INDUSTRIAL ON TOUR

or where did the industry go?

edited by Inke Arns & Thibaut de Ruyter

Revolver Publishing 2013, 18 x 12 cm, 260 pages, softcover

File under rock'n'roll drive turned into an intellectual detour

Including
- careless arguments on what constitutes a proper mad dog,
- insights into the semantics of Uganda,
- investigations into Detroit State of Mind,
- criminal reports on Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher facing Solidarity Museum
and some other reflections of curatorial research of Inke Arns and Thibaut de Ruyter into industrial / postindustrial landscapes of Poland.

with contributions from Inke Arns, Thibaut de Ruyter, Daniel Muzyczuk, Jim Campbell, Joanna Erbel, Michal Libera

3-NIGHT STAND with MATT DAVIS

Matt Davis (UK)
trumpet, electromagnetics

20/02, Eufemia
Matt Davis + Ksawery Wójciński (doublebass), Gamid Ibadullajev (percussion)

21/02, Galeria Praca
Matt Davis + Łukasz Izert (live visuals)

22/02, CSW 'Zamek Ujazdowski' Strefa Monotype
Matt Davis solo


Simple.
The great trumpet player takes this short trip to Warsaw to play couple of gigs, see the town and meet people.
Real improv.
Come by.


His blurb tells us:
Davis has worked in improvised and experimental music, using mainly the trumpet, field recordings and more recently electromagnetics, since 1994 after studying visual art and being heavily influenced by The Situationists. Has also directed ‘Field’ - a live art/performance project, operating since 2003, which started out as a platform for discussion on improvisation between different disciplines and ended up being a non-discipline-specific performance project referencing the work of geographer Doreen Massey who collaborated on the project.

He has worked throughout Europe and also Japan and collaborates regularly with dance as well as musicians such as Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, and Mark Wastell. He currently lives in Cornwall and is a member of the ‘School of Noises’ collective which includes Rob Gawthrop, Robert Curgenven and Dominick Allen.

His work investigates the question of sound (noise) as music, and music as a tool for improvisation, not improvisation as a compositional tool, and in that a negotiation of a relational space.

PRES Scores

PRES Scores

Bôłt. Polish Radio Experimental Studio, 2012 (2xCD)

Album dedicated to PRES pieces which were first of all conceived as scores.
Premiere: early January on Bôłt and Monotype


- Andrzej Dobrowolski, Music for Magnetic Tape and Piano Solo
CD 1: PRES version by Eugeniusz Rudnik (piano by Zygmunt Krauze)
CD 2: Bôłt commission by Wolfram (piano by Philip Zoubek)

- Włodzimierz Kotoński, Aela
CD 1: PRES version by Eugeniusz Rudnik
CD 2: Bôłt commission by Marion Wörle

- Bogusław Schaeffer, Symphony: Electronic Music
CD 1: PRES version by Bohdan Mazurek
CD 2: Bôłt commission by Thomas Lehn

- Włodzimierz Kotoński, Study for One Cymbal Stroke
CD 1: PRES version by Eugeniusz Rudnik
CD 2: Bôłt commission by Małe Instrumenty

- Andrzej Dobrowolski, Music for Magnetic Tape No.1
CD 1: PRES version by Eugeniusz Rudnik
CD 2: Bôłt commission by Arszyn & Piotr Kurek

- Krzysztof Penderecki, Psalmus
CD 1: PRES version by Eugeniusz Rudnik
CD 2: Bôłt commission by Lionel Marchetti



WHY SCORES?

Why scores – now that electronic music enables the composer to directly shape the sound? Why scores – now that for the first time since the birth of the term “composer”, they finally don’t have to rely on performers? Why scores – now that the composers’ creation can be made available to the listeners precisely how they wish to?

