Update: download no longer available (“limited availability… until October 9, 2018”). For those who got it, big thanks for your support; enjoy the noise!
Repurposing melodic atoms? Dueling amplifiers? By turns riding and submerging into reverberant spaces?
A friendly reminder that you have about 48 hours (until October 9, 2018) to get Cryptogenic Animals. Limited availability, you can get the album free only with pre-orders of Eris 136199’s new album.
You can also hear saxophonist Catherine Sikora revisit and rework some of the melodic atoms played in Copenhagen; trying them against the contrasting acoustic environments. And, adapting to the disparate amplification available in Cheltenham (a diminutive solid-state amp against a 112 Fender), Nick Didkovsky and Han-earl Park reexamine the freedoms and restraints of the two-guitar context; an experience that would inform into their approach in Newcastle in significant ways. [Read the rest…]
Unique? Well, how often do I describe one of my recordings as unhurried and lush? This may be the closest I get to playing ambient.
Track listing: Therianthropy I (≥ 3:43), Therianthropy II (8:56), Therianthropy III (3:55), Therianthropy IV (6:30), Adaptive Radiation I (6:44), Adaptive Radiation II (8:48), Adaptive Radiation III (5:54), Universal Greebly (10:58), Hypnagogia I (8:03), Hypnagogia II (4:45). Total duration ≥ 68:25.
CD: €11 minimum (‘name your price’) plus shipping.*†
Download: €8 minimum (‘name your price’).†
* Limited edition glass-mastered CD. CD includes additional material (liner notes, artwork, etc.) not included in the download version of the album.
† Both digital and physical purchases give you streaming via the free Bandcamp app, and option to download the recording in multiple formats including lossless.
In case you missed it, I wrote a short piece for the June edition of The Wire (issue 448) in which I muse about speaker cabinets, cyborgs, simulations, rooms-within-rooms, and…
November 17, 2020: Eris 136199’s latest album is out now (compact disc and digital download)! Eris 136199 is the chaotic snap’n’pop of Han-earl Park’s cyborg virtuosity, the symphonies of power…
Formed in New York in 2012, Eris 136199 is the quick-reacting cyborg virtuosity of Han-earl Park (Sirene 1009), the mighty melodic imagination and big tenor sound of Catherine Sikora (Clockwork Mercury), and the diamond-cut precision and grind-meets-experimentalism of Nick Didkovsky (Doctor Nerve). Recorded during the 2017 European tour, Eris 136199’s eponymous album is the trio’s followup to their debut recording Anomic Aphasia (SLAMCD 559, 2015) which was described as “a beautiful noise” (KFJC 89.7 FM) and “atmospheric as to become almost frightening” (The New York City Jazz Record).
Noise multiplies via telephone futz, riding the transcontinental signal; a clockwork tight-rope walker dances, navigating (gears shift and gear grind) tension; and, above all, rises the Big Note around which we all fall to orbit.
Han-earl Park variously occupies the role of Eris 136199’s drummer, bassist, and second horn-player. He is the instigator and mastermind behind Eris 136199, as well as groups like Sirene 1009 (with Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh), and co-conspirator in projects with Richard Barrett and others. Park is navigator-engineer of the interactive, with playing that is by turns accommodating and interventionist. Changing direction and turning on a dime, Park demonstrates, with little more than a guitar, volume pedal and amplifier, a mutable, physical virtuosity.
In contrast, Nick Didkovsky creates anthems of glitch and distortion, playing the (analog and digital) signal chain from vibrating string to vibrating speaker via pedals and tube saturation. Demonstrating a deep understanding of rock, noise and experimentalism, Didkovsky rides the line between process-based mutations and heavy-rock riffage. Best known for his avant-metal big band Doctor Nerve, Didkovsky is also an active composer, working with ensembles such as Bang On A Can All Stars, ETHEL, and the Meridian Arts Ensemble, and the author of Java Music Specification Language, a system for algorithmic composition and real-time computer music.
Completing the trio is improviser, composer, saxophonist Catherine Sikora. Seated stage-center, Sikora brings a deep melodic and harmonic intelligence to the performances. In addition to long-standing collaborations with Eric Mingus, Christopher Culpo, Stanley Zappa, and Brian Chase, Sikora’s big, bold sound, and extraordinary melodic sense, has been in demand with artists such as Enrique Haneine, Elliott Sharp, and Ross Hammond. That same sound and technique grounds Eris, simultaneously rooting it in tradition while continually stepping beyond its borders.
