Tag: CD

Posted on

Top 30 des musiques exigeantes 2012: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park

CD cover of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park (copyright 2012, Creative Sources Recordings)
‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) © 2012 Creative Sources

François Couture (Monsieur Délire) has selected ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett for Délire actuel’s 2012 Demanding Music Top 30:

The demanding music radio show Délire Actuel (CFLX-FM 95.5, Sherbrooke, Quebec) unveiled today its top 30 experimental music albums you shouldn’t have missed in 2012. This list culls 30 titles, the 2012 crème de la crème in demanding music, i.e. the avant-gardist or experimental fringe in every music genre (contemporary, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, avant-rock, electronica, etc.)….

Two special editions of Délire Actuel will be broadcasted tonight (December 11) and next Tuesday (December 18), from 8 pm to 10 pm (EST), on CFLX 95.5 FM in the Sherbrooke area and live on the web at www.cflx.qc.ca/en-direct/. The show is broadcasted in French, but the music is universal. A track from each selected CD will be featured. The Top 30 was posted this morning on Mr. Couture’s blog Monsieur Délire…. Shows are available to stream or download from CFLX’s website for a week after their broadcast date. [Read the rest…]

I’m honored to find our record in such distinguished company.

  1. Westerhus, Stian: ‘The Matriarch and the Wrong Kind of Flowers’ (Rune Grammofon)
  2. Drake, Bob: ‘Bob’s Drive-In’ (ReR Megacorp)
  3. Bishop, Jeb/Blonk, Jaap/Mallozzi, Lou/Rosaly, Frank: ‘At the Hideout’ (Kontrans)
  4. Perkin, Miles Quartet: ‘Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear’ (ind.)
  5. Adkins, Monty: ‘Four Shibusa’ (Audiobulb)
  6. Zorn, John: ‘Mount Analogue’ (Tzadik)
  7. Carvalhais, Hugo: ‘Particula’ (Clean Feed)
  8. Berne, Alexander: ‘Self Referentials Vols. 1 & 2’ (Innova)
  9. New Songs, The: ‘A Nest at the Junction of Paths’ (Umlaut Records)
  10. Smith, Wadada Leo: ‘Ten Freedom Summers’ (Cuneiform)
  11. Homler, Anna/Hallett, Sylvia: ‘The Many Moods of Bread and Shed’ (The Orchestra Pit)
  12. Ratchet Orchestra: ‘Hemlock’ (Drip Audio)
  13. Endresen, Sidsel/Westerhus, Stian: ‘Didymoi Dreams’ (Rune Grammofon)
  14. Barrett, Richard/Park, Han-earl: ‘Numbers’ (Creative Sources)
  15. Bernier, Nicolas: ‘Travaux mécaniques’ (empreintes DIGITALes)
  16. Cactus Truck: ‘Brand New for China!’ (Public Eyesore)
  17. Bruckmann, Kyle: ‘On Procedural Grounds’ (New World Records)
  18. Capece, Lucio: ‘Zero by Zero’ (Potlatch)
  19. Petit, Philippe: ‘Hitch-Hiking Thru Bronze Mirrors (Extraordinary Tales of a Lemon Girl, Chapter 3)’ (Aagoo)
  20. Nicols, Maggie/Hargreaves, Phil: ‘Human’ (whi music)
  21. Huijbregts, Nico: ‘Dialogue Dreams’ (Vindu Music)
  22. Esseiva, Kiko C.: ‘Drôles d’oiseaux’ (Hinterzimmer)
  23. Plaistow: ‘Lacrimosa’ (Insubordinations)
  24. Grimal, Alexandra: ‘Andromeda’ (Ayler)
  25. Normand, Éric 5: ‘Sur un fil’ (Setola di Maiale)
  26. Zorn, John: ‘Templars: In Sacred Blood’ (Tzadik)
  27. Dilloway, Aaron/Lescalleet, Jason: ‘Grapes and Snakes’ (Pan)
  28. eriKm/Rivière, Arnaud/DJ Sniff/Tétreault, Martin: ‘Drift 01’ (Art Kill Art)
  29. Perelman, Ivo/Shipp, Matthew/Dickey, Whit: ‘The Clairvoyant’ (Leo Records)
  30. Trapist: ‘The Golden Years’ (Staubgold)

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) is available from Creative Sources Recordings. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

Posted on

upcoming CD: The $100 Guitar Project

‘The $100 Guitar Project’ (BRIDGE 9381A/B)
‘The $100 Guitar Project’ (BRIDGE 9381A/B) © 2012 Bridge Records

Coming soon from Bridge Records:

In October of 2010, guitarists Nick Didkovsky and Chuck O’Meara bought a used $100 electric guitar online. They didn’t know what it sounded like or if it even worked, but were charmed by its no-name vibe. After receiving the instrument, they contacted a few friends about writing and recording a piece on the guitar. Word spread quickly, and within weeks, the $100 Guitar Project was born. Over two years, sixty-five guitarists wrote and recorded a piece on the instrument, each passing the guitar on to the next player (the guitar traveled all over the USA, including Hawaii, and to western Europe as well). Stylistically, the players come from every corner of the guitar-playing world: classical to blues; jazz to country; rock to experimental. Donating their services to a good cause, a royalty on every sale of the $100 Guitar Project will be paid to CARE, a leading organization fighting global poverty. [More…]

[$100 Guitar Project website…] [Bridge Records catalog page…] [About my track…]

Posted on

Jazz Convention: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park

CD cover of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park (copyright 2012, Creative Sources Recordings)
‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) © 2012 Creative Sources

Density and expressive urgency. Romualdo Del Noce at Jazz Convention reviews ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) by Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park:

Assai suggestivo l’interattivo duo protagonista: Barrett… sospinge oltre l’ostacolo dei vincoli della forma le pulsioni delle elettroniche di cui dispensa e vaporizza esponenzialmente le valenze e i caratteri timbrici, laddove Park, forte della sperimentazione viva e costante sullo strumento a sei corde, assai esagitato nel potenziale armonico-melodico, dilata le ispirazioni a nervi scoperti e le destrutturazioni alla Derek Bailey, e il tutto scattando un’immagine in movimento ed (es)agitata di una avant-garde – già, di suo, indocile soggetto – e che qui trova convinti e motivati praticanti – esegeti.

Cinque tracks-passaggi per un’ora esatta di forte urgenza espressiva che si staglia dimensionalmente per impeto psico-attivo, densità partecipativa ed acidità di smalti e pigmenti – reinterpretata e rivissuta dal concentratissimo duo Barrett-Park, Numbers si fa “danza interattiva ad alta energia e a passo veloce, scriteriata, looping a due mani, danza contorta, interattiva e resa udibile, unità di estemporizzazione intensa e da brivido” secondo la concitata definizione autoriale e che, così enunciata, lascerebbe assai poco di accattivante al pubblico generale – ma poco importa, data la vocazione settoriale e la dedizione (peraltro con coscienza perseguita e coronata) all’acting gravido di rischio e all’esplorazione avventurosa.

[Read the rest…]

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) is available from Creative Sources Recordings. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

Posted on

Downtown Music Gallery is back!

My favorite record store, Downtown Music Gallery, is back up and running after Hurricane Sandy, and they need your support. Not just a record store, DMG is an institution that supports left-field, creative music. I am privileged to have had their support over the years. The following of my CDs are available from DMG. [CDs by Han-earl Park from DMG…]

available from Downtown Music Gallery

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

io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) [details…] [Get it from DMG…]

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

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

‘Mathilde 253’ (SLAMCD 528) CD cover (copyright 2010, Han-earl Park)

Mathilde 253 (SLAMCD 528) [details…] [Get it from DMG…]

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

© 2010 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2010 SLAM Productions.

Paul Dunmall and Han-earl Park: Boolean Transforms (DLE-067) CD cover (copyright 2010, DUNS Limited Edition)

Boolean Transforms (DLE-067) [details…] [Get it from DMG…]

Performers: Paul Dunmall (saxophone and bagpipes) and Han-earl Park (guitar).

© 2010 DUNS Limited Edition.
℗ 2010 Paul Dunmall/Han-earl Park.

Han-earl Park, Paul Dunmall, Mark Sanders and Jamie Smith: Live at the Glucksman gallery, Cork (owlcd002) CD cover (copyright 2012, Owlhouse Recordings)

Live at the Glucksman gallery, Cork (owlcd002) [details…] [Get it from DMG…]

Performers: Han-earl Park (guitar), Paul Dunmall (saxophone), Mark Sanders (drums) and Jamie Smith (guitar).

© 2009 by Owlhouse Recordings.
℗ 2009 Han-earl Park/Paul Dunmall/Mark Sanders/Jamie Smith.

