A Collection of One-page Pieces by Karl Berger, Earle Brown, Alvin Curran, Nick Didkovsky, Joel Ford, Daniel Goode, Clinton McCallum, Larry Polansky and Christian Wolff. Joel Ford, 'Gauss Cannon' (2006). Alvin Curran, 'Underwater Princess Waltz' (1972), 'Her Waltzing with Her' (1972). Nick Didkovsky, 'Mayhem (the hammer)' (2012), 'Mayhem (the arrow)' (2012), 'Mayhem (the blade)' (2012). Christian Wolff, 'Burdocks, Part VII' (1970Ð71). Larry Polansky, 'tween (k-tood #2)' (2002). Clinton McCallum, 'round round down' (2012). Daniel Goode, 'The Red and White Cows' (1979). Earle Brown, 'December 1952' (1952). Karl H. Berger, 'Time Goes By' (1975). Zwerm: Johannes Westendorp, Bruno Nelissen, Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, Toon Callier, guitars; w/ Eric Thielemans, drums, percussion; Bertel Schollaert, saxophone; Matthias Koole, guitar; Thomas Moore, voice-over. The 'one-page piece' - a written-down musical composition that fits on a single piece of paper - is appealing to a group like the Belgian/Dutch electric guitar quartet Zwerm. Zwerm and their collaborators took full advantage of the opportunity to create their own scores out of the one-page pieces, to allow their own creativity and compositional ideas to run free, to explore interesting sound worlds, and to seek out possible links between the pieces. These positive experiences are inherent to the format of the one-page piece: a composer provides a musical idea, in traditional notation, prose, graphics, or some combination of all three; sometimes this idea is rough or conceptual, sometimes more clear in its musical content and process. The rest is up to the musicians. Collaborative brainstorming is necessary, and many ideas might be tried out before settling on a particular way of realizing the piece; often, the possibilities seem endless, limited only by one's conventional training, adherence to idiomatic instrumental techniques, and musical sensibilities. This collaborative brainstorming works best when the ensemble is made up of adventurous musicians who trust each other. One-page pieces fall into the category of process pieces. With roots in the history of American experimental music, both process pieces and one-page pieces are sometimes traced back to Terry Riley's minimalist masterpiece In C of 1964. The recordings on this CD represent a crossover project in which Zwerm looks for connections between the sound worlds of blues, free improvisation, experimental rock, noise, minimalism, and many other contemporary musical ideas.
