'you are in exile until further notice' : Richard Scowen

we invited Dunedin-based circuit bender, lateral instrument builder, and general poet of residual ephemeral sonic lo-fi Richard Scowen to discuss his current residency at Stafford St. arts space Glue Gallery. Wandering discursive speculations on the craft-based nature of electronics, 'ecosystems' of sonic objects, collaboration and 'tinkering' as modality, as well as how to get a turntable to play a drum and turn a guitar into a synthesiser, were intercut by a tour through the solo and collaborative output of an artist whose practice leads toward fragile, irrepeatable structures. A soundscape recorded at the gallery with various hybrid sound-objects crafted during the residency's three weeks ended the show.

more on richard's Glue residency here

the dark spot / broken suffering song: kousokuya and kaneko jutok

"Every single note was clear, it shrunk all the distance with its power" - Honda Shigeto, recording engineer on First LP

"For a group with a 25-year history on the Tokyo underground scene, Kousokuya have left very little imprint of their activities. Once heard, though, their sound is unmistakable -- a grinding, soaring sonic blackhole that charts the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one else this side of Fushitsusha" - Alan Cummings

Tonight Avant Gardening takes a dark, dionysian trip through into the weightier end of Japanese psych with Tokyo band Kousokuya (as well as a few tracks from leader/ guitarist Kaneko Jutok's solo and duo work.)

Kousokuya were among the less heralded stars of the incredibly fertile Japanese psychedelic underground. Only releasing a handful of albums in a 30 year history (plus a couple more for  the black leather and sunglasses-clad Jutok), its a corpus that presents a decisively articulated and powerful sound world.
Typified by Jutok's glassy, sharply defined and fractured guitar skree over a darkly churning, pummeling rhythm section equally capable at rushing forward downhill with weight and momentum or pulling back into endless flailing narrative-free suspension, they were an often astonishing unit, as strong and strange as much more heralded and prolific contemporaries like High Rise and Acid Mothers Temple.

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Playlist:

1. Kousokuya, 'Removal' from 1st (1991)
2. Kousokuya, 'Dreams of the Recollection' from 1st (1991)
3. Kousokuya, 'The Miracle' from First Live 1979 (2006)
4. Kaneko Jutok & Kikukawa Takahisa, 'Kirin' from Wedged Night (2005)
5. Kaneko Jutok & Kikukawa Takahisa, 'The Wedge' from Wedged Night (2005)
6. Kaneko Jutok, 'Endless Ruin' from Endless Ruins (2001)
7. Kaneko Jutok, 'The Everlasting Labyrinth' from Endless Ruins (2001)
8. Masayoshi Urabe & Kousokuya, 'Scene 1 - the Western Lands' from The Dark Spot (1997)
9. Masayoshi Urabe & Kousokuya, 'Dream Shadow' from The Dark Spot (1997)
10. Kousokuya, 'Untitled' from Tokyo Flashback vol 1 compilation (1991)
11. Kousokuya, 'Shadow of a Dream' from Echoes from Deep Underground (2007)
12. Kousokuya, 'The Dark Spot' from 1st (1991)
13. Kousokuya, 'Broken Suffering Song' from Ray Night 1991-1992 Live (1995)

field notes from kapiti/ joe jones' solar umbrellas

Fluxus artist Joe Jones finally found the equipment in the late 70s to realise an idea he first had back in 1964: building a solar powered machine to make music. Tonight on AG we play extended clips from two performances; recorded in 1983 and 1984.

"After my first experience of using SOLAR ENERGY in my music, I found it difficult to go back to making battery powered pieces.

Playing with the subtle changes that occured in the sounds produced by the different combinations of solar cells and motors, under a constant light source (light bulb), selecting one, then taking this combination out into the sun light, where the movement of the earth, cloud formations, and wind, slowly and sometimes radically changed the sounds. The voltage being higher in direct sunlight and lower when cloud formations cast shadows over the solar cells.

The wind plays it's part by gently or not so gently moving the motors or hanging instruments, causing them to swing. The combination of all these factors create the solar music for that particular day.

From complete density of sound in a cloudless sky at mid-day to silence in a heavy sky or total silence at sun down.

The first Solar Music Piece was hand made chimes 1977, Harlekin Art, Wiesbaden. This was immediately followed by hanging zitars, to take advantage of their multi-string sound capacity. The "Solar Zitar" pieces could be hung outside or in a window, the sun and wind creating their own composition.

