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| New Cut Releases Ellen Fullman + Sean Meehan CD was released in May. Longtime friends who had hoped to play together for some time, Fullman (long string instrument) and Meehan (snare drum with cymbals) were surprised by the initial efforts of their collaboration. Their instruments--or rather the sounds of their instruments meeting in the acoustic space--strongly influenced one another: combination tones, sympathetic resonances, beating, and even cancellation of each other's sound. Mapping routes through this unusual territory would become the piece presented here in three parts. The recording was made Easter (R.C.) weekend 2006. It is an acoustic work, recorded in stereo, without overdubbing or effects. Ellen Fullman's long string instrument is a unique instrument of her own invention. Waist high, parallel wires, strung in two sets span 14 meters. Fullman produces rich, microtonal drones by pacing up and down the wires and applying friction with her fingertips. Each of her ten fingers precisely finds the appropriate string and the sound emanates from wooden box resonators bolted into the wall. At her studio where this CD was recorded, the strings run through the patio door and terminate in the backyard: “the extra length affords me an additional lower octave,” Fullman explains. For the last ten years or so, Sean Meehan has been focusing on playing the snare drum with cymbals. On this recording he produces long, continuous tones from them using a dowel and friction. This work was premiered at the Instal Festival, Scotland. In 1981, at her studio in Brooklyn Ellen Fullman began developing the 20 meter “Long String Instrument”, in which rosin-coated fingers brush across dozens of metallic strings, producing a chorus of minimal organ-like overtones which has been compared to the experience of standing inside an enormous grand piano. A spectrum analysis of the waveform produced reveals overtones spiked up at even intervals and consistent levels from the fundamental through the entire range of hearing. Fullman's recent work explores the influence of sympathetic resonance using notation that choreographs events to occur at locations mapped to the matrix of nodal points. Fullman was awarded a Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission/NEA Residency for Japan (2007); a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin residency (2000-2001), and has performed in numerous venues and festivals. Sean Meehan plays drums. He became musically active in the late 80's at the Amica Bunker series for improvised music which was then housed at ABC No Rio in New York City. Signal Quintet Yamaguchi CD was released in May too. During Signal Quintet's tour of Japan in 2006 these three improvisations were recorded live in studio at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media. Jason Kahn formed Signal Quintet in 2004 to record his graphical score Timelines. The group has continued on as an improvising ensemble with the recordings on Yamaguchi documenting their first tour. Signal Quintet draws on three generations of some of Europe's most innovative musicians, with their collective performance histories spanning back to the late 1970's. With instrumentation ranging from Norbert Mslang's cracked everyday electronics to the deep acoustics of Chrisitan Weber's contrabass, the music of Signal Quintet transfers fluidly from electronic to acoustic, surging with an organic ebb and flow through improvisations where the listener's notion of time passing is lost in an immersive sound experience. Jason Kahn is a sound and visual artist based in Zurich. His work includes drawing, sound installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. Swiss-Spanish composer/improviser Tomas Korber was born in 1979 in Zurich, Switzerland. Korber has performed solo and collaborated with the likes of Gnter Mller, Norbert Mslang, Otomo Yoshihide, L Quan Ninh, Toshimaru Nakamura, Stephan Wittwer, Jason Kahn, Thomas Ankersmit, Dimitri de Perrot, Dieb13, Butch Morris, Alessandro Bosetti, Hans Koch, Sachiko M, Christian Weber, Keith Rowe, Christian Wolfarth, Kazuya Ishigami, Olaf Rupp, (collaboration at the Swiss National Exhibition ”Expo02”), Andrea Parkins, ErikM, Steinbrchel and many others. He has also composed music for theater and film productions. Norbert Mslang was born in St.Gallen in 1952 and plays cracked everyday-electronics. Worked with Voice Crack until the end of 2002 and played also in Poire_z. Collaborations with Borbetomagus, Otomo Yoshihide, Gnter Mller, Erikm, Jrme Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Jason Kahn, Oren Ambarchi, Tomas Korber, Keith Rowe, I-Sound, Carlos Zingaro, Florian Hecker and many others. He is also active in the field of visual arts. Gunter Mller was born in Mnchen in 1954, and has lived in Switzerland since 1966. Mller has been playing a unique drum set with a mobile pick-ups and a microphone system of his own invention since 1981. The system allows hand generated sounds on drums and percussion to be modulated electronically. Since 1998 minidiscs, later an ipod, are included in his electronic set. He performs solo and has collaborated with a large number of musicians, including Jim O'Rourke, Christian Marclay, Butch Morris, Otomo Yoshihide, Taku Sugimoto, Keith Rowe, Sachiko M. In 1990 he founded the record label For 4 Ears Records. Christian Weber is active as an interpreter of contemporary composed music as well in the fields of free improvisation and modern jazz. He has collaborated with the likes of Peter Kowald, Irne Schweizer, Charles Gayle, Boris Hauf, Lol Coxhill, Elliott Sharp, Gene Coleman and Stephan Wittwer write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |