Friday 27 August 2021

OVD050 : Pierre Vervloesem / The Weight of a Threatening Blue Sky

 

Cover art by A.L., pic by Pierre Vervloesem


OVD050 : Pierre Vervloesem / The Weight of a Threatening Blue Sky

When asking Pierre about his new album, he has only one sentence as an answer: 
"It's a dub album you have to listen by yourself with headphones!". 

And indeed, if you want to appreciate all the subtleties, the heavy basses, the complex rhythms and the dub vibe behind the tracks, it's the only and proper way!

Digital release on the 27th of August 2021.

Track listing:

1: The Weight
2: The Threat
3: The Blue
4: The Sky

And on Bandcamp:
  

Wednesday 25 August 2021

OVX014 : Esther Kretzinger - Georges-E. Schneider / Vexations Vol.14

 


Cover art by A.L.




OVX014 : Esther Kretzinger - Georges-E. Schneider / Vexations Vol.14

What they say about their proposal:

"As musicians with a classical background, we have dealt with Erik Satie’s music numerous times over the past years. Satie as an artist is iconic for many musicians today and is considered as one of the pioneers of minimalism, many see an ancestor of ambient music in his music. But this is just one side of Satie and as we started to think about our contribution to this project, we agreed that we would like to dedicate ourselves to other sides of Satie’s highly versatile personality. Satie is not only to be associated with minimalism, Satie is also to be associated with nightlife entertainment, absurdism, dadaism and satire. According to certain sources, Satie could have meant Vexations as an ironic comment to Richard Wagner’s music, or even as a parody of the meaningless virtuosity of the perpetuum mobile genre.

In our version of 40 vexations, we chose to condense contradictory musical elements and styles and layer them into a dense musical collage held together by Satie’s repetitive musical phrases. We used elements of avant-garde, jazz, techno and electroacoustic music, sometime disassembling Satie’s original chords or re contextualising them into new harmonies. This resulted in a piece of extreme contrasts between extremely fragile lines - especially in the voice - and jarring accumulations of sound. To create a special atmosphere, the voice makes uses of breath as an important element of expression beneath digital sound processing. The violin sound runs through several analog and digital effect chains at the same time, which process the sound simultaneously in different ways and at the same time interact with each other. We also had the idea to integrate the bombastic language of Satie’s publications for the “Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor”, a one-man sect Satie had created, into the piece. Satie supposedly composed Vexations in the same period in which he created his one-man sect and we found quotes related to this one-man sect to be a necessary artistic paraphrase of Satie’s affinity for satire and absurdism."

Esther Kretzinger and Georges-E. Schneider, July 2021

Esther Kretzinger was born in the central European region of former Partium and grew up in

Germany. She studied vocal & opera at the Mozarteum University Salzburg (Austria) where she graduated with honors in 2008 and was awarded with the Lilli Lehman Medal by the

international Mozarteum foundation. Meanwhile she is working as an independent singer and

artist. Esther is not only active as a singer, she sees herself as an up-to-date artist who creatively works in different areas and who extensively follows an artistic approach in whatever she is doing. She sees her creative potential not only in her singing voice, she is also highly active as a producer. Since 2014 she has been carrying out various cultural projects as the Weissenhorn Klassik Festival, the Kulturhaltestelle Berlin, and since 2021 also the Giacinto Scelsi Festival Basel. Both as a singer and a producer she dedicates herself to specific topics and narratives and creatively works them up. Her records with Gramola Vienna “Lieder im Volkston” (2011, juxtaposition of german, bohemian and hungarian folk songs) and “Sound of a poem” (2017, jazz arrangements of late-romantic and impressionistic songs) are significant examples of this work. Her objective is to redefine today’s appearance of an artist with multilayered activities and make it fit for the 21st century. She lives and works as a singer and cultural entrepreneur in Berlin, Germany.


As a singer she has been distinguished with many significant awards, among them the first prize at the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang Berlin and other awards at international competitions in Vienna, Graz and Hamburg. These competition successes were followed by extensive

international concert touring and opera productions at the Salzburg State Theatre, Festspielhaus Salzburg, Mainfranken Theater Würzburg and the Norwegian National Opera,

collaborating with conductors as Ivor Bolton, Peter Gülke, Markus Poschner, Ola Rudner,

Sebastian Weigle among others. Throughout nearly 20 years of an intense and versatile career, she has gained a high level of experience, which she is happy to share with future singers and music students. She is subsequently active as a guest teacher in Europe and Asia (China Conservatory of Music in Beijing among others).