This was a development of an earlier idea, 1964, but could not be completed because of the cost of material at that time."
- Joe Jones - Notes on Solar Music

""A gauzy and cloudy shimmering wash of keening high pitched whines, hums and whirrs, and simple and slow, calculatedly tribal percussion. At times it sounds like Pelt or Skullflower, at others an ethereal otherworldly hippie jam ala Taj Mahal Travellers" - Aquarius Records

Followed by : Field Notes from Kapiti Island

Regular AG host Sally Ann McIntyre, currently undertaking an artist residency on Kapiti Island, sends a series of raw field recordings as messages in bottles through the waves of the aether. A site specific transmission from Kapiti which includes binaural recordings next to beehives, a hydrophone recording of the electrical transmissions of feeding molluscs, and the sea as filtered through a microphone placed inside the hollow dry shell of a broken buoy, found as flotsam in-situ on a lonely isolated beach.

a pitch lattice of perfect fifths and harmonic sevenths: la monte young's the well tuned piano

Considered by the composer to be his most important work, The Well Tuned Piano is a somewhat lengthy improvisational piece - 5 or 6 hours is typical - based around a specific tuning on a Bosendorfer grand piano, first composed in 1964 and revisited frequently since then. Tonight on Avant Gardening... we'll play the 1987 released Gramavision version, recorded n New York May 10 1981 between the hours of 6:17 and 11:18 pm.

"La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano is an enthralling marathon a non-stop performance at once wacko and visionary" - Newsweek, 1987

"The Well-Tuned Piano is a work of tremendous vision; those who are willing to give it the time and effort it takes will find it one of the great monuments of modern culture." - Mark Swed, L.A. Herald Examiner, 1987

"La Monte Young began work on his magnum opus, The Well-Tuned Piano, in 1964. For 27 years he kept the tuning a secret - only a few close friends knew it. In 1991, with the use of a calculator, a tunable Yamaha DX7, and a CD player with an A-to-B button, I tuned my synthesizer to the Gramavision recording of the work and figured out ten pitches of the tuning. Why not all 12? Because one pitch, G#, never appears on that recording of the work, and another, C#, only appears in one five-minute passage on the fifth CD. I told La Monte that I had figured out the tuning and wanted to publish an analysis of the work. He thought it over and agreed that it was time to release the tuning into public discourse." Kyle Gann, 1997

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Playlist:

1. 'The Well Tuned Piano' by La Monte Young from The Well-Tuned Piano 81 X 25 6:17:50 - 11:18:59 PM NYC rec 1981 released 1987

graduation is a very important event / i don't wanna: the contradictory histories of henry flynt

“My music is a sophisticated, personal extension of the ethnic music of my native region of the United states. In all of my experimentation, I assert myself as an autochthon (colloquially, a “native” or “folk creature”)—siding with the emotional experience and the musical languages of the autochthonous communities. In particular, I assert that the objective sound elements of blues and country music are demonstrably incommensurate with the categorization of sound in European musicology—as for example in the use of an unaccented glissando on the beat as a “note”—and in non-arithmetical division of the beat.”

- Henry A. Flynt Jr., 'The Meaning of My Avant Garde Hillbilly and Blues Music, 1980 (revised 2002)

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Playlist:

1. Henry Flynt, Violin Strobe from 'New American Ethnic Music Volume 3: Hillbilly Tape Music', recorded 1978/ released 2003
2. Henry Flynt, Graduation from 'Graduation and Other New Country and Blues Music', 1975-9/ 2001
3. Henry Flynt, Jumping Wired from 'Hillbilly Tape Music', 1976/ 2001
4. Henry Flynt, Sky Turned Red from 'Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Vol 1' 2002
5. Henry Flynt, Solo Spindizzy from 'New American EthnicMusic Vol 2: Spindizzy' 1971/ 2003
6. Henry Flynt, Celestial Power from 'Graduation and Other New Country and Blues Music', 1975-9/ 2001
7. Henry Flynt, C Tune from 'C Tune', 1980
8. Henry Flynt & the Insurrections, Goodby Wall St. from 'I Don't Wanna', 2004
9. Henry Flynt & the Insurrections, Sky Turning Red from 'I Don't Wanna', 2004
10. Henry Flynt & the Insurrections, Dreams Away from 'I Don't Wanna', 2004
11. Henry Flynt, Central Park Transverse #1 from 'Raga Electric', 1963
12. Henry Flynt, Central Park Transverse #2 from 'Raga Electric', 1963
13. Henry Flynt, Central Park Transverse #3 from 'Raga Electric', 1963
14. Henry Flynt, Central Park Transverse #4 from 'Raga Electric', 1963
15. Henry Flynt & Nova'Billy, Amphetamine Rhapsody from 'Nova'Billy', 2007
16. Henry Flynt & Nova'Billy, I Was A Creep from 'Nova'Billy', 2007
17. Henry Flynt & Nova'Billy, Double Spindizzy from 'Nova'Billy', 2007
18. Henry Flynt, Solo Virginia Trance from 'New American Ethnic Music Vol 2: Spindizzy' 1971/ 2003
19. Henry Flynt, Blue Sky, Highway and Thyme from 'Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Vol 1' 2002
20. Henry Flynt/ C. C. Hennix, Warriors of the Dharma from 'Dharma/ Warriors' 2008

living in the world / the blindfold test : peter stapleton

live on the show tonight : Peter Stapleton talking about the lesser known aspects of a 30 year music practice, from the experimentalism of the mid 1990s onwards, including gallery installation sound works, film-sound collaborations, and the use of shortwave radio as an instrument.

