Kaoru Abe

Kaoru Abe was a Japanese saxophonist active in the 70's. He died in 77' at the age of 29 by a stomach rupture, due to his heavy usage of booze and pills and, that's my guess, to the intensity of his playing. Legend says that at his last concerts you could see blood fly out of the sax, and its kind of true that this man put as much as maybe anyone has put into his playing. During his career he played mostly solo, because of his wild behavior and playing, but he did play with some groups successfully, one of them with Masayuki Takayanagi an extreme guitarrist... together they did the 'mass projections', which consisted in everybody playing as hard and loud as they possibly could actually ignoring the rest of the band, the result is a jawdropping wall of noise, a battle to death between a guitar and a sax... i'll post it as soon as i get my hard drive fixed, but for the moment here goes a beautiful shot of him playing on the river side. He used to practice as well in busy highways, playing to the roar of the big trucks, playing above the horns and the motors. He is possibly the most free of all 'free' players.

Here goes as well a couple of quotes of him:

“Sound that stops the capacity for judgment. Sound that never decays. Sound that breaks free from every possible image. Sound that comes from both death and birth. Sound that dies. The sound around me. Sound like the symptoms of eternal cold turkey. Sound that resists private ownership. Sound that goes insane. Sound that spills over from the cosmos. The sound of sound.”

“I want to become faster than anyone. Faster than cold, than man alone, than the Earth, than Andromeda. Where, where is the crime?”

Yosuke Yamashita Trio 1972

from "ecstacy of the angels" by koji wakamatsu, 1972

Carmen Amaya

At the end she said: "If I ever have to stop dancing I will die."
More clips.
A bit of her Bio.

Alvien Lucier "I am sitting in a Room"

One of the most elegant pieces of conceptual sound art you can find. All self contained, all self-explanatory, all sound. Feedback: Somehow everything relates to this concept, from being trapped in it to the liberation from it. Get out of the room Alvin!

I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have.

The dollar keeps falling, markets tumble and oil production might be in decline, but I don't want to talk about that, but about two other nice things for the pleasure of listening and learning, and although they might seem very different, they are related. As of lately I've been listening again to Elaine Radigue, she is a French composer and musician, quite an unusual one as she has basically only played (and plays) one instrument, the synthesizer ARP2600, it has no keyboard, just buttons, dials, cables and faders. Her compositions are long pieces sometimes over an hour long and consist of very subtle electronic frequencies or drones developing at a very slow but constant speed. It is one of the most engaging, profound and delicate music I've ever heard, and I have to admit that I almost only use it when I go to sleep... makes a fascinating introduction into the dream realm. Well, her most celebrated work is called "trilogie de la morte" and it is based on the Tibetan book of the dead and her experience of the death of her only child and her Tibetan master. Here is a link where you can download it, although I am aware that it has some sound problems (I didn't upload it, maybe will do it soon)and you can hear a small excerpt, bad quality but you get the idea.

And I want to recommend as well the listening of this audio-podcast-book, 'Geoff and Me'. You can find it here http://abuddhistpodcast.com/past-shows/ but to get all the episodes you would have to load it into Itunes, to make your life easier I will load the first chapter here. I find the music terribly cheesy too, it almost put me off listening to it, but the actor that makes the voices is really good, and yes, its about buddhism, but its explained in a very easy, practical and entertaining way.

and one last thing! here is the gamelan workshop I go to practicing the song for our performance in April. I don't play any instrument, but I do on some parts the monkey chanting (out of camera...), better called 'ketjak' with a few others. It's still sounds like a mess, but its improving.

A bit of Gamelan please

Cita Utsawa, Written by Wayan Berata and performed by The Gamelan Ensemble of STSI Denpasa in 1983.



"As with other pieces on this recording, Cita Utsawa (also known by the name Kebyar Dang) represents a fusion between genres. It unites instrumental and vocal music in a new way, highlighting the particular beauties of each style of composition: the explosive, multicolored world of kebyar instrumental music is
combined with the floating and poignant melodies of Balinese vocal music. But it also achieves another kind of fusion. Cita Utsawa is a perfect example of how theatricality, in its distinctly Balinese character, can be-married to form in an
instrumental work, made possible through the virtuosic playing technique of the gamelan musicians. Unlike the Western classical aesthetic, which often puts composition (form) on the highest pedestal, the Balinese aesthetic universe defines the ideal performance as one in which "the three Ts" are in perfect balance: tampil (appearance, display), terampil (skill, technique), and tabuh (composition)."

If you hold on for 6 minutes the singing starts, so high pitched at the beginning that it sounds almost like one of the flutes. It's worth the wait! Here is what the lyrics mean:
"Farming must be strengthened
Fishing as well
That's what we all wish for

A fertile county, a prosperous people
So that we can continue development
And cooperation-all must be protected "