Esther’s early career had been shaped by classical repertoire mainly around Mozart and the First Viennese School. Quickly she also turned her attention to 20th and 21st century music that were offering artistic freedom through unusual casts, connection to other art forms and direct contact with present time. Her curiosity led her also to deal with Jazz and free improvising. Meanwhile, Esther’s repertoire choice is stylistically broad, but focuses mainly on pieces for small ensemble or solo pieces that make a special sense when matched together.


Esther - pic by Markus Sepperer

French-Swiss violinist Georges-E. Schneider studied for eight years with the esteemed

pedagogue Ruggiero Ricci at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, which was followed by a

busy concert life as a soloist, chamber musician and ensemble player throughout Europe and

worldwide. Throughout all this time Georges had showed a strong interest for contemporary

and avant-garde music. Since years now as a sound artist he also deals with electronic music

and searches for new ways of expression with his instrument. In 2018 he completed his expertise in this field in achieving a Max/MSP certification at the IRCAM in Paris. Georges’s

violin playing is highly versatile and stands for avant-garde, jazz, free improvising,

electroacoustic music, ambient, electronic beats and above all for a unique fusion sound that

unites elements of all these music genres in order to create a new way of playing the violin.


The outcome of this work has been presented in several records that have been released

between 2017 and 2020: the ambient albums Assassinous Act (Time Released Sound, Oakland California 2017), Für Immer (Off Record, Brussels 2020) and Vermacht (Mixcult, St. Petersburg 2020) with German music producer Morgen Wurde, the free jazz albums Kontergesang and Rhizome with Udo Schindler/Gunter Pretzel (Creative Sources Recordings, Lisbon, 2019) and the jazz/ classical music fusion album Sound of a poem with vocalist Esther Kretzinger (Gramola, Vienna 2017, also available as a LP). The complete performance of Rajesh Mehta’s skycage at the Moers Festival 2020 was broadcasted live by tv channel ARTE TV, featuring Georges’s violin playing. Georges’s work focuses also on cooperating with visual artists as Marianne Hollenstein (Basel) and the fashion label Finch (Kiew), TOMAK (Vienna) or Albert Weis (Berlin).


Georges has performed in venues including the Tonhalle Zürich, Konzerthaus Berlin,

Konzerthaus Wien, Cadogan Hall London, LSO St. Luke’s, Brucknerhaus Linz, KHS Hall Taipeh, Bâtiment des Forces Motrices Genève, National Concert Hall Dublin, Rudolfinum Prague, New York Metropolitan Museum, Kulturcasino Bern, Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern, amongst others. He has participated in festivals such as Salzburger Festspiele, Bregenzer Festspiele, Wien Modern, Ultraschall Festival Berlin, Salzburg Biennale, Shanghai New Music Week, Traiettorie Festival Parma, Festival Melos Ethos Bratislava, Biennale Koper, Unerhört! (Bayerischer Rundfunk), Festival Dialoge (International Mozarteum Foundation), Carinthischer Sommer, Sounds of Jazz Salzburg, Salzburger Jazzherbst and the Moers Festival.


Georges-Emmanuel - pic by Ruslan Synhaewsky


Bandcamp only release on the 25th of August 2021.

Track listing:

40x Vexations - Violin, voices, spoken words, beats and more




Wednesday 18 August 2021

OVX013 : Sachiko Kawano / Vexations Vol.13

 


Cover art by A.L.




OVX013 : Sachiko Kawano / Vexations Vol.13

Sachiko Kawano started to learn a classical piano at the age of four.
After graduating from Fukuoka University of Education, she worked as a curator at the HALL of HALLS, a music box museum in Kiyosato, Yamanashi Prefecture, where she was involved in research, exhibition planning, and commentary on music boxes and music automatons.

After resigning from the museum, she has been involved in arranging sampling music box CDs as a creator belonging to Sound Image Solutions Ltd. - Blue Light Works Ltd. (Released as an alpha wave music box series from Della Co.)

In addition to music boxes, she has also made arrangements for the hand-cranked organ "Organetta", and in 2010, she conducted research on the large automatic organ "DECAP" owned by the Rokko Music Box Museum, and arranged Joe Hisaishi's works ("Ponyo", "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", etc.), and premiered at the Music Box Concert Event in same year. In 2016, she was offered from marimba player Tatsushi Omori to research the large automatic organ "Limonaire 1900" in the collection of the HALL of HALLS at the Moeginomura Music Box Museum, and arranged a piece for an ensemble of marimba and the Limonaire 1900. Using the book produced, "Carmen Fantasy" and "Zigeunerweisen" with marimba and Limonaire 1900 were premiered in December of the same year.
In April 2018, she returned to work at the HALL of HALLS at the Moeginomura Music Box Museum, where she serves as deputy director.

instruments used in this recording:

1~8 Phonoliszt Vionina 
         1910s Germany, Hupfeld Co.
         Automatic Violine 
         Piano:Rönisch
  (1992 replica)