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Playlist:

1. Peter Stapleton, 'Summer Rain', piece for the Bunker sound art series at Christchurch Art Gallery, 2011.

2. Peter Stapleton, 'Is Not the Sea Full of Green Islands' soundtrack to exhibition by Rose Stapleton, the Honeymoon Suite, Dunedin, 1993/4

3. Rain, untitled/unreleased track, 1997

4. Flies Inside the Sun, 'The Black Ship' from Cactus Sky, 1998

5. Eye, 'Insomniac', from Black Ice, 2005

6. PSN Electronic, 'Teleporter 1', installation piece for Etherradio, exhibition curated by Zita Joyce for Cloudland: Digital Art from Aotearoa at ISEA Singapore, July 2008, from Teleporter 9
7. PSN Electronic, 'Teleporter 9b', live at the Substation, ISEA Singapore, July 2008, from Teleporter 9

8. PSN Electronic, 'The Ten Year Anniversary of Bad Sleep', Teleporter 10, live at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2009

9. Peter Stapleton, 'Lift', collaborative soundtrack for installation by Katharina Jaeger, The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space, Christchurch, 2002

10. Peter Stapleton, 'Pool', collaborative soundtrack for installation by Katharina Jaeger, Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch / Blue Oyster Contemporary Art Space, Dunedin, 2008

11. Peter Stapleton, 'Dawn', audio visual collaboration with Kim Pieters, 2008

12. Peter Stapleton, 'Epilogue to Blood Meridian', composition for multiple voices, for Sound in the Cracks festival, Dunedin Public art Gallery, 2008

13. Peter Stapleton, Tristan Dingemans, & Jim Currin, live score for film, part of the Sound in the Cracks festival, Dunedin Public art Gallery, 2008

14. Flies Inside the Sun, 'La Maga', from The Invisible Pyramid, 2003

15. Sleep, 'Lines of Flight, from Enfolded in Luxury, 1998

16. Rain, 'Tusalava', from Sycamore, 1997

'into vast gardens of ether and lightning' : angus maclise

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Playlist:


1. Angus MacLise, 'Another Druid's Nestalum', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)
2. Angus MacLise 'Cembalum', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)
3. Angus MacLise, 'Description of a Mandala', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)
4. Angus MacLise (with Hetty MacLise), 'Epiphany', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)
5. Angus MacLise, 'The First Subtle Cabinet', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)
6. Angus MacLise, 'Tunnel Music #1', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)
7. Angus MacLise, 'Tunnel Music #2', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)8. Angus MacLise, 'Tunnel Music #3, from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)9. Angus MacLise, 'Drum Solo', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)10. Angus MacLise (with David Moore), 'Haight Riot Mime', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)
11. Angus MacLise, 'Loft College', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)
12. Angus MacLise, 'Smothered Under Astral', from Astral Collapse (Locust, 2003)
13. Angus MacLise, 'Two Speed Trance', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)
14. Angus MacLise, 'Shortwave - India', from The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Siltbreeze, 1999)
15. Angus MacLise, 'Shortwave Radio', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)16. Angus MacLise, 'Heavenly Blue pt. 4 & 5', from The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Siltbreeze, 1999)
17. Angus MacLise, 'The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda', from The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Siltbreeze, 1999)

18. Angus MacLise, 'Chumlum' from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)

19. Angus MacLise, '6th Face of the Angel', from Astral Collapse (Locust, 2003)

20. Angus MacLise, 'Blasitude', from The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Siltbreeze, 1999)

21. Angus MacLise, 'Humming in the Night Skull', from The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Siltbreeze, 1999)

22. Angus MacLise, 'Cloud Watching' from Astral Collapse (Locust, 2003)

23. Angus MacLise (with Tony Conrad), 'Electronic Mix for 'Expanded Cinema', from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)

24. Angus MacLise (with Tony Conrad & John Cale), Trance #1, from The Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa, 2002)

25. Angus MacLise (with Tony Conrad & John Cale), Trance #2, from Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music : First A Chronology 1921-2001 (Sub Rosa, 2002)

26. Angus MacLise (with Tony Conrad, Jackson Mac Low, Hetty MacLise & Henry Flynt), 'Dreamweapon Benefit for the Oklahoma City Police Dept. Pt. 1', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)

27. Angus MacLise (with Tony Conrad, Jackson Mac Low, Hetty MacLise & Henry Flynt), 'Dreamweapon Benefit for the Oklahoma City Police Dept. Pt. 2', from Brain Damage in Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze, 2000)