from ReR website:
In 1996, at the end of a two year residency, Fred organised an event at L'Ecole Nationale de Musique de Villeurbanne in France involving as many of the students as possible, grouped according to their departments - early music, rock, African drumming, classical etc.
Each group was set up in a different room in the school building and during the concert the public was encouraged to wander around creating their own mix, or to sit in the courtyard and listen to the sound drifting out through the open windows. For their part, each group of musicians had to play musical material Fred had prepared for them - occasionally they could improvise.
In order to co-ordinate all the groups, who naturally couldn't hear each other, everyone followed a precise time-score prepared by Fred (55 minutes regulated by synchronized stopwatches).
The entire event was recorded on 4 A-DAT machines, to be mixed down later, and this CD is the result: a lurching, complex and capricious beast with many heads: an orchestra tuning up; a salute to Sonny Blount; a roiling chaotic mass of sound splitting into layers, colliding back together, pullulating, ululating, roaring and sometimes mewing like a kitten.
Each group was set up in a different room in the school building and during the concert the public was encouraged to wander around creating their own mix, or to sit in the courtyard and listen to the sound drifting out through the open windows. For their part, each group of musicians had to play musical material Fred had prepared for them - occasionally they could improvise.
In order to co-ordinate all the groups, who naturally couldn't hear each other, everyone followed a precise time-score prepared by Fred (55 minutes regulated by synchronized stopwatches).
The entire event was recorded on 4 A-DAT machines, to be mixed down later, and this CD is the result: a lurching, complex and capricious beast with many heads: an orchestra tuning up; a salute to Sonny Blount; a roiling chaotic mass of sound splitting into layers, colliding back together, pullulating, ululating, roaring and sometimes mewing like a kitten.
Label: ReR Recommended
Cat. #: ReR/FRFC1
Format: CD
Release date: 2007
Tracklisting:
01 - Impur (54:56)
from ReR website:
A new recording, and instantly a Fred classic. Two, related, small-ensemble works for 6 and 7 musicians respectively - mostly strings of one sort or another, with percussion, flute and clarinet occasionally, and electronics.
Fred, violinist Carla Kilsteht and percussionist Willie Wynant play throughout, providing continuity across the pieces as the music constantly unfolds into new textures and dialects. Melody, harmony and rhythm are omnipresent, though not always obviously colluding, and the music moves with constant assurance, never hesitating and never marking time.
There are some affinities with Nicola Kodjbashia's luminous 'Solitary Walker' (which it predates) in its use of minimal instrumentation to maximum effect, popular materials, exquisite articulation and a kind of modest transcendence.
The necessity and simplicity of these pieces conceals a catalogue of experimental techniques and novel ideas; there are those who'd have squeezed a score of albums from this material. A gem. Buy it. Carla Kilsteht shines throughout.
Label: ReR Recommended
Cat. #: ReR/FRA05
Format: CD
Release date: 2007
Tracklisting:
01 - Ukon (06:18)
02 - Kira (05:38)
03 - Kio (02:31)
04 - Tan (03:09)
05 - Shi--O (01:31)
06 - Beni (03:52)
07 - Kasumi (03:15)
08 - Sumi (01:11)
09 - Hanabira (03:56)
10 - The Happy End Problem (21:01)
Fred, violinist Carla Kilsteht and percussionist Willie Wynant play throughout, providing continuity across the pieces as the music constantly unfolds into new textures and dialects. Melody, harmony and rhythm are omnipresent, though not always obviously colluding, and the music moves with constant assurance, never hesitating and never marking time.
There are some affinities with Nicola Kodjbashia's luminous 'Solitary Walker' (which it predates) in its use of minimal instrumentation to maximum effect, popular materials, exquisite articulation and a kind of modest transcendence.
The necessity and simplicity of these pieces conceals a catalogue of experimental techniques and novel ideas; there are those who'd have squeezed a score of albums from this material. A gem. Buy it. Carla Kilsteht shines throughout.
Label: ReR Recommended
Cat. #: ReR/FRA05
Format: CD
Release date: 2007
Tracklisting:
01 - Ukon (06:18)
02 - Kira (05:38)
03 - Kio (02:31)
04 - Tan (03:09)
05 - Shi--O (01:31)
06 - Beni (03:52)
07 - Kasumi (03:15)
08 - Sumi (01:11)
09 - Hanabira (03:56)
10 - The Happy End Problem (21:01)
Links:
Fred Frith
ReR