These questions may seem valid now but less than half a century ago – when electronic music was being institutionalized – they seemed unnecessary at most and absurd at worst. The history of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio is a paradigmatic one. Its short “period of scores”, the first years of the above mentioned institutionalization as well as the first years of the Studio’s activity were influenced by the fact that there was a division into autonomic and utilitarian music; art music which deserved appropriate attention and illustrative music which was nothing more than a collection of sound effects; music written by composers and music that could be performed by sound engineers. It is impossible to count all pieces in the history of PRES that were based on more or less precise scores, at times being simply composition drafts. However, what we know is that in the first years of the Studio’s activity Józef Patkowski required scores to be provided together with theoretical explications as a condition of adding a particular piece to the archive. We also know that 7 of them were published by the PWM Edition. This album contains 5 of them. Having analyzed the official history of electronic music in Poland – music to be found in the official archives – in the first active years it was primarily composer’s pool. The “composer’s pool” meant the need of creating tools which would allow composers to communicate their visions to sound engineers who were supposed to produce them. This required creating or rather adjusting the notation system to new instruments and new sounds as well as to the new knowledge about the way they have been created. There appeared useful methods to visually represent electronic sounds. A perfect example would be classic geometric figures inscribed in time and frequency coordinates present in Stockhausen’s “Studie 2” – in Warsaw they were used by Włodzimierz Kotoński in his “Study for a Cymbal Stroke”. Nonetheless, notation of electronic sounds has never been standardized like classic notation. Scores written in the 1950’s or 1960’s rather resemble experiments with notation and are proofs of various electronic music composers’ interests and objectives.

Regardless of the motivation behind creating scores, from today’s point of view they are a fascinating chapter in the Studio’s history. Not only because of the insight into first attempts to write down electronic sounds, being a great material to analyze or displaying links between music and graphics. It is mainly due to the fact that even in those few published scores it is explicitly visible that their utilitarian functions were rapidly replaced with the experimental ones. Precision of communication between a composer and a sound engineer – noticeable in early Dobrowolski’s scores or Kotoński’s “Study…”– is quickly substituted by a tendency to experiment with this communication. As early as in 1964 Bogusław Schaeffer started working on a graphic score, full of new symbols which are well-defined by the author but which above all serve as tools of identifying the potential actions of the sound engineer. 6 years later Włodzimierz Kotoński composed a piece which de facto is deprived of graphic symbols. It is a text-score describing the most important principles of composing works which would create a family of electronic pieces called “Aela”. Even though the text is accompanied by a 19-page graphic score, it solely presents an exemplary production. It is probably not a coincidence that in this period the most significant sound engineers in the Studio – Eugeniusz Rudnik and Bohdan Mazurek – became rightful composers whose works were added to the archives. These few scores made it clear that the fact that composers naturally “passed” some responsibility for the final shape of the piece onto musicians was a perfect vehicle for experiments. Where would we find a better reflection of John Cage’s belief that it is impossible for a composer to foresee the outcome of experimental action? Having in mind the above definition, seemingly the most conservative Studio’s activity – writing scores – is the one that most clearly embodies its experimental nature.

The PRES Scores album is dedicated to the ambivalence of conservatism and experiment. Scores on paper are what the composer leaves behind and this way requires or at least allows subsequent realizations. Experimental scores, in my opinion, should at least allow experimental realizations. Here come some of them.

MASZYNY DO SŁUCHANIA 5 # ŚLEDZIECKI COOKBOOK

MACIEJ ŚLEDZIECKI, The Cookbook


komuna// warszawa,
14/12/2012, piątek
lubelska 30/32,
godz. 20.00,
wstęp: 10 PLN

Maciej Śledziecki, gitara
Jerzy Rogiewicz, perkusja
Ray Dickaty, saxophone

W programie m.in. przepisy kulinarne Filippo Marinettiego, Erika Satie, Karlheinza Stockhausena i wielu innych (ostateczna wersja programu - 13 grudnia)


