★Potlatch
Miracle
Dovetailing and combining the rich harmonics of Michel Doneda's soprano and sopranino saxophone with Pascal Battus' rotating surfaces--mechanisms from small consumer electronics and their like put in motion and in contact with resonators and vibrators--this French improvising duo create fascinatingly shifting, unusual textures and sonic environments.
Arc
Recorded in May 2018, Arc is a Bertrand Denzler’s composition performed by string ensemble CoÔ. Founded by Félicie Bazelaire, CoÔ is a string ensemble bringing together string players of ONCEIM (Orchestre des Nouvelles Créations, Expérimentations et Improvisations Musicales, created and directed by Frédéric Blondy). CoÔ aims to build new directions in instrument research, and create a new repertoire for bowed strings. Félicie Bazelaire works with musicians who are composers and improvisers such …
Infra
Since the 1980s, Pascale Criton has been exploring sound variability, microtunings, multisensory receptions and the spatialization of listening. Silvia Tarozzi, violin, and Deborah Walker, cello, are two adepts of contemporary and experimental music and free-improvisation. Together with Pascale Criton they have been exploring microtonal extended techniques and gestural processes on a violin and a cello tuned in 1/16 of a tone. The compositions that resulted from this process are conceived…
Karoujite
Cristián Alvear, guitar, Seijiro Murayama, percussion. Recorded in Mishima (Japan), October 2016. In this recording entitled Karoujite (a japanese word meaning “scarcely”), Cristián Alvear and Seijiro Murayama are deeply involved in a minimalist and repetitive mode of playing. Each of them focuses on continuously playing same chords on the guitar, and rubbing the cymbal or hitting the snare drum. Listeners are invited to discover a kind of nonlinear and nearly static music. They can feel a sort …
Resting in a Fold of the Fog
Resting in a Fold of the Fog includes two Michael Pisaro's pieces for percussion, guitar and laptop. They are performed by two Dedalus Ensemble members Stéphane Garin and Didier Aschour, and by Michael Pisaro himself. Pieces titles are inspired by a poem (Fog) written by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, a chinese poet living in New Mexico (USA). Michael Pisaro comments his own pieces: '"First piece, Grounded Cloud, depicts the very gradual gathering of fragments of noise and tone into a more or less conti…
Un Salon Au Fond D'Un Lac
After the highly-acclaimed Hidden Tapes released on Potlatch in 2014, Marc Baron puts another solo recording forward. Un salon au fond d'un lac is the new opus by this composer engaged in reel-to-reel tapes experimentation and using cut-up, noise, found sound, pre-recorded and degraded tapes. As always, Marc Baron uses analog tape techniques only
fq
Although they have not previously recorded together, the pairing of Bryan Eubanks and Stéphane Rives makes perfect sense. French soprano saxophonist Rives is already a long-serving Potlatch veteran, with this being his fourth release on the label, following in the wake of his 2003 solo soprano album Fibres, the ground-breaking saxophone quartet Propagations (Potlatch, 2007) and his 2011 duo with the Paris-based Japanese percussionist Seijiro Murayama, Axiom for the Duration. As with the other sa…
Melody, Silence (For Solo Guitar)
Michael Pisaro - Melody, Silence (for guitar solo). Cristián Alvear. Melody, Silence is a collection of materials for solo guitarist, written by Michael Pisaro in 2011. There are up to 12 fragments (or pieces) which can be played in any order and which allow for various transformations, cuts, extensions and silences. Cristián Alvear developed his own version over a period of several months in 2014. This chilean guitarist has been focusing on contemporary and experimental music, in particular o…
Home Handover
In 2010, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Éric La Casa were invited by Arika to the Uninstal festival in Glasgow (Scotland) to carry out a series of recordings with some inhabitants of this city, in their home spaces. Based on predefined rules, including the single-sequence shot as a recording method, these people became the actors in a story about their everyday life. Guionnet and La Casa considered this work as a composition under the form of a score with four phases.