9~16 Seeburg Style H
         1915s U.S.A, Seeburg Co.
         Nickelodeon (Piano, Xylophone, Pipes, Drums, Castanets, Cymbal, Triangle)

17~24 Philipps Violine Style PC10
         1920s Germany, J.D.Phillips & Son Co.
         Piano Orchestra(Piano, Xylophone, Pipes, Drums)

25~40 Chickering 9feet AMPICO Grand Piano
        1926 U.S.A, American Piano Conpany
        Reproducing piano
        Piano:Chickering
         Gnossiennes No.1(Composed by E.Satie, Played by  George    Copeland)

Sachiko San



川乃さちこ

4歳からピアノを習う。
福岡教育大学卒業後、山梨県清里の萌木の村オルゴール博物館HALL of HALLSにおいて学芸員としてオルゴールや自動演奏楽器について調査・研究および展示企画・解説等に携わる。
同博物館を退職後、2004年より㈲サウンドイメージソリューションズ(現㈱ブルーライトワークス)所属のクリエーターとしてサンプリングオルゴールCDの編曲に携わり、クラシックから最新のJ-POPまで幅広いジャンルの様々な楽曲の編曲を手掛けている。(㈱デラよりα波オルゴールシリーズとしてリリース)
また、オルゴール以外にも手回しオルガン「オルガネッタ」用の編曲。2010年には六甲オルゴールミュージアム所蔵の大型自動演奏オルガン「DECAP」の調査を行い、久石譲氏の作品(「丘の上のポニョ」「風の谷のナウシカ」etc.)を編曲し、制作されたブックを使用し、同年のオルゴールコンサートイベント等で初演。2016年にはマリンバ奏者大森たつしに依頼され、萌木の村オルゴール博物館HALL of HALLS所蔵の大型自動演奏オルガン「リモネール1900」の調査を行い、マリンバと同オルガンのアンサンブルのための楽曲を編曲。制作されたブックを使用し、マリンバとリモネール1900による「カルメン・ファンタジー」と「ツィゴイネルワイゼン」が同年12月に初演された。
2018年4月萌木の村オルゴール博物館HALL of HALLSに復職し、副館長として職務にあたる。

使用楽器

1~8 フォノリスト ヴィオリーナ
   1910年頃 ドイツ フッフェルト社製
   自動演奏ヴァイオリン
   ピアノ:レーニッシュ社製
   (1992年 複製)

9~16 シーバーグH型
   1915年頃 アメリカ シーバーグ社製
   ニケロディオン(ピアノ、木琴、パイプ、ドラム、カスタネット、シンバル、トライアングル)

17~24 フィリップス ヴィオリーネ
   1920年頃 ドイツ J.D.フィリップス 社製
   ピアノ オーケストラ(ピアノ、木琴、パイプ、ドラム)

25~40 チッカリング 9フィート アンピコ グランドピアノ
   1926年 アメリカ アメリカンピアノ社製
   リプロデューシングピアノ
   ピアノ:チッカリング社製
   (グノシェンヌ 第1番 サティ作曲 ジョージ・コープランド 演奏)


Bandcamp only release on the 18th of August 2021.

Track listing:

40x Vexations - Piano with two hands and various music automatons



Wednesday 11 August 2021

OVX012 : Chris Jones / Vexations Vol.12

 


Cover art by A.L.



OVX012 : Chris Jones / Vexations Vol.12

What Chris says about his proposal:

"Alain and Wataru's calls for 21 artists to recreate Satie's infamous 840-performance piece, Vexations, made perfect sense in this year of the plague 

2021 seemed to require something to help us cope with enforced restrictions. These restrictions - in not only how far we could travel, but in how many other faces we saw - forced us all to investigate what Satie would have seen as the 'mysticism' of boredom. In many ways my own behaviour (and, I'm sure, many others' as well) settled into a pattern of repetition, where one day blended with the next. And for me this meant a reliance on skills learnt as a child left to his own devices, for hours on end: The skills of coping with boredom.

There is a part of me that truly believes that the majority of us 'experimental' types possess these skills in abundance. Why else would 20th century modernism have chosen to focus on the very elements that fuel a piece like Vexations? Repetition, torpor, minimalism and more repetition. Like a fever dream, playing Vexations leads to a feeling that you not only operate the perpetuum mobile machine, you are actually a piece of it. A distinct logic and symmetry in Satie's enigmatic little composition makes a performance almost impossible to cease. Once learned, this odd little tune becomes (as Germans would have it) a devilish Ohrwurm. 'Just one more time' my brain whispered as I approached the end of each round. So much so that I became increasingly convinced that Satie's perplexing instruction for 840 performances was a mere arbitrary number, set upon only to stop the performance stretching into eternity. 

