Shifting and switching from No Wave skronk to interstellar guitarist-as-drummer virtuosity, from stampedes of miniature Pomeranian Buffalos to All-You-Zombies heterophonies, Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been performing beautifully messy, joyously difficult, ambiguous and discordant improvised musics for over twenty years. Park is the mastermind behind ensembles including Eris 136199 with Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky; Juno 3 with Lara Jones and Pat Thomas; and Gonggong 225088 with Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia; and performs as part of a duo with Richard Barrett. [More…]
A ‘first-take’ ditty (it’s been a while since I posted a straightforward improvisation without any videographic or compositional concerns). I think maybe the first thirty seconds or so is a bit shaky, but I’m pretty happy with my playing here overall. I think it shows what I’ve been interested in, and working on, in regards to my approach to the guitar in the context of improvisation.
And a big, big thanks again to Musikfonds / Neustart Kultur for enabling me to continue, and build-on, these studies.
PAS
Kaiserin Augusta Allee 101
10553 Berlin
Germany
8:00pm
Han-earl Park (guitar) and Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) perform as part of DISSIDENTS XXXVIII. Also performing: Hada Benedito (piano), Kellen Mills (bass) and Lorena Izquierdo (action voice); Teresa Riemann (drums, vocals and effects); and Laura Zöschg (piano and voices). [Details…]
[PAS page…] [Facebook event…]
New work composed and performed by Han-earl Park (guitar and videography). Also performing and presenting: Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet and videography). Details to follow…
New work composed and performed by Han-earl Park (guitar and videography). Also performing and presenting: Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet and videography). Details to follow…
Update: download no longer available. Thank you so much for your support, and thank you so very much for listening.
If you missed the rereleases of these limited edition recordings, and would like to catch them next time they become available, please sign-up to my newsletter to stay up-to-date. I’d also like to invite you to listen to Eris 136199, Peculiar Velocities, and 𝑿: Eris 136199 Decennial which are all still available.
Recorded live at The Vortex Jazz Club at the start of Eris’ 2020 tour, this digital-only album was originally made available exclusively to our 2020 Kickstarter-backers. We’re now making this available for a short time for everyone who missed out the first time.
Download: €6.00 minimum (‘name your price’).
Album available to stream via the free Bandcamp app, and to download in multiple formats including lossless.
And please remember that 𝑿: Eris 136199 Decennial is still available, and that you have only a couple of more weeks to download Problematica before that goes back to where all the good limited editions go.
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.
Track listing: Therianthropy I (≥ 3:43), Therianthropy II (8:56), Therianthropy III (3:55), Therianthropy IV (6:30), Adaptive Radiation I (6:44), Adaptive Radiation II (8:48), Adaptive Radiation III (5:54), Universal Greebly (10:58), Hypnagogia I (8:03), Hypnagogia II (4:45). Total duration ≥ 68:25.
This digital-only album was originally made available exclusively to our Kickstarter-backers in 2018. We’re now making this available for a short time for everyone who missed out the first time.
Download: €5.00 minimum (‘name your price’).
Album available to stream via the free Bandcamp app, and to download in multiple formats including lossless.
And please remember that 𝑿: Eris 136199 Decennial is still available, and that you have only a couple of more weeks to download Cryptogenic Animals before that goes back to where all the good limited editions go.
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.
Track listing: Therianthropy I (≥ 3:43), Therianthropy II (8:56), Therianthropy III (3:55), Therianthropy IV (6:30), Adaptive Radiation I (6:44), Adaptive Radiation II (8:48), Adaptive Radiation III (5:54), Universal Greebly (10:58), Hypnagogia I (8:03), Hypnagogia II (4:45). Total duration ≥ 68:25.
There’s this balancing act between your body and the mechanics of elastic collisions, and Newtonian physics, and all those things, and you’re creating music from balancing these things out…. [Watch to the rest…]
The word I use sometimes is ‘interface.’ So if you start thinking about creativity as this thing that happens between surfaces, that’s interesting in a way that the idea of the single auteur is much less interesting…. And as an artist you can do interesting things by kind of shifting you position within that boundary. [Watch to the rest…]
Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Folk (including many new listeners who’d missed out on the crowdfunders) have, over the last few years, been asking about the availability of Eris 136199’s limited-edition recordings. For the trio’s decennial we’ll be rolling a few of these out again. The digital-only albums Problematica (recorded at Out Front, Derby), and Parabiosis (The Vortex Jazz Club, London) will be rereleased in the following months, but available from today is Cryptogenic Animals recorded at Xposed Club, Cheltenham, November 2017.
Download: €5.00 minimum (‘name your price’).
Album available to stream via the free Bandcamp app, and to download in multiple formats including lossless.
Description
Repurposing melodic atoms? Dueling amplifiers? By turns riding and submerging into reverberant spaces? Here’s how I described the recording on its release in 2018:
While the Copenhagen and Newcastle performances are documented in an upcoming album by the trio Eris 136199, Cryptogenic Animals, recorded in Cheltenham between those dates, offers a unique opportunity to track the evolution of this improvising trio during the 2017 European tour.
Take for example the synchronized, collective jump-cuts and smash-cuts that populates the Copenhagen improvisations. These are all but absent by the time the trio perform three night later in Newcastle where, in their place, you find the group breathing together; moving and transitioning in larger scales. On Cryptogenic Animals, recorded the night after Copenhagen, and two before Newcastle, you can hear both these improvisative tactics operating in fascinating, contrasting ways.
You can also hear saxophonist Catherine Sikora revisit and rework some of the melodic atoms played in Copenhagen; trying them against the contrasting acoustic environments. And, adapting to the disparate amplification available in Cheltenham (a diminutive solid-state amp against a 112 Fender), Nick Didkovsky and Han-earl Park reexamine the freedoms and restraints of the two-guitar context; an experience that would inform into their approach in Newcastle in significant ways.
With the rich acoustics of the Francis Close Hall Chapel, the Cheltenham performance is, in contrast to the frenetic and biting Copenhagen and Newcastle performances, unhurried and lush. Cryptogenic Animals documents a fascinating transitional point in the group’s behavior, showcasing the trio’s adaptability to context, and creativity born from the contingent.
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.
Track listing: Therianthropy I (≥ 3:43), Therianthropy II (8:56), Therianthropy III (3:55), Therianthropy IV (6:30), Adaptive Radiation I (6:44), Adaptive Radiation II (8:48), Adaptive Radiation III (5:54), Universal Greebly (10:58), Hypnagogia I (8:03), Hypnagogia II (4:45). Total duration ≥ 68:25.
