Kudos to Ras Moshe and everyone at The Brecht Forum, and to Bruce Gallanter (hey, it was good to talk and catch up, Bruce!) and Manny Maris of Downtown Music Gallery for hosting and curating the events. (And apologies to Ras and the other performers at The Brecht Forum for not being able to stick around for the other sets.) Thanks again to Kevin Reilly for the video documentation of the DMG performance, and thanks, as always, to all who came to listen and witness music in interaction and in real-time.
The Backroom @ Freddy’s Bar
627 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
8:30pm
Performance by Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (saxophones) and Josh Sinton (saxophone and clarinet) as part of On The Way Out. Also performing: Robert Dick (flutes), Nick Didkovsky (guitar), Andrew Drury (drums and percussion) and Michael Lytle (clarinet and analog electronics). Recommended donation: $10.
April 7, 2013
The Backroom @ Freddy’s Bar
627 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
9:30pm
Performance by Ed Rosenberg (saxophone), Owen Stewart-Robertson (guitar), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Nathan Ellman-Bell (drums) Kate Pittman (drums) as part of Out Of Your Head Brooklyn. Also performing: Jasmine Lovell-Smith (reeds), Kenny Warren (trumpet), Jesse Stacken (keyboards), Adam Hopkins (bass) and Max Jaffe (drums). [OOYH page…]
Seeking performances in Europe, 2014 for the cyborg ensemble of interactive, semi-autonomous, technological artifact and machine musician io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself) with human musicians Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (saxophones). Interested promoters, venues and sponsors, please get in touch! [Detailed proposal…]
Questo album è solo un assaggio della musica coraggiosa, entusiasmante ed iconoclastica che si può trovare gratuitamente — sotto licenza Creative Commons— sul sito dell’etichetta Bandcamp ed altri ad essa collegati. “Cork, 04-04-11” è la registrazione — di ottima qualità — del concerto tenuto dalla sassofonista Catherine Sikora, dal trombettista Ian Smith e dal chitarrista Han-earl Park a Cork, Irlanda, nell’aprile del 2011. E da troppo tempo la relativa pagina giace fra i preferiti del browserdi redazione, per cui è giunto il momento di darne conto. Si tratta di creatività made in Ireland, per quanto Park e Sikora oggi si siano stabiliti a New York. La sassofonista di Cork possiede un timbro corposo al tenore ed una limpidezza che la pongono sulla scia di maestri come Jerry Bergonzi o Charles Lloyd (il lungo assolo in Red Line Speed), ma anche fra gli avanguardisti più temerari della scena europea. Particolarmente originale la chitarra di Park, le cui baritonali e caustiche idiosincrasie sembrano fornire lungo tutto il setspunti in prevalenza ritmici agli intrecci fra tenore e tromba. Molto noto in patria, Smith vanta collaborazioni con Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Steve Beresford ed è co-leader di rinomati gruppi del free londinese come Forest e Trian: il suo secondo Cd da titolare, “Daybreak” (Emanem, 2000), coinvolge fra gli altri Derek Bailey e Oren Marshall. La sua fantasiosa tromba apre irriverente in 바르트, e si accompagna a chitarra e sax in Red Line Speed, ripartendo, a metà brano, da un pianissimo soffiato che diventa più lungo e sinuoso, fino a tornare a tessere trame aeree e sorprendenti insieme al sax, la cui chiusura solitaria è quasi toccante. Tromba silenziata per Massimo’s Imagined Juxtapositions, con certe inflessioni milesiane tipiche di Wadada Leo Smith ma in qualche piega anche debitrici delle sfumature di Cherry e Dixon. Quanto al progetto dietro all’etichetta, è di per sé innovativo, permettendo agli utenti in molti casi di scaricare gli album battendo essi stessi un prezzo e, come in un’asta, il Cd acquisisce un suo valore di mercato e quindi un costo. Ovvio che chi prima arriva…
…There is no doubt that Sikora is the most luminous of the three, so much so that this recording is, now and forever “one of Catherine Sikora’s early recordings.” This is less the recording’s fault and more the fault of Ms. Sikora’s continued emergence as a leading, steering voice on the tenor saxophone. [Read the rest…]
Sunday, January 13, 2013, at 6:00pm: a performance by Eris 136199 (Nick Didkovsky: guitar; Han-earl Park: guitar; and Catherine Sikora: saxophones) takes place at The Brecht Forum (451 West Street, New York, NY 10014) [map/directions…]. Also performing: Music Now! (Ras Moshe, Luke Stewart, Tom Zlabinger, Max Johnson, John Pietaro and Tor Yochai Snyder), and We Free Strings (Melanie Dyer, Sonya Robinson, Nioka Workman, Charles Burnham, Larry Roland and David Harewood). Admission: $11.
Remember: side effects of Eris 136199 may include temporary deafness, involuntary teleportation, spontaneous combustion, and molecular implosion. In addition, lab animals have been shown to dance without skill to the sound of double guitars and saxophone 😉
Eris 136199 plays on the crossroads of noise, melody, rhythm, space, density, contrast, synchronicity, asymmetry, serendipity and contradiction. 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.
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 a long-standing duo project with Eric Mingus, 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.
Performance by Eris 136199 (Nick Didkovsky: guitar; Han-earl Park: guitar; and Catherine Sikora: saxophones). Also performing: Music Now! (Ras Moshe, Luke Stewart, Tom Zlabinger, Max Johnson, John Pietaro and Tor Yochai Snyder), and We Free Strings (Melanie Dyer, Sonya Robinson, Nioka Workman, Charles Burnham, Larry Roland and David Harewood). Admission: $11.
[Details…]
[Brecht Forum page…]
The Backroom @ Freddy’s Bar
627 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
8:30pm
Performance by Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (saxophones) and Josh Sinton (saxophone and clarinet) as part of On The Way Out. Also performing: Robert Dick (flutes), Nick Didkovsky (guitar), Andrew Drury (drums and percussion) and Michael Lytle (clarinet and analog electronics). Recommended donation: $10.
Seeking performances in Europe, 2014 for the cyborg ensemble of interactive, semi-autonomous, technological artifact and machine musician io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself) with human musicians Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (saxophones). Interested promoters, venues and sponsors, please get in touch! [Detailed proposal…]
Seeking performance opportunities; particularly in North America during 2012–2013; and Europe, late-2013 and 2014 onwards (contact us for other locations and dates): composer, computer artist and guitarist Nick Didkovsky, guitarist, improviser and constructor Han-earl Park, and composer and saxophonist Catherine Sikora (saxophones).
Eris 136199 plays on the crossroads of noise, melody, rhythm, space, density, contrast, synchronicity, asymmetry, serendipity and contradiction. 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.
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 a long-standing duo project with Eric Mingus, 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.
Nick Didkovsky, Han-earl Park and Catherine Sikora are also available for performance/improvisation/composition workshops and talks.
The Backroom @ Freddy’s Bar
627 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
9:30pm
Performance by Jonathan Goldberger (guitar), Han-earl Park (guitar), Sean Ali (bass) and Will McEvoy (bass), plus Anna Webber (reeds), Ben Syversen (trumpet), TJ Huff (guitar), Dustin Carlson (guitar) and Mark Ziegler (bass), as part of Out Of Your Head.
[Details…]
[Freddy’s page…]
[OOYH page…]
Seeking performances in Europe, 2014 for the cyborg ensemble of interactive, semi-autonomous, technological artifact and machine musician io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself) with human musicians Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (saxophones). Interested promoters, venues and sponsors, please get in touch! [Detailed proposal…]
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!
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…]
A live recording from ‘Saturday The Fringes’ mainstay Han-earl Park. This is quality improv jazz, the kind I often feature on ‘Saturday The Fringes,’ but something about this album, I dunno, just seemed to have crossover appeal. Plus, I’m addicted to the album. So, we’re giving it a weekday slot on the download schedule. The kind of album filled with tunes that reward patience and open-mindedness.
