Nevermind Your Palaver . . . [2]

Part 2 [of 2] – the slightly rougher, audiologically feisty, younger brother of part 1 that closes with a custom landscaped & extended version of the far too short scorcher by ProjeKct Four (Mastelotto, Fripp, Levin & Gunn).
79:37

01 Otto Lindholm – Nilindigo
02 King Crimson – Industry
03 Ynos – Tears in the Rain
04 The Cotswold Gnomes – Ringing Beat
05 The Fireman (Paul McCartney) – Bison
06 Brian Eno & Robert Fripp – Dirt Loop
07 Robert Rich – Electric Ladder
08 King Crimson – Discipline
09 The Cotswold Gnomes – Sneering Loop
10 David Bowie w/ Brian Eno – All Saints
11 Robert Fripp – Breathless
12 Fripp & Eno – The Idea of Decline
13 Andy Summers & Robert Fripp – I Advance Masked
14 David Torn – Sink
15 The Cotswold Gnomes – Tripoli 2020
16 ProjeKct Four – Sus Tayn Zee (extended crimson red-exit edit)

D/L:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcra0evpeqt7mwj/Palaver%202.zip?dl=0

original album cover

ever > more > other

Always.

Robert Fripp takes a Crowdie!

My brother, Bill, attended King Crimson’s appearance @ Greek Theatre in Los Angeles last night & sent me some pictures from 7 rows from the stage.

Here, Robert Fripp documents the concert series from stage…a “crowdie” (as opposed to a selfie).

Pre-concert stage

KonneKted

The Stick Men are releasing a free digital download companion album to the limited edition promotional CD “KOLLEKTED” (Blue), which is currently available exclusively at King Crimson concerts. For this download version we’ve assembled some other favorites under the name “KONNEKTED” (Red), and included are also some rather odd tracks from the catalogue.

Enter “0” (zero) to download for free. And please tell your friends!

The Ambient Landscape mixological studio crew (Semi-Red) is hard at work remixing this KOLLEKTION as the track selections, though stellar, were not well segued and are merely a kollektion of kompositions…not a well thought out mix.
Thus, we’ve have dragged the composite tracks into our secret studio & have remixed it (and it sounds so much cleaner & smoother without the gaps) and have added a bonus track at the end, Sus_Tayn_Z (ProjeKct Four).

. . .

 

Credits:

• Released June 13, 2017
• Written by Tony Levin, Markus Reuter, Pat Mastelotto, except “Breathless” (Fripp) and “Sailor’s Tale” (King Crimson)
• Personel:
  • Tony Levin: Stick and Voice
  • Markus Reuter: U8 and AU8 Touch Guitars and Voice
  • Pat Mastelotto: Acoustic and Electronic Drums and Percussion
  • Guests:
    • David Cross – violin (on “Shades of Starless”)
    • Mel Collins – saxophone (on “Sailor’s Tale”)
    • Artwork/illustration by Maria Picassó i Piquer

Produced by Stick Men

Falling For Ascension

by Markus Reuter featuring SONAR and Tobias Reber

Falling For Ascension is the latest album from Germany-based composer and Touch Guitarist, Markus Reuter featuring SONAR & Tobias Reber.

Since the late 1990s Markus Reuter has steadily made a name for himself as a formidable player, a gifted improviser and a a composer for both rock and classical music ensembles. As one third of Stick Men, since 2010 Reuter has toured extensively across Europe, Asia, Australia, and in North and South America alongside with King Crimson’s Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto. In 2013 his large-scale composition for orchestra, Todmorden 513 received its world premiere performed by the Colorado Chamber Orchestra.

Falling For Ascension finds Markus Reuter working with Switzerland’s post-minimal quartet, SONAR and live electronics specialist, Tobias Reber.

Reuter leads this acclaimed ensemble through a series of compositions that are amongst his earliest, having all been written between 1985 and 1987. “For me the striking thing about this album is that the themes and melodies and rhythms that you’re hearing were written when I was 14 years old,” explains Reuter. “I had these little motifs set aside for such a long time and I never knew what to do with them.”

When the opportunity arose to work with SONAR in 2014 these pieces seemed the perfect fit. “I rediscovered the beauty and power in them and also a kind of timelessness in them. It doesn’t matter that I wrote them when I was 14. I would still write the same thing now. Falling For Ascension has this openness to it which is a new discovery for me. It’s interesting that I’m discovering this on very old material,” Reuter explains.

Perhaps sharing similar strands of the kind of polymetrical DNA that informed the interweaving knot-work of King Crimson’s Discipline, the pointillist components with Reuter’s pieces, interacting across the group, resembles a series of interlocking constellations whose orbits and traversals connect to create new variations and associations. Hypnotic and beguiling, the music comes with a guttural punch that’s felt as much as heard.

Recorded in just one day under Reuter’s direction, the pieces were prepared as modules, most of which contain a 12-tone row and assigned to an individual player. “They had the freedom to decide when to move to the next stage within the module, independent of each other,” says Reuter. Within each module a finite number of choices are available. “The choice is limited to the ‘when’, not the ‘what’. There’s a specific thing asked of you but you can decide when to move to the next element in the series.”

