PLAYBACK PLAY # 06

PLAYBACK PLAY # 06

2-5 October 2012
Powiększenie, Nowy Świat 27
Every day at 20.00, 20 PLN


02/10, Tuesday

James Tenney, “Cellogram”, Volker Heyn, “Blues in B-Flat”
interpreted BY
Agnes Szelag – cello / Julia Kubica – violin

Amnon Wolman, “Bandas Sonoras”
interpreted BY
Andrea Belfi – percussion / Michał Biela – bass / David Grubbs – guitar / Miron Grzegorkiewicz – guitar / Julia Kubica – violin / David Maranha – organ, violin / Agnes Szelag – cello


03/10, Wednesday

Henry Flynt, “Graduation”; David Grubbs, fragments of “An Optimist Notes the Dusk”, "Harmless Dust" and some unreleased pieces
interpreted BY
Andrea Belfi – perc / Michal Biela – bass, voice / David Grubbs – guitar, voice / David Maranha – org, viol


04/10, Thursday

Susanne Burner, “Vanishing Point. How To Disappear In America Without A Trace”
interpreted BY
David Grubbs – guitar, voice / Miron Grzegorkiewicz – guitar / David Maranha – organ, violin / Gosia Penkalla – voice / Pete Simonelli – voice

Harry Partch, “Eleven Intrusions”
interpreted BY
Andrea Belfi – percussion / David Grubbs – guitar, voice / David Maranha – organ, violin / Pete Simonelli – voice


05/10, Friday

Pete Simonelli Texts
interpreted BY
Michał Biela – bass / Miron Grzegorkiewicz – guitar / DJ Lenar – turntables / Pete Simonelli – voice / Agnes Szeląg – cello

John Lomax Ethnomusicological Diaries
interpreted BY
Michał Biela – bass / Miron Grzegorkiewicz – guitar / DJ Lenar – turntables / Pete Simonelli – voice

PROGRAMME SUBJECT TO CHANGE so please follow the BLOG


Since 2007 Playback Play is a pool for musicians of different backgrounds and aesthetics – polish and foreign. This year's edition is explores two margins of minimal music – spoken word and blues. Both have always been present in the genre, at least since tape loop of “It's Gonna Rain” by Steve Reich and bluesy improvisations by La Monte Young. Our little October-Fest is dedicated to them as primary points of interest. Once we do away with encyclopedia definitions and get back to blues and spoken word of Henry Flynt or James Tenney, minimalism may turn out to be a social history of America. Or its documental music present in spoken language, reduced material and obsesive repetitiveness.

To focus on these margins and alternative history, we will host four musicians: Andrea Belfi, David Grubbs, David Maranha and Pete Simonelli. In Warsaw they will meet local artists: Michał Biela, Miron Grzegorkiewicz, Julia Kubica, Gosia Penkalla, DJ Lenar and Agnes Szeląg. Together they will work on their collaborative pieces as well as compositions by Harry Partch, Henry Flynt, James Tenney and others. They will also play Susan Burner's Vanishing Point and ethnomusicological diaries by John Lomax.



Andrea Belfi (Italy), percussionist and composer working in between sound art and rock improvisations, member of Medves.

Michał Biela (Poland), bassist, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, known mostly as a member of Kristen but also for more ephemeral constellations and solo projects.

Susan Burner (Germany), visual artist, author of an edit “Vanishing Point. How to Disappear in America without a Trace”

Henry Flynt (USA), composer, theorist and fiddler working along with Fluxus and consequently bringing avant garde into a deep american folk music and the other way around.

David Grubbs (USA), guitarist, theorist, vocalist, legend of a post rock scene, founding member of such bands as Gastr del Sol and Bastro.

DJ Lenar (Poland), turntablist, working mostly on sound design, soundtracks and advanced instrumental techniques for gramophones.

John Lomax (USA), godfather of american ethnomusicology, among the first figures to do fieldwork in southern states documenting the music of the black community.

David Maranha (Portugal), violinist, organ player, improviser mostly working in minimal and industrial music, member of Osso Exótico.

Harry Partch (USA), one of the most important american composers of 20th Century, pioneer of microtonal music and constructor of instruments.

Gosia Penkalla (Poland), vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, concentrated mostly on her work in Enchanted Hunters and solo appearances.

Pete Simonelli (USA), poet and performer, frontman of the post-rock Enablers.

Agnes Szeląg (USA / Poland), cellist with a classical background, interested in contemporary music just as much as rock. Co-founder of Dokuro.

James Tenney (USA), composer bringing minimalism, mictrotonality and electronic music as early as in 60.

TILBURY plays SIKORSKI

John Tilbury, For Tomasz Sikorski

1. Autograph by Tomasz Sikorski (1980)
2. Rondo by Tomasz Sikorski (1984)
3. Zertstreutes Hinausschauen by Tomasz Sikorski (1971)
4. Improvisation for Tomasz Sikorski

Piano by John Tilbury

Recorded on 15th of December 2011 in Królikarnia by Zosia Moruś
Mix by Zosia Moruś
Mastering by The Norman Conquest
Produced by Michał Libera and 4.99

Published by Bôłt

Official release date: 21/09/2012

MAKING THE WALLS QUAKE… THE BOOK

Making the walls quake as if they were dilating with a secret knowledge of great powers


Reader on architecture, sound and listening

Edited by Michał Libera and Lidia Klein
Published by Zachęta National Gallery of Art
Distributed by Motto

Table of contents

Georges Perec, On the Stairs, I
Michał Libera, Counter-Eavesdropping
Lidia Klein, Getting Buildings To Talk

--- Sounds in Architecture: reverberation

Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Hearing Architecture
Alvin Lucier, I Am Sitting in a Room
Bruce R. Smith, Within the Wooden O
Thomas Tilly and Jean-Luc Guionnet, Stones, Air, Axioms
Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter, Acoustic Archaeologists Interpret Ancient Spaces
Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis
Bernhard Leitner, Sound Space Manifesto

--- Sounds Through Architecture: eavesdropping

Bernhard Leitner in conversation with Eugen Blume, Sound as Building Material
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, November 28, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?
Georges Teyssot, Architecture as Membrane
Jonathan Sterne, Machines to Hear for Them
Branden W. Joseph, John Cage and the Architecture of Silence
Alvin Lucier, Shelter
David Toop, Architectural Sound
Toshiya Tsunoda, On Sound and Architecture
Lamberto Tronchin, Athanasius Kircher’s Phonurgia Nova
John L. Locke, Flimsy Architecture
Emily Thompson, Acoustical Materials and Modern Acoustics
Eric La Casa, AIR.ratio
Karin Bijsterveld, A Wall of Sound
Eric La Casa and Jean-Luc Guionnet, House
John L. Locke, English Eaves
Emily Thompson, Noise Abatement as Acoustical Reform
Bohumil Hrabal, The Tender Barbarian
Paweł Mościcki, Sounding-With

--- Sounds of Architecture: vibration

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Eolian Harp
Shelley Trower, Psychophysical Sensations and Spiritual Vibrations
Shelley Trower, Street Noises
Florence McLandburgh, The Automaton Ear
Richard Buckminster Fuller, Physics has found no straight lines…
Steve Goodman, 1738: Bad Vibrations, 1884: Dark Precursor, 1999: Vibrational Anarchitecture
Mark Bain in conversation with Kamil Antosiewicz and Jan Tomza, Vibrations in Brown
Francisco López and Klaus Schuwerk, Tonhaus
Katarzyna Krakowiak in conversation with Michał Libera, What Makes a Sound Sculpture?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection