fotofono

Next week Bryan and Eleanor Eubanks will be packing up and relocating to Florida. Looks like a great pretext to throw a Fotofono party and get to play together again. So — Theres bakes some pita bread, ice tea and wine flow, and after the dinner party the studio gets filled up almost over capacity with a small crowd of friends, for the most part artists themselves. The first set has Bryan with Andrew Lafkas, Tucker Dulin and myself (as mpld).
Second set is the first time as a duo for Aki Onda and Margarida Garcia. Margarida plays her electric double bass while Aki instead of the compact cassette table has a minimal setup with one tube amp, a Line Six and a hand-held radio.
Byron Westbrook ends it all with a gorgeous Corridors set. Using  multiple speakers and video projections he builds up a multidimensional space in which the perception of time becomes supple, and the audience is transfixed.

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set 1 – Tucker Dulin (trombone), Bryan Eubanks (electronics), Andrew Lafkas (double bass), mpld (light and processed sound  from slide projectors).

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set 2 – Margarida Garcia (double bass), Aki Onda (electronics).

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set 3 – Corridors (Byron Westbrook – electronics, sound and  video projection)

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Download zipped files of all three pieces: lossless ogg; 320 kbps mp3.

The three images above are from the mpld projection.
Special thanks to Byron Westbrook for bringing down his recording equipment and documenting the concert.

Lucre (L to R: Eubanks, Cogburn, Rawlings)

The last event here was the kickstart of an East Coast tour by Chris Cogburn, Bryan Eubanks and Vic Rawlings. The three have been friends and collaborators for some time now, however the two improvisations that they recorded last week document their first time together as a trio. As Bryan wrote, “Building on lengthly playing relationships as duos and in larger groups, we’ll be discovering common ground and developing our music throughout [the tour] through improvisations”.
See the tour page for the trio here.

The evening was opened by Daniel Neumann who presented his piece titled “The Sound of 500 Speer 9 mm. Luger Shells & O Between Fans plus Modular Extensions”, a concert for stereo speakers, room microphone, computer and tape or other extensions.

In Daniel’s own words: “In the electroacoustic live concert The Sound of 500 Speer 9 mm. Luger Shells & O Between Fans two initial sounds are played back. The playback is recorded with a room microphone on to a multitrack sampling tool. From there it repeatedly processes through different modules, one being the room itself, which functions as a filter and is used as an instrument. Other Modular Extensions are carefully added as simultaneous external processes, which influence the narrative. As the two initial sounds are both very aggressive, but in opposite ways, the process of the concert is the struggle between those two sounds about which one gets established in the room. Daniel Neumann leads this struggle between The Sound of 500 Speer 9 mm. Luger Shells Dropped from a Height of 119 Inches at 550 West 21st Street New York, NY, 10011, on April 8th, 2009, 10:37 p.m. – an installation by Ben Turner and a recording of Zilvinas Kempinas’ sculpture O Between Fans.”

Daniel Neumann
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1. Daniel Neumann

2. Chris Cogburn, Bryan Eubanks and Vic Rawlings (a.k.a. Lucre);

3. Chris Cogburn, Bryan Eubanks and Vic Rawlings (a.k.a. Lucre)

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Download zipped files of all three pieces: lossless ogg; 320 kbps mp3.

“blind monks examining an elephant” by itcho hanabusa. (found here)
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here finally is the second part, documenting the event of last january 30.
barry chabala and michael pisaro in this recording perform pisaro’s composition rapport abstrait at the winds measure event that ben owen organized to celebrate their new release, black, white, red, green, blue (voyelles) (wm 17).

the dynamic of the evening moved through a long arc, introduced by alessandro bosetti’s dramatic sound and poetry-based compositions (see pt. 1 of the event in the previous post); as the evening progressed the music got very quiet, and the subtle sounds of the space and the audience became more pronounced, becoming a part of the musical experience. my recording equipment, perhaps sensing the delicacy of the situation and strained to its limit, decided to shut off before the performance was finished.

luckily, i thought, other recorders were at work… but as we later listened through the various recordings, we quickly realized that none of them could possibly bring back the specificity of the moment and the subtle feelings that we had individually experienced.
in a way, each recording had an element of truth that was missing to the others, or perhaps a unique atmosphere approaching to varying degrees each one’s own idealized recollection of the event. at the end, the more one tried to bring back an absolute essence of truth, the more such documenting wish ended up in frustration.

how to bring back through a recording the complex experiences that we all went through in that small room? how to give an account of each individual perspective? the sounds themselves, their physical presence, the time passing by and how we later situated ourselves in that rich and yet subtle continuum.. there was something that no recorder could capture, a failure to remembering.

i have found myself fascinated and excited by the different perspectives surrounding the event. they seem to converge, and yet never completely overlap. ultimately, an old question seem to linger – are the documents that we produce a reflection of a generative moment, or are they new entities that will unfold in their own right and say things that escape our initial intentions? how much control do we have over the way we appear to the external world? to me, that doubt in itself means a world of possibilities.

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barry chabala and michael pisaro, as recorded by gill arno

a  zip archive contains the three recordings that were made respectively by james connell, ben owen and myself in ogg vorbis lossless format. be advised, it is a 350.1 MB download.

january 30, 2010 -  to celebrate the release of michael pisaro’s composition “black, white, red, green, blue (voyelles)” (wm 17), ben owen has assembled an interestingly contrasting lineup. the event featured pisaro himself, performing together with barry chabala, and alessandro bosetti, who presented a new piece titled “campanas”.

the choice – or chance? – of this gathering suggests a range of philosophical implications which i can only assume and vaguely hint at, presenting here only the first part of the concert – the second part will follow in a soon to come installment. enjoy…..

alessandro bosetti
download zipped files: lossless ogg; 320 kbps mp3.

An update to the post of the November 14 2009 show.
Added zipped files of the four sets:

Steve Flato and David Kirby
Eric Laska and Reed Evan Rosenberg
Richard Kamerman, Tom Mulligan and Ben Owen
Bryan Eubanks and mpld.

Click to download:  mp3 or ogg file format.
Also, added a few images from the event – scroll below to see them.
Thanks to Andrea, Ben, and Theres for  the photos.

November 14, 2009 – the first Fotofono event dedicated to this very blog project. Richard Kamerman had mindfully assembled four new collaborations involving a substantial group of old time collaborators and friends. His selection of local artists was augmented by including also Steve Flato (whom we had a first chance to meet in July 2008, when he came down to play with Richard), and David Kirby (who runs the delightful Homophoni weblabel out of Atlanta). Well done, Richard and everyone – here are four brilliant sets for this grand opening..!

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1. David Kirby, Steve Flato
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2. Eric Laska, Reed Evan Rosenberg
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3. Ben Owen, Richard Kamerman, Tom Mulligan
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4. Bryan Eubanks, mpld (Gill Arno)