1st phase: APARTMENT Recording…
Hidden Tapes
Hidden Tapes is composed from old cassette tapes, with addition of some other sources from movies soundtracks and classical or liturgical music extracts which were retrieved in closets. These sound documents were accelerated or slowed down, layered and transformed with analog devices. No digital effect, no plugin. Computer was only used for editing and mixing. Composed on 2013. About Marc Baron : Between 2000 and 2010, Marc Baron was an improviser on saxophone. He made concerts and performances …
Microtonal saxophone
Argentinian saxophonist Sergio Merce works on projects involving interactions between free improvisation and contemporary music. He made several european tours with Axel Dörner, Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Beins, Julia Eckhardt, Boris Baltschun, Serge Baghdassarians, Jason Kahn, Lucio Capece, Alan Curtis, Toshimaru Nakamura, Keith Rowe, Christof Kurzmann…During the last three years, Sergio Merce transformed his alto saxophone in a tremendous and radical way.
« I have been working on a "microtonal s…
dedalus
On april 2012, Dedalus was invited to perform several Wandelweiser members' compositions in the Ancienne Brasserie Bouchoule which is an exhibition room run by Les Instants Chavirés. Special conditions concerning the rather weak noise insulation allowed a deep immersion of the music into the urban sound environment. This live recording includes two pieces by Antoine Beuger (Méditations poétiques sur quelque chose d'autre, Lieux de passage) and one by Jürg Frey (Canones incerti). On these …
Pluie Fine
Angharad Davies (violin) and duo Cremaster consisting of Alfredo Costa Monteiro (electro-acoustic devices, speakers, electric guitar) and Ferran Fages (feedback mixing board, electro-acoustic devices). Composed, recorded and assembled between september 2010 and july 2012 in Barcelona. Violin parts recorded by Kostis Kilymis on march 2012 in Oxford. Pluie fine is the result of several exchanges of recorded material shared between Cremaster and Angharad Davies, from 2010 to 2012. Each piec…
Zero Plus Zero
'Lucio Capece (soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, sruti box, double plugged equalizer, ring modulator, sine waves). Recorded at Berlin between 2009 and 2011. Zero Plus Zero can be described as a suite consisting of six structured pieces, where Lucio Capece expresses his huge creativity by exploring the possibilities of his main instruments - soprano saxophone and bass clarinet with preparations - as some others such as struti box and various electronic devices. Lucio Capece keeps on worki…
E.E. Tension And Circumstance
The first meeting of AMM guitarist Keith Rowe and pianist John Tilbury after Rowe departed in 2004, a delicate and intricate long improvisation, fascinating dialog between two long-acquainted and innovative conversationalists. "Keith Rowe and John Tilbury are both known as prominent members of AMM, the legendary ensemble which has been incredibly influential on the field of improvised music.Originating the tabletop guitar, Keith Rowe was a co-founder of AMM in 1965. He's since been involved in a…
Window dressing
'Jean-Luc Guionnet and Seijiro Murayama have been playing and performing a lot over these last past years. Their unique approach is based on space exploration and intensive relationship to sounds and silence. The first piece - Procédé - was recorded live at Radio Slovenija (Ljubljana - Slovenia) on june 2010. The three other pieces - Processus, Procession, Procès - were recorded by Eric La Casa in Paris on december 2010. The main purpose was to work out a specifically designed process for…
Axiom for the duration
'Japanese percussionist Seijiro Murayama has been working in France since 1999. His musical approach is based on extreme attention to the performance space, the energy of the audience and the quality of silence. He is interested in how continuous sounds and microscopic events can delicately revitalize the environment. Now established in Beirut (Lebanon), french saxophonist Stéphane Rives has spent over last ten years developing new sonic array of extended techniques on the soprano. On thi…
Tenor
Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone. Recorded by Christophe Hauser on february 21st, 2010. 'As well as being part of such improvisation ensembles as Hubbub, Trio Sowari and Propagations Sax Quartet, Bertrand Denzler, who plays the tenor saxophone, also records solo music. Each of the three lengthy pieces on Tenor use a single note which are subsequently layered. Not by repeating them on the computer, like say Phill Niblock would do this, but by adding small variations in how he plays them. In Filte…
Shortcut
Phil Durrant (computer), Bertrand Denzler (tenor saxophone) and Burkhard Beins (percussion, objects). Recorded on November 28 & 29, 2006 by Christophe Hauser at La muse en circuit (France).
