website – Page 3 – Han-earl Park

October 2, 2012April 23, 2020

site update: farewell music.calarts.edu/~hpark

The original home of buster & friends’ d’da, music.calarts.edu/~hpark (originally shoko.calarts.edu/~hpark, latterly adagio.calarts.edu/~hpark) has shut down. That shouldn’t affect the majority of visitors to this site, but some of the older media files stored on adagio (mostly linked via the scrapbook, guitar-guitarist duet pages, and the archived io 0.0.1 beta site) have now been migrated to busterandfriends.com.

That, I think, clears out the final relics of the pre-September 2007 buster & friends’ d’da. Thanks to Clay Chaplin and Tom Erbe for keeping the server(s)/service going all these years.

September 28, 2012

video recordings: YouTube playlist updates

As part of the general house keeping duties, I’ve updated the playlists at my YouTube channel. The ‘Han-earl Park’ playlist, at this time, features performances with Sean Ali, Chris Chafe, Chris Corrigan, Nick Didkovsky, Andrew Drury, Paul Dunmall, Michael Evans, Jonathan Goldberger, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Will McEvoy, Manuela Meier, Jonathan Moritz, Pauline Oliveros, Gascia Ouzounian, Pedro Rebelo, Bradford Reed, Mark Sanders, Franziska Schroeder, Catherine Sikora, Jamie Smith, Doug Van Nort, Ben Wright, Jack Wright and Justin Yang, and videography by Don Mount, Kevin Reilly and John Hough.

And Eris 136199 now has its own playlist.

September 25, 2012

site update: Han-earl Park bio redux

tag cloud
It’s been a year and eight months since the last major update of my bio, and some parts of the old bio were real relics (statements that, in some cases, date back over ten years sketching out concerns that were relevant then, but not so much now). I’ve also updated the list of press quotes. Below is the new verbose, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, 450 word version [shorter versions…].

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) (www.busterandfriends.com) has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for over fifteen years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Austria, Denmark, Germany, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

Park engages a radical, liminal, cyborg virtuosity in which mind, body and artifact collide. He is driven by the social and revolutionary potential of real-time interactive performance in which tradition and practice become creative problematics. As a constructor of musical automata, he is interested in partial, and partially frustrating, context-specific artifacts; artifacts that amplify social relations and corporeal identities and agencies.

Park is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and Numbers with Richard Barrett. He is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, a project performed in coalition with Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder. He has recently performed with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Pat Thomas, Andrew Drury and Josh Sinton. He has guested with Gargantius Effect (Murray Campbell and Randy McKean), and the Mark Hanslip/Dominic Lash/Phillip Marks Trio; performed as part of large ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker and Pauline Oliveros; and participated in improvisative meetings with Jack Wright, Tracy McMullen, Kris Tiner, Jin Sangtae, Matana Roberts and Kato Hideki. He has studied with improviser-composers Wadada Leo Smith, Richard Barrett, Joel Ryan, Mark Trayle, Chick Lyall and David Rosenboom, composers Clarence Barlow and Marina Adamia, and interactive media artist Sara Roberts.

Festival appearances include Freedom of the City (London), Sonorities (Belfast), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), VAIN Live Art (Oxford), and the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California). In addition to numerous self-released albums, his recordings have been released by Slam Productions, Creative Sources, Owlhouse Recordings, Vicmod Records, frimp.co.uk and DUNS Limited Edition. His music has been featured on anthologies released by farpoint recordings and Frog Peak Music. He has performed live on Resonance FM (London), Drift Radio (Scotland), and KVMR 89.5 FM (Nevada County), interviewed on RTÉ Morning Ireland and RTÉ Nova (Ireland), and his recordings have been broadcast around the world.

Park taught improvisation at the UCC Department of Music (2006–2011), and founded and curated (2007–2011) Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork. He is a recipient of grants from the Arts Council of Ireland (2007, 2007 and 2009) and Music Network (2009 and 2010), and of the Ahmanson Foundation Scholarship (1999) and the CalArts Scholarship (1999 and 1999–2000).