Posted on

Revue & Corrigée: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park

CD cover of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park (copyright 2012, Creative Sources Recordings)
‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) © 2012 Creative Sources

Sporty and dynamic! The September 2012 issue of Revue & Corrigée prints a review of Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park’s ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd):

Je connais de nombreuses pièces de Richard Barrett enregistrées, écrites ou improvisées. C’est une figure importante de la musique contemporaine, malheureusement sous-estimée en France. Je vous invite vivement à écouter ce répertoire et vous plonger dans cette solide radicalité: l’écoute de la pièce symphonique Vanity (1996) devrait remettre de nombreuses pendules à l’heure. Lorsqu’il improvise (compose en temps réel), m’avec un dispositif électronique lui autorisant avec souplesse les parcours les plus inattendus.

Nous connaissons déjà plusieurs disques avec Furt, où il intervient avec Paul Obermayer, se jouant lui aussi d’un système électronique.

Je découvre ici sa collaboration avec le guitariste Han-Earl Pak [sic] (un autre créateur plutôt discret sur les scènes hexagonales), qui s’inscrit dans la tradition “post Derek Bailey” avec une saine volonté d’en découdre (cet artiste est aussi concepteur de systèmes interactifi originaux).

Sportif et dynamique.

Thanks to Lê Quan Ninh for helping source the text of the review.

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) is available from Creative Sources Recordings. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

Posted on

SLAM Productions featured in The New York City Jazz Record

SLAM Productions featured in The New York City Jazz Record, 08-2012. Copyright 2012 The New York City Jazz Record.
© 2012 The New York City Jazz Record (click to view PDF…)

This month, The New York City Jazz Record puts a spotlight on the record label SLAM Productions. In the article, Ken Waxman quotes label owner and curator George Haslam as saying:

When a recording is offered to me, I listen to it and consider, is SLAM the right place for it? I don’t have a style template to which the music must fit. The SLAM slogan has always been ‘Freedom of Music’. I remember years ago playing a concert with Lol [Coxhill]. He was asked to play a solo piece and was going to play ‘Autumn Leaves”. “But this is a free gig, Lol” someone said. “So,” said Lol “Am I free to play what I want?” What ties the SLAM catalogue together is the objective of preserving music that may otherwise be lost and making this music available to a listening public. To try to ‘educate’ or lead a public would be counterproductive but the music is there to be discovered. [Read the rest…]

It’s really great to see George Haslam and his label get some well deserved recognition, and I am honored that a couple of my recordings are available on SLAM. Thanks, George, for your support over the years, and especially for taking a gamble with a recording of a machine improviser! (And, incidentally, Paul Dunmall, who initially recommended SLAM to me, and the late Lol Coxhill, who guested on my first recording on SLAM, also make appearances in the article.)

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).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

‘Mathilde 253’ (SLAMCD 528) CD cover (copyright 2010, Han-earl Park)

Mathilde 253 (SLAMCD 528) is available from SLAM Productions [details…]

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

© 2010 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2010 SLAM Productions.

Posted on

CD reviews: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park

CD cover of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park (copyright 2012, Creative Sources Recordings)
‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) © 2012 Creative Sources

How’s your Portuguese? Rui Eduardo Paes reviews Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park’s ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd):

Quem partir para a audição de “Numbers” com uma ideia feita do que esperar de Richard Barrett e Han-Earl Park ficará, com certeza, surpreendido. Se o Barrett compositor de música contemporânea e o Barrett improvisador de electrónica no duo Furt e no Electro-Acoustic Ensemble de Evan Parker são, já à partida, bastante diferentes (apesar da sua convicção de que improvisar é apenas outra forma de compor), o que deste ouvimos agora distancia-se do “sampling” esquizóide a que nos habituou – os seus “outputs” neste disco identificam-se mais com as sonoridades sintetizadas dos antigos jogos de computador e videojogos. Por sua vez, o Park que aqui está não é o inventor e construtor de robôs e próteses musicais, mas o guitarrista. Percorrer outros caminhos implica neste disco aspectos positivos e negativos, mas verdade seja dita que a energia, o “drive” e o labor de sedimentação do ruído que vão desenvolvendo depressa nos conquistam. [Original article…]

— Rui Eduardo Paes

Meanwhile, Massimo Ricci at Touching Extremes suggests the recording might be a way to have your “brain zapped and scrambled by the rivalry between transonic beauty and extreme structural atomization”:

…It is… impractical to verbally interpret the bazillions of events that this CD warrants, for the joy of individuals who take pleasure in getting their brain zapped and scrambled by the rivalry between transonic beauty and extreme structural atomization. This is in fact a full hour of frantically jagged live improvisation that will definitely expose, in a good number of subjects, the inability of receiving and synthesizing a large quantity of data, given the inborn impossibility of switching to multi-channel mode in their neural constitution. These persons will end describing this barely imaginable tit-for-tat as unendurably non-brooding, or just “out of fashion”. Indeed the methods through which the (mostly) clean sounds of the electric guitar get stretched, warped, mangled and thrown back at the source demolish any propensity to rumination. As if a premix of Fred Frith, Hans Reichel and – why not – Christopher Willits had been subjected to a journey inside the circuits of a billboard. Mere seconds before its explosion, that is. [Read the rest…]

— Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

I wonder if Ricci had anyone particular in mind when he wrote of those with an “inability of receiving and synthesizing a large quantity of data, given the inborn impossibility of switching to multi-channel mode in their neural constitution” 😉

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) is available from Creative Sources Recordings. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

Posted on

Monsieur Délire: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park

CD cover of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park (copyright 2012, Creative Sources Recordings)
‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) © 2012 Creative Sources

Catch me if you can! François Couture at Monsieur Délire describes a complex music that moves in multiple directions in his review of Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park’s ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd):

Electronician Richard Barrett (of Furt) and guitarist Han-earl Park are working together to create music both spontaneous and premeditated, music that launches into several directions at a time (that’s Furt’s trademark). The guitar is wildly spatialized, and the electronics intermingle with it, manipulating in real-time, adding pointillistic fluries of sounds that make it impossible de isolate a single contribution. The result is lively, relevant, dizzying electroacoustic music; music that seems to be daring us to try and catch it.

[Read the rest…]

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) is available from Creative Sources Recordings. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

Posted on

Chain D.L.K.: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park

CD cover of ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) with Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park (copyright 2012, Creative Sources Recordings)
‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) © 2012 Creative Sources

Death of an Accountant? In his review at Chain D.L.K. of Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park’s ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd), Vito Camarretta imagines an unfortunate scenario for an “accountant, a computer expert or an operational researcher”, and describes an “acoustic lucid computational delirium, whose trajectory is impossible to outguess”:

You can easily imagine an accountant, a computer expert or an operational researcher in the act of falling prey of frightening hallucinations after a session of intensive work on numerical models, impressive balance sheets or other number-covered screed and their colossal equations or string while getting turned into ominous entities which paralyze their own maker in order to obsess, harass and torture him till death while listening to this amazing and fuzzy release by Welsh electronic musician and performer Richard Barrett (some well-trained listeners could know his collaborative project FURT with Paul Obermayer as well as his work within the Elision Ensemble) and guitarist, improviser and very talented performer Han-Earl Park. By means of an intricate web of sonic hiccups, scrapes, scouring, gluts, gargles and cuts, they build an acoustic lucid computational delirium, whose trajectory is impossible to outguess.

[Read the rest…]

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) is available from Creative Sources Recordings. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

Posted on

Annea Lockwood on io 0.0.1 beta++

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

The website of machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++ quotes the composer and explorer of our relationship to everyday (and not so everyday) artifacts, Annea Lockwood’s response to ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531):

The interaction between io and the three other players is really supple… and I like very much the gritty complexity of io’s vocabulary, and the fine sense of shaping, timbrally and in terms of gesture….

[Read the rest…]

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) with Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder is available from SLAM Productions. [More info…] [All reviews…] [Get the CD…]

arts council logo

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

Posted on

$100 Guitar Project: handover to Taylor Levine

Han-earl Park, the $100 guitar and Taylor Levine
After recording my sixty-seven second ditty for the $100 Guitar Project, the instrument gets handed over to Taylor Levine. [About my track…] [more about this project…]

Posted on

recording: $100 Guitar Project

Han-earl Park and the $100 guitar (photography by Scott Friedlander, copyright 2012)
Han-earl Park and the $100 guitar (photography by Scott Friedlander © 2012)

Today, for the $100 Guitar Project, I recorded a sixty-seven second track with the title

apophenia: A atomic symphony in 10 movements

ii you seek
iii a comfortable spot to listen
iv to this
v track the sofa perhaps
vi or the
vii floor however
viii standing hand
ix suspended over the volume
x control you
xi find that
xii it is

“Charmed by its [the $100 guitar’s] no-name vibe and single bridge pickup that looks like an old radio,” Nick Didkovsky and Chuck O’Meara masterminded the $100 Guitar Project which now involves some 68+ guitarists. Bridge Records will release the project as a double CD with royalties to go to CARE. [More about this project…]

Han-earl Park and the $100 guitar (photography by Scott Friedlander © 2012)
Han-earl Park and the $100 guitar (photography by Scott Friedlander © 2012)

Big thanks to Scott Friedlander for the recording and the photography, and thanks to Nick and Chuck for the invitation to join this project.