Category: Friends
Open by cutting (me). Occupying; then quell, you steep, invigorated paterfamilians - of brio, of muniment; you stride into a land without restraint, dressed in silver bullets, werewolving; as indictments, to the endless palilalia, of sado sado sado. Goya made us do it; and seventeen stabs at independent information gets you this far:
AUTOTISTIC [say/s] Recorded live, the awkward bits a reflection of the bad perspectives contained in the painting… a sickness of mind wrapped in roosting electrics. BRYAN LEWIS SAUNDERS [says] A burning bullet as it falls on deaf ears composed solely of tones from a hearing test Sears the meat of the painters mind (Headphones required unless you are blind). DAMASCUS ROAD SHOW & THESE FEATHERS HAVE PLUMES [say/s] Whilst inspired by the theme of Goya's The Third of May, this spoken word piece references the Spanish Civil War which ended 70 years ago (April 1st 1939) and the International Brigades. Let us not forget the Battle for Madrid in November 1936, when Franco's mass murdering superiorly armed hordes were halted at the gates of Madrid by an ill equipped and poorly armed population, the remaining loyal elements of the military etc and of course at the last minute the inspiring arrival of the International Brigades. Somehow the line held. The cost was very high. Although this conflict was more than a century after Goya's painting it seemed appropriate to link the two together. The scene Goya depicted was repeated again and again: some say that for every execution that the Republicans committed, Franco committed at least 20 times more. After the Republic fell perhaps as many has 140,000 Liberals, Socialists, Anarchists, Communists, Intellectuals, Teachers, Trade Unionists, Peasants, Working and Middle Class and non Political free thinking people etc. went the way of the third of May: up against a Cemetery Wall. The 3rd of May also features on the cover of Peter Marshall's visionary work, Demanding The Impossible : A history Of Anarchism. A very intelligent and inspiring written work. The accompanying photograph is from the horrifying ruins of Belchite, destroyed in the Spanish Civil War. I took the picture in 2003. It is a dreadful place; so many people died there..this place creeped me out. The remaining buildings are still clearly riddled with bullet and shell holes, look closely and you will see them. Here is a quote from the Battle of Belchite. (1) Bill Bailey, describing fighting in the town of Belchite, from David Mitchell's book, The Spanish Civil War (1982). We would knock a hole through a wall with a pickaxe, throw in a few hand-grenades, make the hole bigger, climb through into the next house, and clear it from cellar to attic. And by God we did this, hour after hour. The dead were piled in the street, almost a storey high, and burnt. The engineers kept pouring on gasoline until the remains sank down. Then they came with big trucks and swept up the ashes. The whole town stank of burning flesh. Thank you to Goya for the warning to us all: resistance is anything but futile. Believe it. They Shall Not Pass. Paul Whieldon / Words, voice, guitar - Damascus Road Show (Paul Whieldon); manipulation, smoke and mirrors - These Feathers Have Plumes (Andie Brown). FONIK [say/s] Its Fonik remixed by Bacillus (or Fonik vs Bacillus) and its called 'act of war'. The basic track was recorded live last year (2008) at a gig at Fuel in Manchester. The sound source for bacillus was created on a pc from raw waves. GLASS EYE UNION [say/s] In the canyons the fall adler ignore the Bible; Meanwhile, atypic meaningful Coulter Steadily hits Pinsky with a dowry snore. Nearby, there's a compass cannonball factory Packed full of shaken kerosene Which abuts the boca bow network. Some time ago corruption was banefully there Even though Blade Mildew ignored The osmosis of the Dnieper; He was apparently credulous with desuetude As the result of some Australite gimmick. IGOR'S ROOMY LAB COAT [say/s] Igor Leakin-Beaker attempts an electronic audio meditation on the cumulative effect/affect of potent images, representations and symbologies. Here is his look, presented audibly, at the distillation of meaning from sensorium and the cognition evoked by the shapes, signs and pictographs of the artist. It is the role of the artist as a decrypter of personalised and ego subjective cogitations i.e. of a direct experiential representative encoding of physicalities that is the basis of the meditative piece presented. The algebra of art, the pictorial fundamentals, 0 and 1 in pigment; the manner in which Goya made us do it? A parting thought....to strip the extraneous details and reveal the pen and ink road signs of reality, confronted by truth over and over, is it possible to deny forever? JAAN PATTERSON [say/s] the manifestation painted majors created private growing and very cycle art before more recourse enjoyed subsequent his inside out as them made her expect human to true to never enough few of the intellectual estrangement also as their Goya impression has painting in of existence... THOSE made us do it canvas history as himself may be ambitious and intended to try of pictures extreme It’s people are as private like painted history as they displayed usual we & any visit public know Black enjoyed enough public well instead never modern rather as growing is a decide led to decision proof. KALISTONGUE [say/s] I haven’t got any guns......... I haven’t got any.......... because I’m so short sighted, I would probably kill all my friends! LEZET [say/s] Finca Del Sordo Menageries. Meat, Frescoes. And manolos. History is ancient. MURMURISTS & IGOR's ROOMY LAB COAT [say/s] Symbol / Sender / Please close your eyes. I'm sitting at home and it is morning. I can think of no greater affirmation of the correctness of these decisions than to say my mouth has been closed tightly for days. I have been utterly alone in this work, wearing myself out. Contact is rare at the best of times. * years without love. Death changed everything. So few understand, and I am no teacher. Such a fait accompli - one I can neither decode nor convincingly transform. I see everything in sections. Even after * years, I'm still sectioning and seeing the merit of it. All my archives - here, in this room; my love of storage, my envy of the past; the peering eyes; the sliced and pitted lids, gaping. Friends. Oh how I have loved. But no more. Now, I’m hopelessly exact but without means. My research has ended. Everything is revealing. Everything confuses. The clarities I enjoyed are no longer the lesson in humiliation they once were. I know what suits me, but my confidence is concluded / the commission was placed / placed from a state of delusional slumber / auto hypnotised / with a mental avatar of assumption / and distorted self image / the commission was delivered / a pigmented mirror / revealing the reality of my circumstances / pigment placed / revealing truth / a bare bones isness / veracity undeniable / above the actuality / of a glassine reflection / reflection refracted through / egotic prism / my artisan / of harsh neutrality / paints for me / my truth / confronted / i must awake and live / or slumber again / fare well. ONE MINUTE WANDA [say/s] GOYA-YOGA d-d- d- d-deaf to everyone, goya painted his yearning and terror for you: see over there is saturn gorging on his son making mincemeat of his shoulder what did he think of his own father? it makes you wonder... but look over here at goya's lover the gorgeous leocadia eyes and dress as dark as thunder: he couldn't destroy her so calm she stands next to the bed she looks like she's been doing yoga... d-d- d- d-deaf to everyone, goya painted his yearning and terror for you. PAS (POST ABORTION STRESS) WITH LEONARDO CASAS [say/s] Bajo Las Estrellas Su Espiritu flota Contra la razon un mundo ignorante. PRISON FOOD SUCKS, THOMAS PETIT & COLIN JOHNCO [say/s] Classwar Karaoke 0006 survey 'Goya Made Us Do it' / GOYA-FUZZ / 5:43 / Thomas Petit: guitar / Prison Food Sucks: laptop, synth, machines / Colin Johnco: feedback, overdub, drone / Artwork: François Brunet / www.bellesillustrations.com / PFS quitte sa ville natale pour regagner Pissjatjjjick, un port de plaisance. Y rencontre Colin Johnco, rital du Colorado, dans un stage de judo. Découvre le plaisir de la chaire cablée et des expandeurs inopérants... Ce n’était guère la communication qui les intéressaient, mais plutôt de fouler des pieds les êtres les plus bas. Ton effet bœuf sur moi tout à l’heure Les fusillades Crier tragiquement de plaisir Tout de suite Action escalope Tais-toi sac à main Elle a du ChienChantal Révolution / http://colinjohncorecords.free.fr / http://www.myspace.com/prisonfoodsuckscolinjohnco. SEESAR & SONIC PLEASURES [say/s] Goya Made Me Do It. It was no wonder that artist and art historian Anthony Donovan (whom we all know and love as Murmurists) asked contributors of CK0006 to comment upon Goya as their focus of discussion. Being a visual person in general, an artist myself in some rights, and generally influenced by the works and lives of many creative artists myself, I have taken this request in a broader sense: I have decided to talk about the influence of art movements upon music, and in particular, the ways in which Italian Futurism has fuelled my improvising since I began performing over thirty years ago, whether I realized it or not. When I first started improvising, I was also attending university studying physics and acoustics hoping to become an instrument builder. I had access to lots of wood and metal working equipment allowing me to build this and that. I was also surrounded by clever and like-minded individuals that constantly encouraged me to experiment. The only way to learn certain building techniques, however, was to get involved in art classes in which the skills to use the equipment were taught. I jumped in on woodworking and metal sculpture courses and had to come up with ways to alter assignments from visual art only to sound oriented art as well. Exposure to art, art history, and its relation to sound generation was unavoidable. The more I learned about artists and the ways in which they interacted with other creative forces, the more I became obsessed with building instruments, both for sight and sonic attributes. I built a bamboo xylophone suspended in a giant web that surrounded the player. I welded together a giant lump of random metal, where almost all of the protruding parts made nice tones when either struck or bowed. (One such sculpture was so large, that I was asked to dismantle it by the university because no one could move it and one professor who had attempted to do so got injured. Oops.) It was the professor of my metal sculpture class whom first told me about Luigi Russolo. I had never heard of Futurism and I have no idea that anyone had tried to build strange, non-equally tempered tuned instruments previously. Harry Partch? Never heard of him. Experimental Musical Instrument Quarterly? Not seen a single page. I had not even realized that most folk instruments were hand built and not tuned to a western classical piano. Of course, I was not the first, nor was even Russolo, but my being unaware of this did not make it any less important or influential. Russolo’s work preceded me and influenced many others before his work became of great interest to me. What’s so important to me about Luigi Russolo? Not only did his investigation into constructing new musical instruments and his desire to include (at the time) new sounds associated with modernism excite me to the point of becoming a huge fan of his, but also his background and his involvement in the artist movement he supported, and in turn, supported him. That movement was Futurism. There is a ton of material out there on Futurism so I am not going to take up article space to discuss it. I do suggest finding out all about it! Some of it is the most fantastic, creative art out there! Not, all, though. Some of it, in fact a lot of it, does nothing for me. It is not the art itself with which I am concerned here, but rather the art movement and the inter play between the creative figures. Russolo was an artist primarily. He painted and sketched mostly and his work evolved over time through his own experimentation and his philosophical discussions with his peers. He was a violin player, mostly because his father insisted that he learn to perform some music. The rest of his family were accomplished musicians, his father a pianist, his brother a composer, his mother a singer. Russolo, though, was a visual artist primarily. He painted still-lifes and depicted typical subject matter for artists of the time. That was until he read the Futurist Manifesto published by his colleague, Marinetti. The call for artists to include modern elements and basically destroy or ignore older forms of art transformed Russolo and he began to paint with these things in mind. His art became some of the first to represent movement in Italian art at the turn of the century and still remains important to this day. However, he did not stop there. He saw, or perhaps I should say heard, modernism as being ignored in music as well as art and he called for artists and musicians to begin to include new sounds in composition. He wondered why certain daily heard sounds were excluded from timbres used in orchestras. He surmised that one reason was that there were no instruments that were able to create the newer sounds of life with motor cars, radios, and electric devices. Russolo (with his assistant Ugo Piati) began