Recorded with clarity and punch by Troels Bech and Charlie McGovern, and beautifully mastered by the amazing Richard Scott, the album presents two near-complete sets; from earlier in the tour (Copenhagen), and from the final date of the tour (Newcastle).
Update: thanks to everyone who pre-ordered! The pre-order period is now over, and the bonus album, Cryptogenic Animals, is no longer available to download. And free and exclusive to pre-orders of the album: the download-only Cryptogenic Animals. Recorded live in Cheltenham a day after Copenhagen, two days before Newcastle, Cryptogenic Animals, offers a unique opportunity to track the evolution of this improvising trio during the 2017 European tour, showcasing the trio’s adaptability to context, and creativity born from the contingent. [Listen/about Cryptogenic Animals…]
Therianthropy I (≥ 3:43), Therianthropy II (8:56), Therianthropy III (3:55), Therianthropy IV (6:30), Adaptive Radiation I (6:44), Adaptive Radiation II (8:48), Adaptive Radiation III (5:54), Universal Greebly (10:58), Hypnagogia I (8:03), Hypnagogia II (4:45). Total duration ≥ 68:25.
Track listing: Cryptogenic Animals I (5:26), Cryptogenic Animals II (6:46), Cryptogenic Animals III (5:01), Monkey Wrench I (6:09), Monkey Wrench II (7:59), Spherical Cow I (7:30), Spherical Cow II (3:05), Dendrobranchiata Murmurationis I (3:18), Dendrobranchiata Murmurationis II (5:10). Total duration: 50:23.
Eris 136199 plays on the crossroads of noise, melody, rhythm, space, density, contrast, synchronicity, asymmetry, serendipity and contradiction. Eris 136199 is the corporeal, cyborg virtuosity of constructor and guitarist Han-earl Park; the noisy, unruly complexity of composer, computer artist and guitarist Nick Didkovsky; and the no-nonsense melodic logic of composer and saxophonist Catherine Sikora.
Together, Park, Didkovsky and Sikora forge 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. [More about the trio…]
about the performers
Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe 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.
Ensembles include Sirene 1009 with Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh, Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and Numbers with Richard Barrett. Park is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury, Pat Thomas and Franziska Schroeder, and as part of large ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker and Pauline Oliveros.
Festival appearances include Freedom of the City (London), Brilliant Corners (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), CEAIT (Los Angeles) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including SLAM Productions, Creative Sources and DUNS Limited Edition.
Park teaches improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.
“Guitarist Han-earl Park is a musical philosopher…. Expect unexpected things from Park, who is a delightful shape-shifter….”
Brian Morton (Point of Departure)
Saxophonist, improviser and composer Catherine Sikora was born and raised in West Cork, Ireland. Self taught to begin with, she moved to New York City to study and play with great improvisers.
Sikora works in a broad range of settings, from highly complex composed music, to folk songs, to free improvisation. She works regularly with Eric Mingus, Enrique Haneine, Brian Chase, Han-earl Park, Stanley Zappa, Christopher Culpo and Ross Hammond, as well as actively pursuing solo performance.
In the past few years Sikora has toured in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia. She was a featured soloist in Eric Mingus’ radical reimagining of Tommy by the Who (Adelaide Festival 2015), and was artist in residence at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris for the fall of 2014, working on a project inspired by stories from her female ancestors. Catherine’s first solo album Jersey was released on Relative Pitch Records in July 2016.
“Sikora has invited us into her musical world, and like the neighbor from Queens, it is our good fortune to be in its midsts.”
