding from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Community.
Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Community.
Track listing: Orbital Dusk I (6:04), Orbital Dusk II (4:20), Orbital Dusk III (2:29), Orbital Dusk IV (6:03), Diel Vertical Migration I (6:31), Diel Vertical Migration II (4:38), Diel Vertical Migration III (4:33), Diel Vertical Migration IV (7:36), Metastability (7:24). Total duration: 49:36.
* If you’re wondering what the asterisk on ‘#onetakestudy’ is about, it’s because this one—the only one in the series—is not the first take. I recorded the first couple of phrases on an aborted take before starting again—I had not felt quite ready yet.
I’ve taken the title, ‘Salvo and Echo,’ from Doctor Nerve’s The Monkey Farm—I hope you don’t mind, Nick. If you don’t know it, check out The Monkey Farm, it’s my favorite Nerve album.
Blue-green iridescence
(Crunch and more scatter)
A vacuum of warning
Here be dragons.
It’s been a while since Gonggong played in the trio’s hometown, and it’s been longer since we’ve had an opportunity to really stretch out (we’ll be playing two complete sets at Kühlspot). It’s always a joy to be performing with Camila and Yorgos, and I am super excited to see where the music takes us (and where we take the music). One of the many things I love about this group is how everyone is inviting the others to occupy spaces by actively creating constantly shifting gaps and cracks in the arrangement and moment-by-moment composition.
Track listing: Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
This was one of those videos that I almost decided against posting. I think this one really highlights the discrepancy, or dissonance, between the visual and the auditory. I felt like maybe uploading the video might take away from the magic of the listening experience (if that makes sense). Reveal[ing] too much of the nuts’n’bolts and pulleys’n’curtains’n’backdrops behind the sounding processes. Anyway, I love the pace—tides ebb’n’flow—that Yorgos and Camila created here. [More…]
What became ‘Niche Shift I’ was, for me, the key transitional passage from the album—the part of the performance that really caught the entire trio by surprise on the evening. Enjoy.
Track listing: Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
Gonggong 225088 entführt die Zuhörerschaft in eine Traumwelt voller Gegensätze: krachend-subtil, irritierend-melodisch, wundervoll dissonant.
Das international besetzte Trio… changiert mühelos zwischen Kulturen, mechanischen Effekten und tonalen Wechselwirkungen in einem beständig vorantreibenden Prozess. [Read the rest…]
The festival takes place at Schwere Reiter (Dachauer Straße 114a80636 München / Kreativquartier), and the event starts at 6:00pm (our set expected to be around 7:30pm). Also performing that evening are Espresso & Mud invites Ute Wassermann, and Le 7ème Continent.
Track listing: Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
