buying one record reviewed in The Wire each month

So I'm 2 1/2 issues behind. Read the Martin Bisi at BC studio piece today in #367, nice to know "So many people got in touch with me to give us stuff, give us photos...like all the Swans photos and Sonic Youth photos that we used...Bands got in touch, and then the musicians who we interviewed were just really gracious".

P12 - Bites

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I've not really started on #368 yet. And I'm guessing my mate already has #369 waiting for me.

I got #369 last week.

I suppose it's ok with your buddies if I reproduce this here, since it's an interesting addition to the news feed?

Catherine Lamb - Waits And Measures - p16 #367 Bites - Nick Cain

"I follow the philosophy that the most intense sound is not the most intensive", Catherine Lamb explains. "I don't agree with those who believe that sounds need to be pushed in order to be physical, or that they need to be loud in order to hear difference or summation tones. Particularly when working with paticularly tonal colourations and shadings, the more the tones are played in a plain and relaxed manner with room to blossom, the more expressive and generative they might become."

The US composer's works eloquently articulate the virtues of restraint and patience. Pieces like the 56 minute In/Gradient (2012, for viola - played by Lamb herself, trombone, double bass and electric guitar) and Matter/Moving (2011, for oscillators, double bass and trombone) exactingly overlay sustained acoustic tones and elongated pitches . The compositions' slow linear motion means that minor structural shifts - slight textural mutations and subtle developments in timbre - generate beautifully resonant harmonics.

The more gestural 45 minute piece Three Bodies (Moving) (2009-2010, for violin, cello and bass clarinet) pivots on evolving cycles of evanescent pitches and string glissandi, continually reassessing a set of tonal contrasts from different perspectives. "Tones and their relationships are very important in my work, or more precisely, the interaction of tone," Lamb emphasises. "And yes, both In/Gradient and Three Bodies (Moving) contain specific tonal structures."

Her works reference compositional tradition, but are not beholden to it. Nonetheless, Three Bodies (Moving) earned her comparisons to Morton Feldman. "Of course I've listened to and studied a lot of Feldman's work," she reflects. "I'd prefer to be compared to Feldman than many other composers, but Three Bodies (Moving) is not consciously trying to extend a Feldman lineage. It's developing through a kind of harmonic progression, actually, through one fundamental tonality. So as it expands, the harmonic activity is situated inside itself more clearly. Feldman would never do this."

Lamb's music also reflects her interest in just intonation, which she explored while studying at California Institute of Arts between 2004-06 under Michael Pisaro and the late James Tenney, a time she recalls fondly. "I was studying Indian classical music - I had been living in India for seven months prior to attending CalArts - so I was already more conscious of a different kind of tonal understanding, but Jim was helpful in directing me towards practical mathematical and acoustical research. He was certainly a catalyst to understanding and hearing the physicality of sound".

Pisaro and Tenney's combined influence at CalArts was informally commemorated by the West Coast Soundings compilation, featuring works by ten young US composers including Lamb, almost all CalArts alumni. The album was released by Edition Wandelweiser, with whose roster of artists she has a clear aesthetic affinity. Now based in Berlin, she composes for and plays in Konzert Minimal, a Berlin ensemble of flexible size whose primary focus is the works of the Wandelweiser collective.

Though only in her early thirties, Lamb has more than 70 compositions to her name, the bulk of which are for small ensemble and solo or duo, though she has also written for vocal groups and electronics. She is currently working on what she describes as a "continued piece" with Bryan Eubanks "where we filter a listening space into a kind of tonal space in which instruments might interact". The collaboration began with the hour long Untitled #12 (After Agnes) (2011-12), a generative work for tuned white noise and sine tones.

"I have two new releases which should come out this autumn," Lamb adds. "I'm continuing my orchestra piece which I'll be doing for quite some time - masses is a new concept for me. I'm also on materials for Konzert Minimal, and a guitar piece for Christian Alvear in Chile, so I'm trying to process quite a lot right now! I've also started singing with some wonderful musicians in Berlin."

The orchestra piece is Portions Transparent/Opaque, premiered by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Tectonics Festival in Glasgow in May. At Tectonics Lamb also performed in a duo with German composer Klaus Lang - a rare foray into improvisation?