— Paul Acquaro (Free Jazz)
“Sikora resembles [Evan] Parker on tenor saxophone in that she has created a personal language in which she sublimates technique according to what she wants to achieve and maintains a discernible relationship to the free jazz tradition in her syntax; she recalls another English saxophonist, John Butcher, in her absolute control and deployment of overtones. Where she remains distinct from both Butcher and Parker is in how she incorporates such dissonance into a stream of delicate abstract lyricism. -John Sharpe, New York City Jazz Record”
— John Sharpe (New York City Jazz Record)
Nick Didkovsky is a guitarist, composer, and computer music programmer. His non-didactic approach to combining human and machine creativity is a unique musical fingerprint. Didkovsky has composed new music for Kathleen Supove, Ethel, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Meridian Arts Ensemble, New Century Players, ARTE Quartett, his own bands Doctor Nerve, Vomit Fist, Häßliche Luftmasken, and others. His compositions and guitar performances appear on more than 50 records.
For over 30 years, Doctor Nerve has fueled Didkovsky’s intricate compositions with the energy of rock, often challenging the boundaries between heavy metal, contemporary music, and improvisation. Doctor Nerve has released nine albums of more than 50 of his compositions. The band has performed at numerous festivals including FIMAV, the Moers Festival, Musique Action, Creative Time, MIMI Festival, and ‘Whitney Live’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
As a guitarist and composer, Didkovsky was a member of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, contributing twelve compositions to its repertoire. Didkovsky’s electric guitar compositions continue to be performed by newer ensembles such as Dither Quartet, E-Werk, and Fracture Guitar Quartet, and by soloists such as Kevin Gallagher, Marco Cappelli, and Wiek Hijmans. As a soloist, he has performed at numerous events such as Bang On A Can festival, Guitarévolutions in Montreal, New Ballet festival at the Miller Theatre, and John Zorn’s East Asian Bar Bands. His 2015 Residency at The Stone in NYC resulted in numerous premiere performances of new works.
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.
Update: download no longer available (“limited availability… until October 9, 2018”). For those who got it, big thanks for your support; enjoy the noise!
Free download available only with pre-orders of the CD/digital album ‘Eris 136199’ (please allow 48 hours for download code).
Out now: hear the Uncanny Han-earl Park, the Mighty Catherine Sikora, and The Astonishing Nick Didkovsky navigate reverberant spaces, investigate melodic atoms, and negotiate unmatched amplifiers in Cryptogenic Animals! Available for a limited time, Cryptogenic Animals is free with pre-orders of the CD/digital album Eris 136199 [about/order ‘Eris 136199’…].
Available from: September 4, 2018. Limited availability (until October 9, 2018).
Album available to stream via the free Bandcamp app, and download in multiple formats including lossless.
description
While the Copenhagen and Newcastle performances are documented in an upcoming album by the trio Eris 136199, Cryptogenic Animals, recorded in Cheltenham between those dates, offers a unique opportunity to track the evolution of this improvising trio during the 2017 European tour.
Take for example the synchronized, collective jump-cuts and smash-cuts that populates the Copenhagen improvisations. These are all but absent by the time the trio perform three night later in Newcastle where, in their place, you find the group breathing together; moving and transitioning in larger scales. On Cryptogenic Animals, recorded the night after Copenhagen, and two before Newcastle, you can hear both these improvisative tactics operating in fascinating, contrasting ways.
You can also hear saxophonist Catherine Sikora revisit and rework some of the melodic atoms played in Copenhagen; trying them against the contrasting acoustic environments. And, adapting to the disparate amplification available in Cheltenham (a diminutive solid-state amp against a 112 Fender), Nick Didkovsky and Han-earl Park reexamine the freedoms and restraints of the two-guitar context; an experience that would inform into their approach in Newcastle in significant ways.
With the rich acoustics of the Francis Close Hall Chapel, the Cheltenham performance is, in contrast to the frenetic and biting Copenhagen and Newcastle performances, unhurried and lush. Cryptogenic Animals documents a fascinating transitional point in the group’s behavior, showcasing the trio’s adaptability to context, and creativity born from the contingent.
Cryptogenic Animals I (5:26), Cryptogenic Animals II (6:46), Cryptogenic Animals III (5:01), Monkey Wrench I (6:09), Monkey Wrench II (7:59), Spherical Cow I (7:30), Spherical Cow II (3:05), Dendrobranchiata Murmurationis I (3:18), Dendrobranchiata Murmurationis II (5:10). Total duration: 50:23.
