This was one of those videos that I almost decided against posting. I think this one really highlights the discrepancy, or dissonance, between the visual and the auditory. I felt like maybe uploading the video might take away from the magic of the listening experience (if that makes sense). Reveal[ing] too much of the nuts’n’bolts and pulleys’n’curtains’n’backdrops behind the sounding processes. Anyway, I love the pace—tides ebb’n’flow—that Yorgos and Camila created here. [More…]
What became ‘Niche Shift I’ was, for me, the key transitional passage from the album—the part of the performance that really caught the entire trio by surprise on the evening. Enjoy.
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.
I love what’s recorded (and sculpted) here as sound. There are behind-the-scenes stories about an impossible group emerging from the debris of lockdown and the tangles of inter-border bureaucracy (stories for another time). But also, to my ears as a listener, there’s something tricky and oblique about our music—an origami of fire music and improvisative mischief—knotted, folded-on-itself, and, at time, joyously vexed.
Yet, the feeling on-stage, it’s all near effortless ‘and then’s and ‘therefore’s; of effects and reactions, but also reframings and reflections and retroactions. We went, I think, to a lot of unexpected places in that one session.
So sit-back in your favorite sofa or beanbag, or, headphones ready, go for a wander and a walk, or maybe sit at the table with a good book, and enjoy the journey. [Read the rest…]
I’m very, very happy with the music on this album, and feel very privileged to have shared this journey with the creative people on-stage, and behind-the-scenes. Please enjoy the noise!
Catch a track (‘Autopoiesis VI’) from Gonggong 225088! The extended preview will premiere at 5pm CEST* on Thursday, May 23, 2024! [Click ‘notify me’…]
By turns light-as-a-feather, and heavy and prickly as a bucket of rusty nails, the music is of contradiction and ambiguity. Leaps into ’90s HatHut pastiche are followed by truckers-in-space-engine-rumbles; slow-crawls-from-the-swap of irony-free ‘bells’n’smells’ sound art followed by turns-turns-turns-on-a-dime mutant Free Funk. [More…]
Click ‘notify me’, and be ready with your headphones (and popcorn), and join me on Thursday for some origami fire music!
* 17:00 CEST, 15:00 UTC, 11:00 EST, and 8:00 PST. (Or: 12am in Seoul, 6pm in Athens, 12pm in Buenos Aires, and 5pm in Berlin.).
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.
I love what’s recorded (and sculpted) here as sound. There are behind-the-scenes stories about an impossible group emerging from the debris of lockdown and the tangles of inter-border bureaucracy (stories for another time). But also, to my ears as a listener, there’s something tricky and oblique about our music—an origami of fire music and improvisative mischief—knotted, folded-on-itself, and, at time, joyously vexed.
Yet, the feeling on-stage, it’s all near effortless ‘and then’s and ‘therefore’s; of effects and reactions, but also reframings and reflections and retroactions. We went, I think, to a lot of unexpected places in that one session.
So sit-back in your favorite sofa or beanbag, or, headphones ready, go for a wander and a walk, or maybe sit at the table with a good book, and enjoy the journey.
Fluid, pliable motion…. The synergy between them is electrifying….
— Corey Mwamba (Freeness, BBC Radio 3)
Blue-green iridescence
(Crunch and more scatter)
A vacuum of warning
The latest project from Korean-American guitarist, improviser and composer Han-earl Park, Gonggong 225088 is his trio with Argentinian saxophonist, composer and visual artist Camila Nebbia, and Greek drummer, improviser and sound artist Yorgos Dimitriadis. Based in Berlin, the group emerged, piece-by-piece, from the darkly hazy, collective dream of masks, remote work, and social distancing.
By turns light-as-a-feather, and heavy and prickly as a bucket of rusty nails, the music is of contradiction and ambiguity. Leaps into ’90s HatHut pastiche are followed by truckers-in-space-engine-rumbles; slow-crawls-from-the-swap of irony-free ‘bells’n’smells’ sound art followed by turns-turns-turns-on-a-dime mutant Free Funk. Gonggong 225088 find overlapping-through-time, All-You-Zombies guitar gestures; stompbox-assisted saxophone punk ventriloquisms; and hive-mind metallophone creatures that migrate across the stereo field.
Here be dragons.
It’s music that is simultaneously earnest and full of ironic glee; a spaghetti junction of noise held together by a deep love of connection, and a constantly shifting center of balance found only in ensemble play.
Recorded with skill and sensitivity by Rabih Beaini, mixed by Han-earl Park to place the listener within the ensemble, and mastered for presence’n’punch by Andrew Weathers, this eponymous debut album captures Park, Dimitriadis and Nebbia in live performance at Morphine Raum.
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.
Catch the first ten minutes (‘Autopoiesis I’) from Gonggong 225088! The extended preview will premiere at 5pm CET* on Friday, March 1, 2024! [Click ‘notify me’…]
By turns light-as-a-feather, and heavy and prickly as a bucket of rusty nails, the music is of contradiction and ambiguity. Leaps into ’90s HatHut pastiche are followed by truckers-in-space-engine-rumbles; slow-crawls-from-the-swap of irony-free ‘bells’n’smells’ sound art followed by turns-turns-turns-on-a-dime mutant Free Funk. [More…]
I am super, super excited to finally be able to share this with you. The session was awesome: Rabih Beaini and his team did phenomenal work with the recording (it was a pleasure to mix), and I’m so happy that Carina Khorkhordina made time to be there and capture the performance on video.
Click ‘notify me’, and be ready with your headphones (and popcorn), and join me on Friday for some origami fire music!
* 17:00 CET, 16:00 GMT, 11:00 EST, and 8:00 PST. Or: 1:00 in Seoul, 18:00 in Athens, 13:00 in Buenos Aires, and 17:00 in Berlin.
Wondering what mixing strategy could possibly work for your recording of noisy, pretty, gentle and disorderly peculiar music? Hit me up if your left-of-field recording is in need of some in-the-box (with a little out-of-the-box thinking) mixing work.
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.
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: 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 the synergy between them is electrifying…. So much intensity in that music. Even when the volume goes down the intensity is still there. [Listen to the rest…]
A big thanks to producer Silvia Malnati at Freeness, and big, big thanks to Corey for supporting our music, and supporting the broader communities of creative people.
The album artwork is complete, and I’ve been working the last couple of weeks with engineer Andrew Weathers, and label mastermind David Menestres on the album masters. Gonggong 225088 will be out on Waveform Alphabet later this year. More soon!
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Feel the grass under your feet, and the steel girders flying over your head.
As reeds pop, strings snap, and membranes flutter and resonate.
Trace the folds in the fabric of the interactive.
I feel enormously privileged to be part of this trio with Yorgos and Camila, and super happy to be recording this beautiful confusion of clicks, flutters and snaps, of standing waves and intermodulations. Please come be part of this process!
Here are two recent releases from two very, very different projects. Let’s start with some sweetly queasy, and queasily sweet avant-pop love from QLH (Quentin Tolimieri: synthesizers; Luca Marini: drums; and Han-earl Park: guitar). It’s music that is simultaneously too much, and not enough: there are voids that need filled, but it’s impossible to figure out where they are for the kitchen sink.
Music by Quentin Tolimieri, Luca Marini and Han-earl Park.
Track 1 recorded by Luca Marini, Berlin, October 11, 2022.
Additional recording by Han-earl Park, Berlin, October 22, 2022.
Track 2 recorded by Marini, September 27, 2022.
Additional recording by Park, September 29, 2022.
Mixed by Han-earl Park.
