Tag: improvisational music

Various Artists – Zoomin’ Night Vol 1 – 14th October 2011

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Cat #: 073TZM

They love giving impromptu shows on Tuesday nights. 
They love playing in unconventional configurations. 
They love making sounds out of anything they can carry on to the stage. 
They love unpredictable musical performances. 
They love making one song constantly became another. 
They love the Zoomin’ Night. 

Zoomin’ Night – the name of a song by P.K. 14 – is also a series of shows of experimental music / noise rock held every Tuesday at D-22 in Beijing. It was inspired by other experimental music series such as the Waterland Kwanyin, Sugarjar Sunday Listen- ing and Sheng Dong Ji Xi. Reflecting the type of music they create, most of the Zoomin’ Night participants are creative and young musicians. They arrange sounds, start new bands and re- group constantly. They have found a home at D-22 and profess to draw their inspiration from Beijing’s energetic cacophony. 

In January 2010, Yang Haisong came to D-22 to record all their live shows that month. Most of the bands recorded were newly formed in 2009. Maybe Mars selected 9 songs from the recordings, putting them into a compilation. Additionally, buyers can download 32 additional tracks with a download-code enclosed in each CD. 

On November 19-20, 2010 the premiere of this compilation album was held at D-22. There were 8 groups of performers including: noise rock, psychedelic rock, post-punk, minimalism, improvisation, and synthesizer mu- sic. Most of the performers are included in this album. 

The Zoomin’ Night on November 23rd was the official “after party” for the premiere: five young musicians who took part in the album gave a personal solo performance, ranging from classical music to atmospheric experimental, and from minimal electronic music to industrial jazz. 

The Performance of Identity​ and One Man’s Orchestra – 1st March 2011

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Cat #: 050TZM

He Guoheng, known in the world of music as Xiao He, is one of the most creative and influential artists in the Beijing music scene. Besides his recordings and his solo and ensemble music performances, he is active in drama, writes incidental music, and is a creative force in the underground movie industry. He is also the head of Maybe Horse, a Maybe Mars sub- label dedicated to supporting and developing Beijing’s and China’s most innovative folk and ethnic musicians. 

At the same time Xiao He, which is the alias he settled on for his folk and improvised music performances, played guitar, drum and accordion at River, a legendary old Beijing folk bar. Between these two projects Xiao He quickly developed a serious following among artists and music fans in the China music scene. In 2003, Modern Sky, China’s largest independent label, released his first CD, a live recording called “The Bird that Can Fly High Landed on the Cow that Can Run Fast”. Almost immediately this was received as one of the most important recordings in contemporary Chinese music. 

Except for a very few special performances with Glorious Pharmacy, today Xiao He only plays solo performances. Calling these multi-faceted improvised performances “Free Folk”, as much to express his anarchic playfulness as to suggest the total freedom which he approaches musical instrumentation, vocal performances and stylistic experimentation, he has become the inventor of a deeply weird and immensely moving style of music, mystical and surreal, which abruptly veers from the plaintive cries of Mongolian or Western Chinese music to the barbed and sometimes childlike humour of the avant garde. Complementing his stylistic creativity is a wholly unique way of playing acoustic guitar, loops, synthesizers and any other instrument that catches his fancy. 

After his 2009 European tour, Xiao He released his second album in China with Maybe Mars. Consisting of improvised live and studio performances and two separate CDs the new album is a milestone for Xiao He. The live CD is based on 30 hours of recordings going back three years, which he has assembled as his “Personal Symphony” and, selected from six different shows, focuses on the irreversible and unrepeatable character of live performance. The other CD was recorded in his studio and focuses on the quality of the sounds and experimentation with the recording process and juxtaposes thousands of ways of combining vocal sounds with the sound of his guitar as he wrestles with and reinterprets his understanding of Minimalism. 

Kroko – Rabia – 1st June 2004

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Like most bands hailing from Finland, Kroko find themselves well at home within the realms of absurd musical integrities. Their sound falls somewhere within the boundaries of, noise, improv Jazz, ambience and a skronky style Avant-garde. Just imagine the crazed intensity of Ruins crossed with improvised realms of Jazzy avant-ambience, only to be dowsed by the dark and brooding experimental side of Univers Zero. Most of the tracks included on this album have been taken from live performances then mixed with all sorts of mixing effects, constituting to the wide array of unexplainable noise. This was a smart move by such a band, giving a more insightful outlook on what the bands is about, demonstrating the not only the harsh face but also giving infinite freedom to the improv nature of the band. 

The main compound of Kroko is loosely based around the defining skeletal structure of the manic drum section; fronting the impressive performance of Petri Hissa. These scattered but strangely coherent rhythms hold the album together beautifully enabling the careless flow from one passage to the next. At the forefront of the Duo’s sound we are constantly startled by Pentti Dassum’s violent out bursts, then gliding soothingly into Jazzy textures. Shear intensity floods through our veins through short more Ruins orientated passages, while we are soothed by the beautifully almost deconstructed longer compositions infested with squeaking, scraping, whaling feedback creating beautiful Ambient-jazz soundscapes.

Petri Hissa RIP 2020

Various Artists – The NOW now, excerpts & orchestra 2xCD – 1st January 2004

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A snapshot of the 2nd annual NOW now festival in Sydney, 2003 – excerpts comprises 13 pieces featuring Australia’s most committed improvisers and electronic musicians. 

Music by local uber stars, Martin Ng, Anthony Pateras, Oren Ambarchi, Jon Rose, Jim Denley, Peter Blamey, Scott Horscroft, Phil Slater and international travellers – the Ortez Funeral Directors (NZ), Cor Fuhler and Mike Cooper included. 

Disk two features the Splinter Orchestra – over 30 musicians – comprising nearly every performer in the festival, playing an intensely subtle 30 minute composition by Adam Sussmann.