Track listing: Therianthropy I (≥ 3:43), Therianthropy II (8:56), Therianthropy III (3:55), Therianthropy IV (6:30), Adaptive Radiation I (6:44), Adaptive Radiation II (8:48), Adaptive Radiation III (5:54), Universal Greebly (10:58), Hypnagogia I (8:03), Hypnagogia II (4:45). Total duration ≥ 68:25.
Do you want to hear/see Eris 136199’s outtakes/sidetakes/teasers/previews unavailable elsewhere? Be first in-line for the new album? Sign-up to my newsletter.
€2,073 pledged. 103% funded. 47 backers. 3 days to go
To our amazing, wonderful, awe-inspiring backers,
To the seekers of the mellifluous in cacophony, the rhythm in chaos,
To those who believed that this discordant trio could,
To you,
Thank you so much. To say I am overwhelmed feels almost an understatement. I am so excited to be hitting the road this November, and to be bringing to you our music.
Thank you so much. You have been awesome.
Yours faithfully,
Han-earl.
money raised above our goal
For those who have yet to back the campaign, or to select a reward, you still have three days to do so. As stated on the Kickstarter page:
Anything raised beyond our goal will go towards the design, packaging and manufacturing costs of the CD.
The first €350 over our goal will go towards paying for the design, packaging and manufacturing costs of the CD. Should we raise more than that, the next €150 will pay for a second day of recording for our album.
So you still have time to join us. Plus there are cool rewards (starting at the price of a coffee and muffin) still to be had such as exclusive recordings, super-rare items, and not-available-from-anywhere-else hand-made items. Select your reward, and back this project: [Kickstarter page…]
Update: download no longer available (“limited availability…until January 30, 2017”). For those who got it, big thanks for your support; wishing you good listening!
Free download available only with pre-orders of the CD/digital album ‘Sirene 1009’ (please allow 48 hours for download code).
Kuramoto Synchronization I (7:08), Kuramoto Synchronization II (5:27), Kuramoto Synchronization III (10:09), Kuramoto Synchronization IV (4:26), Kuramoto Synchronization V (7:33), Kuramoto Synchronization VI (4:55). Total duration: 39:34.
Recorded live January 29, 2016, Aula Maxima, UCC, Cork.
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Han-earl Park.
Artwork by Han-earl Park.
Thanks to Niall McGuinness and Dan Walsh; and to Paul O’Donnell, John Hough, Carmel Daly and Kelly Boyle at the UCC Music Department. Performance presented as part of FUAIM Music at UCC.
Corey Mwamba is currently running ‘Month of British/Irish Listening,’ a series of YouTube playlists that “focus on current British/Irish jazz or improv” [read the rest…]. Corey put out an informal call for guest contributions, and I’m happy to have selected another ten clips for issue #12 in the series:
While the London Jazz Festival madness begins, I’ve asked other musicians if they’d like to contribute to the days. Here’s guitarist Han-earl Park’s fine contribution. [Read the rest…]
Update: download no longer available (“Limited availability… until March 31, 2016”). For those who got it, big thanks for your support; wishing you good listening!
This bandcamp-hosted album offers the option to download the recording in multiple formats (mp3, Ogg and AAC) including lossless (FLAC and ALAC), and includes print-ready CD case cover and inlay artwork.
Price: €5 minimum (‘name your price’).
All proceeds go towards the maintenance of musical instruments (e.g. mallets, bow rehairing, etc.). Your generosity will help support the performers and their work. For reference:
€10 = set of guitar strings = keeps guitar(ist) happy for 3 weeks
The Racially Diverse Trio of Nerdy Guys: or We Were Paid in Comics!
The Ultimate Han-earl Park, The Uncanny Dom Lash and The Astonishing Corey Mwamba demonstrate their formidable and generous musicality (a diabolical combination), making music, sometimes brittle, always unexpected, with no gesture lost in play. (Album includes two bonus tracks that demonstrate the effects of entropy, as the bridge pickup of the guitar cr*ps-out, and the bass develops a new buzz.)
Released: November 1, 2015. Limited availability (until March 31, 2016).
Price: €5 minimum (‘name your price’).
All proceeds go towards the maintenance of musical instruments (e.g. mallets, bow rehairing, etc.). Your generosity will help support the performers and their work. For reference:
€10 = set of guitar strings = keeps guitar(ist) happy for 3 weeks
Tracks 1–2 recorded live at St. Margaret’s Church, Manchester on May 2, 2015 as part of the Tubers MiniFestival curated by David Birchall. Tracks 3–4 recorded live at Boat-ting, London on May 4, 2015 in an event curated by Sibyl Madrigal.
Recorded and mastered by Han-earl Park.
Design and artwork by Han-earl Park.
Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe 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.
Ensembles include Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and Numbers with Richard Barrett. Park is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury, Pat Thomas and Franziska Schroeder, and as part of large ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker and Pauline Oliveros.
Festival appearances include Freedom of the City (London), Sonorities (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), CEAIT (Los Angeles) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions, Creative Sources and DUNS Limited Edition.
Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.
“Guitarist Han-earl Park is a musical philosopher…. Expect unexpected things from Park, who is a delightful shape-shifter….”
Brian Morton (Point of Departure)
Dominic Lash is a freely improvising double bassist, although his activities also range much more widely and include playing bass guitar and other instruments; both writing and performing composed music; and writing about music and various other subjects.
He has performed with musicians such as Tony Conrad (in duo and quartet formations), Joe Morris (trio and quartet), Evan Parker (duo, quartet and large ensemble) and the late Steve Reid. His main projects include The Dominic Lash Quartet, The Set Ensemble (an experimental music group focused on the work of the Wandelweiser collective) and The Convergence Quartet.
Based in Bristol, Lash has performed in the UK, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and USA. For nearly a decade he was based in Oxford and played a central role in the activities of Oxford Improvisers; much of 2011 was spent living in Manhattan. In 2013 and 2014 he is taking part in Take Five, the professional development programme administered by Serious.
Festival appearances include Akbank Jazz Festival (Istanbul), Audiograft (Oxford), Freedom of the City (London), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hurta Cordel (Madrid), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), LMC Festival (London), Manchester Jazz Festival and Tampere Jazz Happening.
His work has been broadcast on a number of radio stations, including BBC Radios 1 and 3 and Germany’s SWR2, and released on labels including Another Timbre, b-boim, Bead, Cathnor, Clean Feed, Compost and Height, Emanem, Erstwhile, FMR, Foghorn, Leo and NoBusiness.
Since moving to Bristol he has been involved in organising concerts under the banners of Bang the Bore and Insignificant Variation. A new venture is the monthly series happening every second Wednesday at the Arnolfini entitled Several 2nds. Events include performances, workshops, film screenings and discussions.
“Following in an illustrious lineage from Barry Guy through Simon Fell… breathtaking.”
John Sharpe (All About Jazz)
Born and based in Derby, Corey Mwamba’s commitment to jazz and improvised music in Britain and Ireland drives all aspects of his work, whether through composition, playing, or promoting new music.
Corey predominantly plays vibraphone; he also plays dulcimer and uses audio processing software. He is recognised as a highly creative improviser and composer working across a wide range of jazz and contemporary music, called to work with musicians such as Tony Kofi, Pat Thomas, Alexander Hawkins, Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Arun Ghosh, Quantic, Cerys Matthews, Mat Maneri, Lucian Ban and Ty.
Mwamba’s distinctive approach and tone can be heard in the critically acclaimed Yana with Dave Kane (bass) and Joshua Blackmore (drums). This group exemplifies a core ideal of creating an “open, living music”; listening and responding spontaneously as a unit to make music that has love, language and a groove. Their first studio release don’t overthink it was hailed as “engaging and evocative” (All About Jazz) and described as “the sound of three minds working together in a utopian zone, way beyond the individual ego – and producing something quite beautiful in the process” (Jazzwise). He is a member of the Anglo-French quartet Sonsale with bassist Andy Champion, drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq and cellist Valentin Ceccaldi. Corey also works with Andy in an improvising trio with saxophonist Ntshuks Bonga. He also plays in duos with saxophonist Rachel Musson; pianist Robert Mitchell; percussionists Martin Pyne and Walt Shaw; and the multi-instrumentalist Orphy Robinson.
Corey contributes to saxophonist Nat Birchall’s quintet, saxophonist and composer Martin Archer’s large ensemble Engine Room Favourites, and trumpeter Nick Malcolm’s quartet. He plays with Nick and drummer Simon Roth in Our Own Decay.