[Han-earl Park’s biography (16–450 words) plus press quotes…]

September 15, 2012November 9, 2023

io 0.0.1 beta: In Conversation with an Automaton

Leonardo Electronic Almanac Archives (Copyright 2012 Leonardo Electronic Almanac) — Image © 2012 Leonardo Electronic Almanac

Originally posted at www.io001b.com:

The Leonardo Electronic Almanac’s archives, a project to reissue articles that document over fifteen years of techno-cultural activity, has caught up with ‘My Favorite Things: The Joy of the Gizmo’ (Volume 15, No. 11-12, November–December 2007). That issue of the LEA, a companion to Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 17, featured my article, ‘In Conversation with an Automaton: Identities and Agency in a Heterogeneous Social and Musical Network’…. [Read the rest…]

[‘In Conversation with an Automaton’…]

available from SLAM Productions

‘io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) CD cover (copyright 2011, Han-earl Park)

io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) [details…]

Performers: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

September 2, 2012

audio recordings: downloads and recommendations

A couple of more download releases in the pipeline after which I’m planning to take a short break. The releases so far—all Creative Commons licensed, and free or ‘name your price’—are collated here.

I’ve also listed my recommended Bandcamp albums that have accompanied the releases. There are some very fine, inspiring creative, improvised, experimental music on Bandcamp, but it isn’t always easy to find the recordings. Here’s my small contribution to help people get started. Enjoy, download, share—support creative musicians!

Keywords: improvised music, creative music, jazz, free jazz, free improvisation, experimental music, electronic music, electroacoustic.

Han-earl Park plus Marian Murray

A solo performance by guitarist-constructor Han-earl Park exploring, with feedback and resonant buzzes, the complex, cavernous acoustics of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, and the interactions between artifact (guitar) and the body (guitarist). For ‘Strokes and Screwballs,’ Park is joined by violinist-improviser Marian Murray for a conversational improvisation. [More info…]

Accompanying Recommended Albums

Jin Sangtae, Han-earl Park and Jeffrey Weeter

A stark, real-time evolution of on-stage relations. The performance took place during Seoul-based experimental electronic musician Jin Sangtae’s European tour. Featuring clanking hard drives, buzzing electronics, noisy guitars and machine gun percussion, this recording captures Jin’s meeting with guitarist-improviser Han-earl Park, and composer, drummer and intermedia artist Jeffrey Weeter. [More info plus the 24-bit edition…]

Recommended Albums

Han-earl Park and Franziska Schroeder

Áine Sheil (from the liner notes): “The Glucksman Gallery is one of the finest buildings to have been built in Ireland in recent times, but it is a tricky space for any musician to negotiate. Sounds reverberate and carry in unexpected ways, and music improvised here runs the risk of losing all definition. That [Han-earl] Park and his co-improviser Franziska Schroeder gracefully avoided this testifies to their alertness, sensitivity and experience working together in other spaces…. Indeed the evening had the feeling of conversation, with the instrumentalists demonstrating the improvisatory give-and-take of a convivial exchange of ideas.” [More info…]

Recommended Albums

Catherine Sikora, Ian Smith and Han-earl Park

This was a rare performance in Ireland by Catherine Sikora (New York-based, originally from West Cork), a saxophonist with a striking, compelling sound. She has been described as “a free-blowing player’s player with a spectacular harmonic imagination and an evolved understanding of the tonal palette of the saxophone” (Chris Elliot, Seacoast Online). Sikora was joined by cofounder of the London Improvisers’ Orchestra, trumpeter Ian Smith (London-based, from Dublin), and guitarist Han-earl Park (then Cork-based, currently Brooklyn-based, from California). Smith and Park had just come off the tour as part of the power-trio Mathilde 253 (with Charles Hayward) with the legendary composer-improviser Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith. [More info…]

Recommended Albums

also available by Han-earl Park

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) [details…]

Performers: Richard Barrett (electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar).

io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) [details…]

Performers: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

Mathilde 253 (SLAMCD 528) [details…]

Performers: Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn) plus Lol Coxhill (saxophone).

July 8, 2012

site update: Eris 136199

The (provisional) project page for Eris 136199 (Nick Didkovsky: guitar; Han-earl Park: guitar; and Catherine Sikora: saxophones) is now live:

Eris 136199 is the noisy, unruly complexity of composer, computer artist and guitarist Nick Didkovsky, the corporeal, cyborg virtuosity of constructor and guitarist Han-earl Park, and the no-nonsense melodic logic of composer and saxophonist Catherine Sikora. Eris 136199 plays on the crossroads of noise, melody, rhythm, space, density, contrast, synchronicity, asymmetry, serendipity and contradiction.

