A little contrapuntal ditty complete with lighting design courtesy of the Berlin sky, and an output jack that is on the fritz 😵
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
I’m happy to announce that, following a delay at the factory, I am now shipping the companion cassette tape to Proxemics (BAF003). It’s super limited edition, and the recording on cassette presents an, I think, fascinating, alternative perspective to the music of the album.
“So confounding and strange that simply listening to it makes you feel alive.”
— Antonio Poscic (The Quietus)
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. [Read the rest…]
Please note that this cassette 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.
Thanks so, so much to everyone who ordered the tape—I truly appreciate your support, patience and understanding. I’m excited for you to hear the noise on tape!
[About this album…] [Get the download/order the cassette (Bandcamp)…]
Download: €8.
Cassette tape* plus download: €12 plus shipping.
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics).
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.
© and ℗ 2023 Ramble Records.
This Sunday (March 16, 2025), at 8:30pm (doors: 8pm): Han-earl Park (guitar) performs at Kühlspot Social Club (Lehderstraße 74–79, 13086 Berlin). Also performing are Sofia Borges (drums and percussion), Jonathan Aardestrup (double bass) and Lisa Ullén (piano).
See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [Kühlspot listing…] [Facebook event…]
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
I kept fumbling this one—thus another asterisk [*] on ‘#onetakestudy,’ and thus the title. This one’s very much work-in-progress.
A disprepared ditty bouncing some ideas—well, barely ideas, more fragments of fragments—that emerged from a session with Kaffe Matthews, and a recent gig with Camila Nebbia and Gianluca Elia. It is what it is, but, with a little more work, maybe I can make it into something.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
This Thursday (March 6, 2025) at 8:00pm: Camila Nebbia (saxophone, effects and visuals), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Gianluca Elia (electronics) will be performing as part of disfigured rivers vol. 5 in Berlin (contact for venue details). Also performing are Tumulus (amplified saxophone), and Marina Cyrino (flute) and Ayşe Hatipoğlu (’cello).
See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [disfigured rivers (Instagram)…]
Gonggong 225088 (wa008) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone).
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.
© 2024 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2024 Waveform Alphabet.
03-05-25: Gianluca Elia added to lineup.
I asked elsewhere:
Other than Dean Brown, which players have developed a facility for using the volume and wah pedals simultaneously? Whose playing should I be studying?
Judging from some of the responses I got, however, I needed, I think, to provide a little more context.
So please consider this short improvisation that context. It’s a demo of where I find myself right now, and I’d really welcome suggestions for approaches, techniques, models to study. Let me know what you think.
* irt the asterisk on ‘#onetakestudy,’ this one missed the first take. I wasn’t really ready for this, and I made a couple of aborted takes of the first phrase or two.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
| date | venue | time | details |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 6, 2025 | Secret Location* Berlin Germany |
8:00pm | Camila Nebbia (saxophone, effects and visuals), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Gianluca Elia (electronics) as part of disfigured rivers vol. 5. Also performing: Tumulus (amplified saxophone), and Marina Cyrino (flute) and Ayşe Hatipoğlu (’cello). [Details…] * DM for venue details. |
| March 16, 2025 | Kühlspot Social Club Lehderstraße 74–79 13086 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | Han-earl Park (guitar). Also performing: Sofia Borges (drums and percussion), Jonathan Aardestrup (double bass) and Lisa Ullén (piano). [Details…] [Kühlspot calendar…] [Facebook event…] |
| April 29, 2025 | Richten25 Gerichtstraße 25 13347 Berlin Germany |
8:00pm (doors: 7pm) | Kaffe Matthews (live sampling alchemical electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar). Also performing: Matthias Müller (trombone), Matthias Muche (trombone) and Jeb Bishop (trombone). [Facebook event…] |
| July 2025 | TBA | TBA | Juno 3 (Han-earl Park: guitar; Lara Jones: saxophone and electronics; and Pat Thomas: electronics) returns! Details to follow… |
My technique feels a little rusty (been busy again with the ‘extracurricular activities’ that come with my so-called career), but I needed to take a break and get something out there.
This one is a little exercise in shorter cycles, or phrase lengths—a little more regular in its underlying scaffolding. I hope you find something in the noise. Enjoy.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
Elastic, doxastic collisions—
hold two thoughts, both true.
Proxemics (BAF003), the latest album from Juno 3 (Han-earl Park, Lara Jones and Pat Thomas), is out today! The digital download is available now with the companion cassette tape* to begin shipping on February 15. As I wrote:
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. [Read the rest…]
Download the album, and revel in those buzzing, ugly fusions, microsurround pops and spikes, and queasily in tune warbles and waves.
[About this album…] [Get the download/order the cassette (Bandcamp)…]
Download: €8.
Cassette tape* plus download: €12 plus shipping.
* 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.
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics).
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.
© and ℗ 2023 Ramble Records.
This Saturday (January 4, 2025) at 8:00pm (doors: 7pm): I’ll be playing a solo set at Richten25 (Gerichtstraße 25, 13347 Berlin). Also performing solo sets are Almut Kühne (voice), and Alexander Markvart (various).
See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [Facebook event…]
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
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…]
And elsewhere Garzia asks about the albums Of Life, Recombinant, and Juno 3’s upcoming release:
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.
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics).
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.
© and ℗ 2025 Han-earl Park.
Gonggong 225088 (wa008) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone).
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.
© 2024 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2024 Waveform Alphabet.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
Peculiar Velocities (BAF002) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (saxophone) and Nick Didkovsky (guitar).
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.
© + ℗ 2020 Han-earl Park.
io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) [details…]
Personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).
Track listing: Pioneer: Variance (11:52); Pioneer: Dance (13:13); Ground-Based Telemetry (1:42); Discovery: Intermodulation (9:08); Discovery: Decay (5:08); 4G (0:59); Laplace: Perturbation (10:21); Laplace: Instability (3:08); Return Trajectory (8:24). Total duration: 63:57.
© 2011 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.