The music offers deep explorations between tension and release, between the gravitational pull of grooves and floating freefall in space. There’s contrast between stillness and grace next to the ever-changing motion.

Falling For Ascension appears on Ronin Rhythm Records, the label owned by internationally renowned zen-groove pioneer, pianist, Nik Bärtsch. Working with Reuter is something he’s been looking forward to and perhaps inevitable given the overlapping nature of their respective work.

Of this release Bärtsch comments, “We can hear a sensual performance of the high art of abstract creative thinking played by a real working band like SONAR and by Tobias Reber, a close companion of Markus, and a mastermind himself,” says the ECM recording artist, adding ”What we hear is a mystic materialisation of a visionary abstract mind that can dance.”

Across the 70-minute album these pieces possesses the same metronomic intensity of groups such as Can in full-flight, in which intense, pulsating grooves are strafed by Reuter’s smouldering solos or wreathed in luminous clouds of soundscapes. Without recourse to showy grandstanding, his playing possesses a remarkable, unerring accuracy when it comes to finding the emotional heart of this music. Much like the sparse acuity of a haiku poem, when he plays Reuter understands that less is so often very much more.

The hypnotic quality dominating many of the pieces opens the possibility of trance states, of surrender, of losing yourself in the maze of interconnecting corridors and spaces. That’s as it should be Reuter is careful to leave room for listeners to be able to fill in the both rhythmic and harmonic spaces for themselves. “As you listen you kind of get drawn into it but what is actually happening is that you draw the music into yourself.”

“Reuter institutes Robert Fripp-like steel shredding leads with the Touch Guitar methodology…”
–All About Jazz

“Amazing! One is instantly reminded of Frippertronics…nice one Mr. Reuter!”
–Ambient Landscape

Bipolarity Journal Entry 1

Where does the dividing line between cognitive clarity (as a time/space/emotional issue), & cognitive dissonance reside?

Mixes are the New Albums

I can’t remember the last time I listened to an entire album from start to finish.

I simply don’t do that…anymore. I used to – when I was 16 & had just bought a new Bowie or Robert Fripp album – I’d listen to the whole album – but then one track would remind me of the guitar riff by another artist…or the bass line would be similar to another song…and I began making cassette mixes (non-segued @ that time) on my TEAC double cassette deck. At the time, I’d hand draw the mix cover-art & passengers in my car would marvel at the creativity it took to put everything together in an enjoyable music mix for the road trip we were on.

And I’ve been making mixes, on & off, ever since (Round 1: 1974 ~ 1990). I had taken a break for a few years – when out of the blue, my 10 years younger brother sent me a cassette mix he had made as a way of thanking me for “saving” him from a Village People fate in which his peer group was immersed. That mix, made with a dual turntable & a mixing board, contained songs from his generation (The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Sugar Cubes, Pixies) & mine (David Bowie, Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, Ian Hunter) and we labeled it P.H.A.C. – Progressive Hits / Alternative Classics. The series went on for 11 more editions (and, as a side note, I’m restoring a few of them by recording the tape to a digital source). Then Eric enrolled in the Peace Corps and shipped off to Nepal (where he eventually met his wife) and I shipped him 3-4 more editions of ‘After the P.H.A.C.’ – adding acts like Monty Python into the music stream as well as narrated portions using a microphone.

That brings us to, roughly, the year 2000…when I mixed one of my all-time favorites, ‘Lanterna‘ (a tribute mix to the Henry Frayne album by the same name): initially onto cassette, then CD-R in 2004 and digitally in 2014. And I’ve never listened to the entire Lanterna album in toto – only by way of its mixed iteration.

Lanterna can be downloaded free here: Ambient Landscape’s Bandcamp, & will give you an entree into my mixing style.

That mixed reignited the art of making mixes within me, purely as a pastime, (Round 2: 2000 ~ Present) and I stumbled across the Art of the Mix website & joined their online community – posting under the moniker ‘g.a.b. l@bs‘. The site got glitchy after several years (though is still up & running), but the core group of elite mixers to which I palled around with began to fall apart. But I had had a nice run of things from 2000 through 2010 & resigned myself to posting purely on my blog & cross posting to Facebook (our FB account is no longer).

In 2015 I found Mixcloud, a streamlined version of Art of the Mix with better  categorization & a worldwide membership of world-class mixers…within all the genres I participated & a lot more – and have been posting there ever since.

Mixes are, for me, the ONLY way to listen to music. When I purchase or download a new album – it goes on my phone only long enough to determine what songs I like & which ones I’ll utilize to craft a new mix…usually within the same genre – but not always (my ‘elements‘ series (Jazz) is a border-crossing mixed bag of classic Jazz, European Jazz (a la ECM) & Ambient…even Classical.

Albums are categorized into folders on my hard-drive, from whence I derive my mix play-lists & the final deliverable which is then rendered with cover art & uploaded to my phone & Mixcloud.