A composer who enjoys blurry boundaries, Nick Didkovsky founded the avant-rock big band Doctor Nerve, and is a member of Swim This with Gerry Hemingway and Michael Lytle. He is a pioneer of small-systems computer music, and has composed music for ensemble including Bang On A Can All-Stars and the California EAR Unit.

Described by Brian Morton as “a musical philosopher… a delightful shape-shifter”, Han-earl Park is drawn to real-time cyborg configurations in which artifacts and bodies collide. He has performed with some of the finest practitioners of improvised music, is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, and Numbers with Richard Barrett.

Catherine Sikora is “a free-blowing player’s player with a spectacular harmonic imagination and an evolved understanding of the tonal palette of the saxophone” (Chris Elliot, Seacoast Online). She has long-standing duo projects with Eric Mingus and with Ziv Ravitz, and performs as part of ensembles led by Elliott Sharp, François Grillot and Matt Lavelle.

Together, Didkovsky, Park and Sikora forges an improvisative space where melody can be melody, noise can be noise, meter can be meter, metal becomes metal, bluegrass turns to bluegrass, jazz transforms into jazz, all there, all necessary without imploding under idiomatic pressures.

[Eris 136199 page…]

Eris 136199 is performing later this month (July 24, 2012) at Freddy’s Bar (Brooklyn). See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

February 29, 2012November 9, 2023

io 0.0.1 beta++: (musical) time and machine musicianship 0.1

Second part of a series at the io 0.0.1 beta++ website about musical time, rhythm, musicality and politics:

The issue is not so much that a musicality built up from a simple ‘beat detection’ is not possible…. The issue is the implications of seeking and defining, in research, such a trait; valuing such a musicality; and, by extension, practicing such a music.

As argued by Suzanne Cusick, George E. Lewis, Christopher Small and others, musical practice constitutes a political schema—music performs society. The command-control model embedded in a musicality built upon ‘beat detection’ has profound consequences for constructing alternative politics.

[Read the rest…]

The construction of io 0.0.1 beta++ has been made possible by the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland.

February 27, 2012

site redesign 02-27-12: io 0.0.1 beta++

I’ve made some changes to the design of www.io001b.com [details…]. Expecting the usual bugs and inter-browser problems, I welcome comments and error reports: contact me or leave a message at this post.

February 20, 2012November 9, 2023

io 0.0.1 beta++: (musical) time and machine musicianship

First post as part of a series at the io 0.0.1 beta++ website about musical time, bodies, computation, machine musicianship, and the regulation of the musical:

Perhaps the assumption of a foundational importance to musicality of a simple ‘beat detection’ stems from subscribing to a command-control model of musicality. In this model the mind is the central hub of the musical. In this model, rhythm is constant, inherited, external and which must be followed. This model, in turn, arises from certain, widely held to be sure, cultural assumptions about desirable and ‘natural’ social and political interactions. What do these assumptions blind us from?

[Read the rest…]

The construction of io 0.0.1 beta++ has been made possible by the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland.

February 3, 2012January 8, 2017

site update: discography

In anticipation of the upcoming release of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett, I’ve updated my discography page. In addition to the usual changes, I’ve now divided the page between physical and download releases, and anthologies.

All artwork and cover graphics copyright their respective owners. ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) CD cover © 2012 Creative Sources Recordings. ‘Live at the Glucksman gallery, Cork’ CD cover © 2009 Jamie Smith/Owlhouse Recordings.

January 20, 2012November 9, 2023

io 0.0.1 beta++: dreams of the future

At the io 0.0.1 beta++ website, I’ve just posted some thoughts and questions from the Scientific American / American Museum of Natural History Beyond Planet Earth Tweetup on January 18, 2012.

I’m moved by the planetarium: I travel to the stars I cannot see, struggle with the scale of what I cannot fathom. Modern planetariums demonstrate the grandeur of God’s creation, but in a secular scientific context. They bring the distant close; make the visible the imperceptible; make manifest the abstract.

[Read the rest…]

November 27, 2011

site redesign 11-27-11

www.busterandfriends.com (header photo copyright 2011 Julia Healy) — header photo © 2011 Julia Healy

I’ve redesigned www.busterandfriends.com. The revamp is long overdue. Despite some changes behind the scenes, the previous design was more than four years old. There’s some new stuff, a few redirects, collation of previously scattered content (including a new Downloads page), and a new banner photo by Julia Healy. I expect the usual usual bugs, typos and teething problems. I welcome comments and error reports: contact me or leave a message below.