For those that don’t know, I founded Stet Lab, a space for improvised music based in Cork. I curated the Lab between 2007 and 2011, and during that time, also wrangled its online presence. In August, I will be removing some of the audio recordings of Stet Lab’s first year (prior to the November 2008 event) from its website. Read more to find out how to save your favorite recordings. [More…]
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.
site update: Han-earl Park bio redux
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…]
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 is performing later this month (July 24, 2012) at Freddy’s Bar (Brooklyn). See the performance diary for up-to-date info.
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.
site redesign 11-27-11
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.
site update: io 0.0.1 beta++ image gallery
Press/publicity photos and images of io 0.0.1 beta++, its construction and performances, are collated at:
goo.gl/photos/FuSGqYbnU9BAhwRR8
Photographs copyright the photographers. If you use any of the images, please credit the corresponding photographer. [Additional images…].
‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) is available from SLAM Productions. [Details…]
personnel: 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.
The construction of io 0.0.1 beta++ has been made possible by the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland.
site update: Mathilde 253 image gallery
Press/publicity photos and images of Mathilde 253 (Charles Hayward, Han-earl Park and Ian Smith) are now collated at:
https://goo.gl/photos/E8XrSrUML3Xee7MU7
Photographs copyright the photographers. If you use any of the images, please credit the corresponding photographer. [Additional images…].
site update: Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park
The (provisional) page for Numbers: Richard Barrett + Han-earl Park is now live. More to come including audio recordings and news about future performances. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Barrett (electronics)
Han-earl Park (guitar)Numbers is a high-energy, quick-footed, scatter-brained two hander—a looping, convoluted, interactive dance made audible—a musical fender bender involving electroacoustic complexities and (physio)logical splutter-cuts, jump-cuts and match-cuts—an intense white-knuckle extemporization unit—the duo of composer, performer and electronic musician Richard Barrett and guitarist, improviser and constructor Han-earl Park.
Celebrated for his dense, complex, intricate music, Richard Barrett is perhaps best known for his work with Paul Obermayer as part of FURT, as part of the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, and his close collaborations with the Elision Ensemble. At home in both composition and improvisation, Barrett’s music increasingly problematizes the distinction between them. 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, and is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith. First performing together as duo in at AUXXX, Berlin, October 2010, Barrett and Park engage in a continuing improvisative conversation; alternately claiming autonomy and independence, and group action and solidarity.
Their first CD, ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd), recorded at the Institute of Sonology (The Hague), will be released by Creative Sources Recordings in
November 20112011/2012.
[More…]
The CD, ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd), recorded at the Institute of Sonology (The Hague), will be released by Creative Sources Recordings in November 2011 2011/2012.
personnel: Richard Barrett (electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar).
track listing: tolur (15:38), tricav (10:42), ankpla (10:46), uettet (5:17), creens (6:03), ll……. (11:42). Total duration: 60:00.
© + ℗ 2011 Creative Sources Recordings.
updates
08–04–11: update CD catalog number to ‘CS 201 cd.’
11–15–11: update release schedule [details…].
site update: Mathilde 253
The (provisional) page for Mathilde 253 is now live. More to come including audio recordings and news about future performances. Here’s an excerpt:
Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica)
Han-earl Park (guitar)
Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn)A lip-reed, six strings, numerous membranes and metal discs.
Three valves; one potentiometer plus twenty-two frets; chains, sticks and beaters.
Six arms, six legs; three bodies coupled to artifacts.
Many tactics; negotiated boundaries and shifting networks of relationships.
Real-time musical meetings between
drummer Charles Hayward,
guitarist Han-earl Park and
trumpeter Ian Smith.Born out of an opportunity to explore the spontaneous mashup of avant-rock, African-American creative musics, European free improvisation and noise, Mathilde 253 (Charles Hayward, Han-earl Park and Ian Smith) debuted at Cafe OTO (London) in April 2010. Featuring special guest Lol Coxhill, the ensemble weaved a performance of physical virtuosity and humorous sound poetics; a patchwork of restraint, subtlety and recklessness.
A playful collision of personal, social and musical histories, Mathilde 253 is a site where tradition and idiom are not straightjackets nor limitations, but playgrounds for real-time (re)inventions and (re)configurations.
[More…]
site update: io 0.0.1 beta++ at www.io001b.com
io 0.0.1 beta++ now has its own domain:
More updates coming soon (expect reports on the hardware (re)construction and the upcoming performance at Blackrock Castle Observatory).
io 0.0.1 beta++ and Stet Lab updates
Site updates to io 0.0.1 beta++ and Stet Lab.
io 0.0.1 beta++
First round of reports (including audio recordings) from the November beta tests: by Franziska Schroeder and by Han-earl Park.
Stet Lab
Audio recordings of the November Stet Lab are available. The last Stet Lab of 2008 will take place on December 8th [details…].