To my ears albums are boring – too much of one artist & not enough derivation. In fact, when shopping for music, one requirement is that it be different enough to warrant my listening attention…yet similar enough to garner inclusion for the next mix project. Thus albums, CD’s & digital collections sit idle until the master (that’s, uhm…me ; D ) hand selects compositions from same as the new mix is crafted.

There are, however, 2 albums which do reside on my phone’s hard-drive & will probably never be deleted:

• Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, and  
• A Produce’s Smile on the Void.

…just because I consider them near perfection (within their respective genres).
Bottom line is: I love these 2 albums in the entirety! And I’m sure the reader also has his or her favorite.

So there you have it. The plastic & waxed shape of one man’s opinion on the topic of listenable forms of music. The mix is the thing: taking the creative input of artists & reshaping them into something better, something finer, something able to be shared without violating the artist’s creative world…AND, at least within the genres I mix…a final product that actually grants increased exposure of the artist & their work.

Thanks for reading and, if you have a differing opinion…please share it with me. I’ll read it…when I’m not tilting my head sideways to peruse the spines of stacks like these; in search of the perfect tune.

Nevermind Your Palaver . . .

…your air guitar and the bright blue wainscoting: these are the Cotswold Gnomes.

So yes…guilty as charged…a fripp-a-holic! The tunes herein are from Robert Fripp, Brian Eno (together & separately) AND compositions from artists that filled in the blanks; the spaces in-between the embedded Frippertronics.

Track 1 is a custom, in-house amalgamation of blended sound & the rest flows from there. The title was crafted with James Joyce’s ‘The Dead‘ in mind:

“The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.”
~ Lilly, from ‘The Dead’ 

But you wanted to hear the mix…so nevermind…

[73:49 – part 1 of 2]

01 Ambient Landscape –
Custom Fripp-Scape:
    Sustayn/Location.9/Slow Music.1
    Robert Fripp, Si Begg, Slow Music Project
02 Robert Fripp & Brian Eno – Deep Indian Long
03 Markus Reuter – Mundo Nuevo, Part 2
04 Dwight Ashley – Behold the Trampled Wheat
05 Brian Eno – Slip, Dip
06 Brian Eno – Innocenti
07 Bill Nelson – Her Presence In Flowers
08 Theo Travis – October Night
09 The Cotswold Gnomes – Gasp
10 Brian Eno – Lantern Marsh
11 Jeff Greinke – Deep Inside
12 The Cotswold Gnomes – Hopeful Timean
13 Deaf Center – Thread
14 Lutz Thuns & Wolfgang Gsell – Tirawa
15 Fripp & Eno – Timean Sparkles
16 O Yuki Conjugate –  In Dreams, Perhaps
17 Robert Fripp – Water Music II + Postscript

King Crimson, Fripp & ‘Heroes’

King Crimson performed Heroes at the Admiralspalast in Berlin as a celebration, a remembrance & an homage. The concert was thirty-nine years and one month after the original sessions at the Hansa Tonstudio overlooking the Berlin Wall. This is released in the Fortieth Anniversary year.

Robert Fripp
Wednesday 22nd. February, 2017; DGM HQ, Wiltshire, England.

Track Listing:
1 Heroes
2 Easy Money
3 Starless (edit)
4 The Hell Hounds of Krim
5 Heroes (radio edit)

DGM and Panegyric are proud to present for pre-order, King Crimson’s Heroes EP – recorded live on the European tour of 2016. The title track sees Robert Fripp reprise the unforgettable guitar role he created for the original David Bowie studio recording in the same city in 1977, particularly poignant in the year of Bowie’s death. Also featured on the EP are a ten minutes recording of Easy Money (Paris), a song that varies in length and solos from night to night and is always a fan favourite, an edited version (featuring the “song section”) of Crim Classic Starless often a set closer, always a stand-out moment and a recording of the three drummers’ showpiece The Hell Hounds of Krim (both from Vienna) – all previously unreleased live recordings.

The EP is completed with a ‘radio edit’ of Heroes.

A full live album, recorded on the 2016 European tour will be issued in September 2017.

Residual Image

An antique, experimental mix of mine…from 2003; painstakingly restored on a digital cutting board. I ripped the .wav files from a CD-R, imported them into Audacity & began re-segueing the tracks [Zoom in, Fade-in/Fade-out, Zoom out].

The project was driven by a question that, @ the time, permeated the minds of ALL mixers: “How does one successfully blend Ambient, Experimental, Post-Rock, Glitch & Classical onto a solitary mix?”
;- )

74:19

01 Brian Eno – Signals
02 Gustav Holst – Neptune the Mystic
03 Firmament – Pinhole View
04 Michael Griffin/David Fulton – Biometric
05 eM – Across the Milky Way (treated/ghosted edit)
06 Roland Ivarsson – Coral
07 David Fulton/Michael Griffin – Plastic & Flesh
08 Pan American  – Noun
09 Alien Planetscapes – Energy Fools the Magician
10 Robert Fripp/Andy Summers – Lakeland-Aquarelle
11 Arvo Pärt – Darf Ich
12 Jan Garbarek – Arc
13 Henry Frayne – Dog Days, part 1
14 Sinead O’Connor – Just Call Me Joe