An active advocate of the arts, Corey Mwamba strives to argue the case for the arts. He petitioned for fair pay to artists during the London Olympics, and helped engineer a moratorium and review of arts funding cuts in Derby through debate with the city council; he has also worked with many regional arts organisations. He has held board positions for Derby Jazz, World Song Derby, Derby Cultural Diversity Arts Network, and Arts Council England (East Midlands). He is also an adventurous programmer of new music in Derby, setting up One Note Sunday and The Family Album as well as programming Derby Jazz’s improvised music stream called 2ndline.
Corey was granted a PRSF/Jerwood Foundation Take Five artist development award in 2007; was short-listed for the Innovation category in the BBC Jazz Awards in 2008; and was awarded an AHRC studentship for a Master of Research degree in Music at Keele University; he graduated with a distinction in 2014.
Expect playful, noisy and inventive musical interactions as the cyborgian virtuoso guitarist Han-earl Park performs with double bassist Dominic Lash, drummer Mark Sanders, and vocalist and electronics performer Caroline Pugh in Birmingham (1 December 2015), Bristol (2 December) and London (3 December). This three-date tour marks the first European performances of Han-earl Park’s Metis 9, a collection of improvisative tactics for ensemble performance.
Described as “a musical philosopher… a delightful shape-shifter” by Brian Morton in Point of Departure, guitarist Han-earl Park has performed with some of the best improvisers from the Americas, Asia and Europe. He is part of ensembles including the London-based Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, the New York-based Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and the Berlin-based Numbers with Richard Barrett.
The performances will feature Park’s trio with the virtuosic bassist, composer and sound artist Dominic Lash, and Mark Sanders, arguably the most sought-after avant-jazz and free improvisation drummer of his generation. Joining the group will be Belfast-based experimental folk singer and electronics performer Caroline Pugh, bringing an additional layer of levity and exuberance to the already playful interactions of the trio.
In addition to presenting other improvisative and traditional works, this tour will mark the European premiere of Park’s Metis 9, a playbook of interactive tactics for group improvisation. Initially conceived and performed in New York (in collaboration with New York-based musicians, Josh Sinton and Catherine Sikora), Metis 9 is documented on the album Anomic Aphasia recently released by SLAM Productions to great acclaim (“☆☆☆☆½” All About Jazz, “☆☆☆☆” Free Jazz).
With musicians representing diverse strands of present-day improvised musics, prepare for a performance that fragments and recombines musical histories, a performance that leaps unexpectedly between noise, melody, dissonance, harmony and rhythm.
The events take place: Tuesday, 1 December, Fizzle at The Lamp Tavern (Barford Street, Birmingham B5 6AH), 7:30pm; Wednesday, 2 December, Bang the Bore at Cafe Kino (108 Stokes Croft, Bristol BS1 3RU), 8:00pm; Thursday, 3 December, Cafe OTO (18–22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL), 8:00pm.
Hear guitarist Han-earl Park push and pull on the guitar-amplifier dancing partners, Dominic Lash and his double bass damage hanging artwork, Mark Sanders excavate caverns in the smallest spaces for his percussion, and Caroline Pugh sing the lines that border the intelligible and the cryptic. Somewhere out there, there’s an SUV-sized violin tailgating, a No Wave guitarist desperately trying to survive in the Appalachian Mountains, someone dropping sheets of metal during a Jazz Session, an evolutionary biologist finding themselves speaking in tongues (awash in blue).
about the performers
Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe 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.
Ensembles include Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, Eris 136199 with Nick Didkovsky and Catherine Sikora, and Numbers with Richard Barrett. Park is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury, Pat Thomas and Franziska Schroeder, and as part of large ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker and Pauline Oliveros.
Festival appearances include Freedom of the City (London), Sonorities (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), CEAIT (Los Angeles) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions, Creative Sources and DUNS Limited Edition.
Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.
“Guitarist Han-earl Park is a musical philosopher…. Expect unexpected things from Park, who is a delightful shape-shifter….”
Brian Morton (Point of Departure)
Dominic Lash is a freely improvising double bassist, although his activities also range much more widely and include playing bass guitar and other instruments; both writing and performing composed music; and writing about music and various other subjects.