"Klaus might have called it improvised, but I wouldn't have", responds Lamb. "We had each made a drawing of a kind of structure and then overlapped these structures. Within them there was a kind of openness. I don't call myself an improvisor since I'm too obsessed with structures, development and specific tonal relationships to divorce myself from these limitations. I don't allow for improvisation in my scores. However, to allow one's nature into the music is very important to me, so I hope that there is a certain kind of openness in my music which would allow for that - between the material, time, structure and space".

~ Konzert Minimal perform(ed) Catherine Lamb's Areas Of Presence at London's Cafe Oto on 18 September.

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I suppose it's ok with your buddies if I reproduce this here

my buddies?

Well, I guess you don't go drinking with them, then.

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Well, I guess you don't go drinking with them, then.

that would be a correct assumption, yes

You can always go drinking with me though.

Just found this: Brian Eno ‏@dark_shark

Eno Antholgy: a collection of writing by and about Brian Eno http://www.enoanthology.com

What's your view on Nissenmondai's "N" LP, in one sentence?

p53, #367. That review was really good.

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You can always go drinking with me though.

What's your view on Nissenmondai's "N" LP, in one sentence?

p53, #367. That review was really good.

It wasn't as good as the review.

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I've just seen in #369...

The Primer: Autechre Remixes



if only Warp would release them on a compilation: 26 Autechre Remixes For Cash

I've just seen in #369...

The Primer: Autechre Remixes



if only Warp would release them on a compilation: 26 Autechre Remixes For Cash

Tell me about it.
Lots of rights issues apparently.

Good read that Primer.

The Wire #367 p25 - Justin Broadrick Invisible Jukebox - David Stubbs

"Boymerang - 'Still'
From Still/Urban Space 12' (Prototype) 1996

Something off the No U-Turn label? No! It's Boymerang! "Still"! Absolute favourite tune, this.

The drum 'n' bass project of Graham Sutton, who drifted towards the genre from the rock of Bark Psychosis. You made a
similar journey, didn't you?

I was in the drum 'n' bass scene for a few years when I was making records for some regular labels, being played out by DJs I respected. I made them all under pseudonyms. I almost made a record for No U-Turn, I made stuff for Dillinja for a bit - then I threw the towel in. Much like he (Boymerang) did. It got a bit too safe. Unfortunately, it also got ruled by DJs who wanted to please crowds. I mean, even early on it had its rule book, its tempos, its textures. But there was something really out the window, off the wall about it. It still sounded genuinely experimental. And I was drawn to the absolute darkness of this music. I've been coming back to it recently, the early stuff.

Quite a few people are, I think. Another problem at the time was that although the music didn't make much impact on the Top 40, it became appropriated by populists. Anyone who wanted an instant injection of hipness would throw in a few bars of drum 'n' bass. You'd even hear it in the incidental music to gardening programmes.

Yeah, a sneaky little d'n'b beat. The same thing's happened with dubstep. Some marketing guy says let's get on the back of it, show we're down with the kids. Next thing you hear it's on the Lurpak advert.

Also drum'n'bass endured a jazz funkish gentrification. It became somewhat smoothed out in its later years as it moved
away from its 'threatening' black origins.

Oh, I hated all that, that soulfulness. Also, the Americanisation of it, white kids on Miami beach... I remember going to early drum'n'bass events and they felt quite scary. There was an air, an element of danger which I really enjoyed. But again, at its best, there's common ground with things like metal. Records like this, it's riffs.

- David Stubbs made me happy for bringing this record at first, then made me sad by recycling his Bark Psychosis "hipster notions of 4Real against what is actually real up for grabs, in a state of flux" comments about drum'n'bass, then they both made me laugh because they're exactly the problem with people selfishly commodifying drum'n'bass for their own agenda - being hipsters themselves.

This might be worth reading - http://www.acloserlisten.com review of a recent Robert Curvegnen release:

http://acloserlisten.com/2014/10/27/robe...em-sirene/

Your latest issue of The Wire has arrived!

The Wire
December 2014 (Issue 370)

To check out your new content, just follow this link:

http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/show/40833/1/1

This issue is about Freedom Principles – 16 pages of the mag are given over to our writers to run riot on the subjects of music of liberation, freedom in sound and whatever else they care to mention.