to build a series of instruments that would fill those gaps which he called Intonarumori or noise makers. I trust the basic inspiration for me in terms of Russolo’s work is obvious. Making instruments and departing from standard concepts of what is an acceptable and beautiful timbre is a model attitude without an end to its value! There are many subtleties, as well, such Russolo’s instruments were built as “black boxes”, meaning a player would not have any idea what sound was to come from the instrument until it was played, forcing the musician to perform accordingly, including improvising in reaction to discovering the timbre produced. In addition, he worked with, took inspiration from, and contributed to other artists works. Poets used his sounds as subject matter. Composers not only wrote for his instruments, but used his art work for the cover of publishing such works. His devices were not only sonic achievements, but also interesting upon which to gaze during performances or in a gallery setting. I find this inter-involvement extremely romantic and it is this self-perceived romanticism I hold dear: Concepts of the interaction between the visual and sonic artists; the mutual support they give each other; the making and breaking of rules, et cetera. I take this mentality with me to every performance and each instrument I construct has an element of this romanticism for me. Working with fabulous artists, musical and visual, provides exciting possibilities and feeds my desires to create! Being able to collaborate with intensely creative artisans, such as Hugh Meade (furniture builder), Rebecca Cloudy (opera singer, designer), Sean Johnson (dj, sketch artist), Gera Yepez (stencil and graffiti artist), Dantzler Albergotti (poet), Robert Pepper (film maker), Staffan Pearson (absurdist theatre playwright), M.A. Richard (actor, director), John Dawkins (performance artist), Abel Cohen (butoh dancer), and Matt Routh and Stef Maus (costume and rubber monster suit designers), have been equally as influential as working with the superb musicians (Vultures and Sonic Pleasures being grand examples) with whom I work regularly. My small call to action for musicians, then, would be to look beyond the aural elements of music for inspiration and expand your influences to include non-musical creative forces. Hyman Bloom, Lovecraft, Buckminster Fuller, Inoshira Honda, Goya, or even your next door neighbour and their thrown-together garden sculpture can provide emotive and powerful insights into your own work, and therefore inspire and influence yet another other artist in turn, contributing positively to the ebb and flow of constantly changing and growing creative works that shape and enhance all our lives! (it sounds a little hokey, but it’s true!) Thanks for reading! Will Connor aka Seesar, London, 2009. TESTPHASEN NEGATIV [say/s] Testphasen negativ – Gegenschmerz / Written & produced by Ralf Rabendorn / Recorded & mastered at CMP-Studio, March/April 2009 / Testphasen negativ = Ralf Rabendorn and “The Choir of the Last Flame” / Instruments: Electric guitars & voices / Sound manipulations by R. Rabendorn / Genre: MEDUSADA / URL’s: www.MySpace.com/TestphasenNegativ http://testphasen.serpenehelimusic.com/ www.Rabendorn.de www.MySpace.com/RalfRabendorn www.ContraMusikProduktion.de www.MySpace.com/ContraMusikProduktion / Included photography taken by Ralf Rabendorn / Salute: Anthony and Classwar Karaoke, Susan C. & my people at ContraMusikProduktion (CMP) / Available “Testphasen negativ” albums: “How I Won the War (Wie ich den Krieg gewann)” (2008, January) (Label: Sérpéné Héli Music (Cyprus/UK)) “Burn, Giant, Burn!” (2009, April) (Label: ContraMusikProduktion (Germany)) / What's next?: “Daemonium”, collaboration mini concept album with Iri Li (www.MySpace.com/IriLiArt) (coming summer 2009 on GiN Label (China)). VULTURES [say/s] Vultures are Dan Beattie: guitar & electronics; Matt Chilton: laptop, Mics & objects; Will Connor: percussion, objects & whistles; Anthony Donovan: prepared zither, electronics, objects & laptop. Recorded at The Old Shop, Luton, 18th April 2009. ZOOLOGIC [say/s] angels, devils and the naked aggressor... all good good friends of mine flash - flash - flashing (my minds-eye stroboscope) all the while my heart folded inside out, crumpled and exposed. some wear it on their sleeve, mine is dangling, hooked into the corner of my quivering grimice. i spy'd it all, from the echo, as satellite. all the anti-synonyms and their retinue moved in. i had no choice.