He has performed with musicians such as Tony Conrad (in duo and quartet formations), Joe Morris (trio and quartet), Evan Parker (duo, quartet and large ensemble) and the late Steve Reid. His main projects include The Dominic Lash Quartet, The Set Ensemble (an experimental music group focused on the work of the Wandelweiser collective) and The Convergence Quartet.
Based in Bristol, Lash has performed in the UK, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and USA. For nearly a decade he was based in Oxford and played a central role in the activities of Oxford Improvisers; much of 2011 was spent living in Manhattan. In 2013 and 2014 he is taking part in Take Five, the professional development programme administered by Serious.
Festival appearances include Akbank Jazz Festival (Istanbul), Audiograft (Oxford), Freedom of the City (London), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hurta Cordel (Madrid), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), LMC Festival (London), Manchester Jazz Festival and Tampere Jazz Happening.
His work has been broadcast on a number of radio stations, including BBC Radios 1 and 3 and Germany’s SWR2, and released on labels including Another Timbre, b-boim, Bead, Cathnor, Clean Feed, Compost and Height, Emanem, Erstwhile, FMR, Foghorn, Leo and NoBusiness.
Since moving to Bristol he has been involved in organising concerts under the banners of Bang the Bore and Insignificant Variation. A new venture is the monthly series happening every second Wednesday at the Arnolfini entitled Several 2nds. Events include performances, workshops, film screenings and discussions.
“Following in an illustrious lineage from Barry Guy through Simon Fell… breathtaking.”
John Sharpe (All About Jazz)
Mark Sanders has played with many renowned musicians from around the world including Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, Derek Bailey, Myra Melford, Paul Rogers, Henry Grimes, Roswell Rudd, Okkyung Lee, Barry Guy, Tim Berne, Otomo Yoshihide, Luc Ex, Ken Vandermark, Sidsel Endresen and Jean Francois Pauvrois, in duo and quartets with Wadada Leo Smith and trios with Charles Gayle with Sirone and William Parker.
New collaborative projects include ‘Riverloam Trio’ with Mikolaj Trzaska and Olie Brice, ‘Asunder’ with Hasse Poulsen and Paul Dunmall, duos with John Butcher and DJ Sniff, ‘Statics’ with Georg Graewe and John Butcher, and trio with Rachel Musson and Liam Noble.
Mark and John Edwards play as a rhythm section with many groups including Trevor Watts Quartet, ‘Foils’ with Frank Paul Schubert and Matthius Muller, Mathew Shipp’s ‘London Quartet,’ also playing with Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith and Shabaka Hutchins amongst many others.
Christian Marclay’s ‘Everyday’ project includes Mark with Christian, Steve Beresford, John Butcher and Alan Tomlinson, he also works regularly in the projects of Mikolaj Trzaska, Gail Brand, Paul Dunmall, Peter Jaquemyn, and Simon H. Fell.
Mark has performed in the USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Morrocco, South Africa, Mozambique and Turkey, playing at many major festivals including, Nickelsdorf, Ulrichsburg, Glastonbury, Womad, Vancouver, Isle of Wight, Roskilde, Berlin Jazz days, Mulhouse, Luz, Minniapolis, Banlieue Bleues, Son D’hiver and Hurta Cordel.
He has released over 120 CDs.
“A gifted player capable of seamless movement between free-rhythms and propulsive swing.”
John Fordham (The Guardian)
Scottish vocalist and composer Caroline Pugh borrows old-fangled technologies and honours oral histories to create new performances. With a background in both folk and improvisation, her solo works You’ve Probably Heard These Songs Before, Timing By Ear, Measuring By Hand and Platform Audio also draw on performance art and pinhole photography.
Originally from Edinburgh, Caroline has performed across Europe and North America with new improvisation performances including Los Angeles’ Betalevel in 2012, NIME 2011 in Oslo, Just Listening 2011 in Limerick and Experimentica09 in Cardiff. She is also in a band called ABODE and an improvisation collective called E=MCH.
Now based in Belfast, Caroline sings in a folk duo with Meabh Meir and together with Myles McCormack they run traditional song sessions at the Garrick Bar on Mondays from 7.30-10pm.
In 2011, Caroline was awarded an Art Council Northern Ireland grant for her solo work and gained a Distinction for her AHRC-funded Master of Music at Newcastle University. She coaches students at Queen’s University Belfast and has worked in collaboration with visual artists (Connecting through Scape 2008), theatre practitioners (hour8+9 2009), video artists (SAAB 2009), dancers and psychologists (Newcastle and Northumbria Universities 2010). She also got a BA in Scottish Music from the Royal Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and studied Contemporary Music at the University of Central Lancashire for a wee while too.
“Every once in a while you happen upon a gig or event that’s so fundamentally unlike anything you’ve experienced before that you can’t help but reconsider your own thoughts on what defines music, performance and entertainment.”
Meanwhile… “dynamic, articulate”? “jarring, discordant, loud and experimental”? “interesting acoustic altercations?” sounds that are simultaneously “alien and captivating”? (I certainly love the idea that my guitar “breaks constantly with magmatic rumblings.”) Accompanying the interview with Han-earl Park in jazzColo[u]rs, Andrew Rigmore and Antonio Terzo review ‘Anomic Aphasia’:
Votato all’improvvisazione basata su macro tattiche, artefice di un impiego ritmico—molto personale—della chitarra, e fautore di sonorità comunque aliene e trascinanti al tempo stesso, Han-earl Park è musicista conscio dei propri limiti, che cerca di superare con un approccio “alternativo”, umile e di ricerca. A beneficiarne, innanzitutto, la voce della sassofonista Catherine Sikora, sonora, multicolore e sfaccettata…. Mette in campo due diverse formazioni: la prima, stridente, discordante, rumorosa e sperimentale, con il chitarrista Nick Didkovsky, ossia l’Eris trio, l’altra, più dinamica, articolata e meno dissonante, invece, insieme al sassofonista—anche lui sui generis—Josh Sinton, ossia Metis 9…. Han-earl Park lo dice chiaramente: il terreno è, specie per Metis 9, quello della sperimentazione, e dal punto di vista pratico, siamo certo molto lontani da quel che si intende per jazz. Ma è anche vero che essere pratici spesso impedisce di vedere il possibile. E, soprattutto in arte, uccide la fantasia.
Mr. Park moved here for a few years not too long ago and worked with a number of Downtown musicians…. This is Mr. Park’s first disc with those Downtowners, an interesting cast from different scenes…. Mr. Park wrote or provided directions for each piece…. The first trio is for two guitars and Ms. Sikora on saxes. It is very long and both guitars sound well-integrated, Mr. Park played those fractured notes similar to Derek Bailey and Mr. Didkovsky using some sustain or other devices to thicken up his tone or provide alien textures. Ms. Sikora… works well in the two guitars or two saxes context here. This is a strong, long and spirited disc of challenging music where all of the players help determine the direction and interaction. Another great thing about this disc is getting to hear bari sax great Josh Sinton stretching out at length. [Read the rest…]
Finally, KFJC 89.7 FM hears music that spans “cacophony to melody”, and a “beautiful noise”:
It’s all about guitars versus sax. Sax versus guitars. Sax and guitars together. They are challenging and phenomenal works with the musicians playing off of each others ideas. The guitars are each unique in approach and Sikora goes for it with her sax taking them on note for note. There is pause and space, much needed allowing the listener to appreciate it all. Cacophony to melody…. What is clear is the stunning trio work…. The feeling is different but still crazy, intertwining each others notes, letting them stand, then facing off, blending, melding, challenging each other. A beautiful noise. Free jazz continuing to experiment. [Read the rest…]
Thanks to KFJC 89.7 FM for all the support over the years (shout outs to Carson Street, Edison Einstein, Cousin Mary, Dada Diogenes and Spliff Skankin!), and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank, in particular, WNUR 89.3 FM, CHRW 94.9 FM, KALX 90.7 FM and WFMU 91.1 FM for their airplay.
For those of you who were interested in such things… a couple of exercises/studies (the second inspired by one of Brahms’) I’ve been working on for a few days. Very rough, and very much work-in-progress. No commentary or breakdown (yet), but let me know if you have questions. More to come…
I had a blast performing with Andrea last time (as I said, “insanely fun!”); I look forward to playing with Simon in a small group context (last time was anything but); and, incredibly, this will be my first on-stage meeting with Hilary. I’m looking forward to this mightily.
