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