The freedom piece includes (but is not limited to): how rock ’n’ roll babblers The Trashmen and Hasel Adkins freed language from conventional meaning; how improv’s free music has its own rules and regulations; reports from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey on how rock music soundtracked political liberation; how US trap MCs escape the pressure of the ghetto in the space of the studio; the story of the tape recorder and the sampler liberating sounds from their everyday contexts; the hard-bop and post-bop jazz players who created their own versions of free jazz; how Dutch bubbling DJs such as Moortje used reggae versioning, hiphop sampling and high speed record decks to create their own wildstyle music; and much much more.

Elsewhere, there's an Invisible Jukebox with chameleonic New York trombonist Peter Zummo, and Bites on bilingual Japanese singer Eiko Ishibashi, Indian folk music recordists and proselytizers Amarrass, and extended technique early music scholar Laura Cannell. In Soundcheck, the full page reviews are of a new album by house DJ and producer Theo Parrish, Tyshawn Sorey’s composed frameworks for improvisation, and Arabic music genre-splicer Maurice Louca.

Below The Radar 18, the latest release in the series of compilations showcasing some of the underground musicians covered in recent issues of the magazine is now available to download from http://www.thewire.co.uk/btr plus The Wire Tapper 36.

Don't forget that every back issue of The Wire since issue number one, summer 1982, is available to The Wire’s subscribers online or via The Wire's App. That’s more than 30 years, 370 issues and 30,000 pages of underground and experimental music history.

Whether you’re on the web, iPad, iPhone or Android, the complete archive of The Wire is searchable so you can find and read any article or review published by the magazine on specific musicians, groups and genres, or by key critics and contributors.

To get The Wire app for free, search in the App Store for 'The Wire' or follow this link:

http://bit.ly/thewireapp

Enjoy!

Best wishes from all at The Wire and Exact Editions.

...and I'm 31/2 issues behind

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yeah, I need to get busy too

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going through #368 at the moment

one record is utterly bizarre:

Mostly Other People Do The Killing - Blue
which is an exact replaying of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue
here's a track from it:

https://soundcloud.com/bk-music-pr/all-b...he-killing

why?!?

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further on #368, probably this one...

Oren Ambarchi & Eli Keszler - Alps (Dancing Wayang)
http://dancingwayang.com/my_portfolio/or...zler-alps/



but these are possibilities...

Darius Jones - The Oversoul Manual (AUM Fidelity)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oversoul-Manual-...B00NGYLOJ8

Puce Mary - Persona (Posh Isolation)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Persona-Puce-Mary/dp/B00O56LTDW

Well that was very nice of The Wire, I feel very special: my Dad Mick re-subscribed me for the year coming and through the post comes a personalised Christmas card, the sewing machine calling a man with an umbrella an idiot, which is nice. But completely unexpected is this:

Various Artists (Live) - Atlantic Waves 2007 Festival Sampler

Featuring these people I know: Richard Chartier, Sawako, Terre Thaemlitz, Tim Hecker, Aki Onda, The Beautiful Schizophonic, Jason Kahn, Kenneth Kirschner.

29 tracks across 2 CDs!

And it's all stuff I am probably going to like, as these names are either ambient or improv based.

further on #368, probably this one...

Oren Ambarchi & Eli Keszler - Alps (Dancing Wayang)
http://dancingwayang.com/my_portfolio/or...zler-alps/

And I like this too, if it was digitally sold I'd buy it!

Yay!

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back on the case now with three issues to get through

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and we have a favourite for #369 already...

Pharmakon - Bestial Burden (Sacred Bones)
http://www.juno.co.uk/products/pharmakon...544520-01/

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I've just seen in #369...

The Primer: Autechre Remixes



if only Warp would release them on a compilation: 26 Autechre Remixes For Cash

Tell me about it.
Lots of rights issues apparently.

Good read that Primer.

I just randomly googled for "Autechre remixes" and found this...
http://goodmusicisgoodmusic.blogspot.co....-1994.html



i.e. the Laxir compilation mentioned at the beginning of the article

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and from #370...
Mamoru Fujieda - Patterns of Plants (Pinna)

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new blogpost for 2014...
http://subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk/201...-2014.html

I just randomly googled for "Autechre remixes" and found this...
http://goodmusicisgoodmusic.blogspot.co....-1994.html



i.e. the Laxir compilation mentioned at the beginning of the article

new blogpost for 2014...
http://subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk/201...-2014.html

You don't have to buy me a Xmas present now