But what of the problems that arose while trying to record it?

Transcribing Vexations for another instrument (it's not specifically written for the piano, nevertheless, its default origin - including its first performance in 1949 - lies in that instrument) to knowing it by heart was slow. The odd tempo has a logic all of its own which (I found) has to be 'felt' rather than strictly adhered to. My performances are rough, and not without mistakes. But what became clear was that 'feeling' the piece was paramount. It doesn't lend itself naturally to guitar, especially not electric guitar. A vast amount of variations in modulation and attack were tried. It sounded terrible. This brought me close to despair. 

I was, indeed, VEXED.

A period of considering a standard 'classical' approach (nylon strings?) loomed in the rear view mirror, but I held fast. A lifetime admiring the style of Steve Hillage and his use of a volume pedal seemed to offer a possible solution. A dab of delay, and a compromised (ie: kinda broken) old Boss FV-500 pedal later, and I had found a way out of the conundrum.

Voila.

Finally, when the recording button was pressed for the last time, I felt that I had fallen in love with this music. Absurdist, irritating, and utterly resisting emotional or musical cliche; somewhere, in another parallel universe, I will continue to play Vexations. 
Just one more time..."

Chris Jones


Chris Jones is a guitarist, musician, soundtrack artist and writer.
Originally from London, Chris now resides in North Germany Recent work includes the soundtracks for the experimental film 'Misty Pictures' by Matthias Müller and Christoph Girardet as well as for various projects at Kunstforum Hermann Stenner. His guitar work is also featured on the OFF Records release: 'Grand Finale' by London-based experimental jazz rock trio, Cassini Flyby (the beautiful OCD044).
His solo work is recorded under the name of Jonesisdying: https://jonesisdying.bandcamp.com/

Bandcamp only release on the 11th of August 2021.

Track listing:

1 to 40: 40x Vexations - Electric guitar and effects




Friday 6 August 2021

OJP059 : Tetsuroh Konishi / Tokyo Mindscape

 


Covert art by Tetsuroh / A.L.



OJP059 : Tetsuroh Konishi / Tokyo Mindscape

About time to have a compilation and 2 unreleased tracks from one of the most interesting Japanese trumpet player (see also in solo: OJP001OJP002OJP027 and OJP052, in duo with Ai Kisaragi : OJP021 and OJP034, as a guest on Morgen Wurde albums: OCD027OCD040 and OCD045, and on the various artists on the OJP050).

Over the years, Tetsuroh Konishi has shaped a very personal sound with his exceptionally complex and deep breathing which adds some very relax and atmospheric touches to his way of playing. 

He's been part of many bands, has played on diverse albums from all over the world and recently had 2 chosen pieces featuring on the new Mika Kaurismäki (brother of Aki) movie "Gracious Night" which had his world premiere and stage appearance at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia in 2021.

Tetsuroh San

Visit his site HERE.

Digital release on the 6th of August 2021.

Track listing:

1: Harukaze - 2017 version (in OJP027)
2: Air (in OJP027)
3: Early Morning (in OJP001)
4: Atmosphere (in OJP001)
5: Interlude - Wind and Clouds Remix (in OJP050)
6: Bird Song - 2017 version (in OJP027)
7: Myogi (in OJP052)
8: Arafune (in OJP052)
9: Unkai (in OJP052)
10: Glühte aus - Off version, never released track
11: Der Himmel über Berlin - Morgen Wurde & Tetsuroh Konishi Version, never released track


And on Bandcamp (only the 2 bonus tracks):

 

Wednesday 4 August 2021

OVX011 : Shintaro Kamijyo / Vexations Vol.11

 


Cover art by A.L.



OVX011 : Shintaro Kamijyo / Vexations Vol.11

In addition to working as a film recording engineer/sound engineer/programmer on numerous projects, Shintaro Kamijyo runs the online electronic music label "+MUS" and has produced works by Japanese electronic music artists such as DUB-Russell, Seiho and Yaporigami. He also produces his own remix work.

 

He is Currently a member of the famous Japanese art collective "Rhizomatiks" and has a long career as a DJ.


Shintaro San

上條慎太郎


 映画録音技師/サウンドエンジニア/プログラマーとして数多くのプロジェクトに参加する傍ら、オンラインの電子音楽レーベル"+MUS"を主宰、DUB-Russell,Seiho,yaporigamiなど日本のエレクトロニックミュージックのアーティストの作品をプロデュースし、自らもRemixワークを行っている。

現在は日本の著名なアートコレクティブ”Rhizomatiks”に所属していて、DJとしても長いキャリアを持っている。


Bandcamp only release on the 4th of August 2021.

Track listing:

1: 40x Vexations - Loops and computer