Przepisy kulinarne i partytury muzyczne - proste manuale do tworzenia narracji. Mamy w nich wszystko: co, gdzie i kiedy; składniki, proporcje, czas przygotowania, kolejność. Ta podstawowa analogia inspirowała rozmaitych kompozytorów i muzyków. Szalone pomysły Filippo Marinettiego na bukiety hemoroidowe czy zmrożony mocz a także fascynacje białymi potrawami Erika Satie. Z drugiej strony - Karlheinz Stockhausen z jego Aus den Sieben Tagen: „Żyj w samotności przez cztery dni / bez jedzenia / w całkowitej ciszy, prawie bez ruchu / śpij tak krótko jak to tylko możliwe / myśl tak niewiele jak to tylko możliwe”. Być może zdaniem Stockhausena jedzenie jest zbyt przyziemne by mogło rządzić muzyką. Zbyt przyziemne, zbyt tłuste, wydziela zapachy, wymaga umycia i ubrudzenia – w różnych kolejnościach. Temat jedzenia opowiada historię muzyki ostatnich stu lat, ale także stanowi jej temat. Maciej Sledziecki przygotuje aranżacje wybranych utworów na trio kulinarne, w którym znajdą się także Ray Dickaty i Jerzy Rogiewicz.  

VENEZIA CD

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

Recording of the sound sculpture in the Polish Pavilion at 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice


Sound sculpture by Katarzyna Krakowiak
Sound design by Ralf Meinz
Voices by Ulrike Helmholz and Sabina Meyer
Recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by by Ralf Meinz

Produced by Michał Libera (Foundation 4.99), City Culture Institute in Gdańsk, Zachęta National Gallery Of Art

Published by Bôłt Records
Distributed by Monotype Records
Graphic design by Czosnek Studio

Polish Pavilion Commissioner: Hanna Wróblewska
Assistant Commissioner: Joanna Waśko
Organizer: Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
Exhibition Curator: Michał Libera


Total time: 37.42

Official release date: 11th of December 2012



Architectural Biennale sound sculpture amplifying the entire building of the Polish Pavilion turned into a flat CD? Will you say it completely misses the point? Brings the real space into a stereo system? Or is it just different? Listening to this album, you will definitely miss some of the acoustic reinforcements of the room we created to raise a sculpture following the natural acoustics of the room. They are only explained here in words, on the following pages. But this is the high time and also the best occasion to highlight other dimensions and bring them to foreground here.

We approach the building as the composition itself. And what we hear is the material. The complexity of the material, the fallaciousness and the anxiety of it. Definitely crossing the line of how much we actually want to hear. Let us say that you can hear the total sum of the sounds we could hear in the Pavilion.

The sounds of the interior – the people, what they say and what they do, how they move – inside the room. The sounds of the exterior – just in front and just in the back of the Pavilion with walls and ventilation system working as filters – the boats, the construction work, the cicadas. But also again: the people, what they say and what they do, how they move – outside but audible. The sounds of the neighboring Pavilions – the Venetian and the Serbian with their own sound installations and soundtracks. But also again: the people, what they say and what they do, how they move – neighboring and audible. The sounds of the room – their vibrating walls, floor and ceiling; their beats and their noises. And finally the sounds of the exhibition and in particular the sounds of the opening with Ulrike Helmholtz and Sabina Meyer singing in the Pavilion. All that amplified, filtered, edited, mixed and sequenced just to make this complexity NOT vanish like it does in every day hearing with our ears.

MASZYNY DO SŁUCHANIA 4 # TOSHIYA TSUNODA

TOSHIYA TSUNODA, Silo

komuna// warszawa,
09/11/2012, piątek
lubelska 30/32,
godz. 20.00,
wstęp: 10 PLN

Program:

- Silo (niepublikowane nagranie)
oraz
- Air Vibration Of The Hollow Part In The Middle Of The Buoy Used For Large Ships
- Solid Vibration Of The Surface Of A Concreted Wharf Where A Marine Products Market Used To Be

Projekcja dźwięku: The Norman Conquest
Wprowdzenie do utworów: Michał Libera


Jeśli ucho ludzkie to nic innego niż system elementów wprawianych w drżenie przez fale dźwiękowe, to znaczy, że cała rzeczywistość drżąca może być rozumiana jako system słuchania… Co zatem słyszą otaczające nas przedmioty? Na przykład przewód spustowy wiszący na elewacji starego silosu w Yokosuka 10 grudnia 1994 roku? W jaki sposób dociera do niego gwar ulicy i hałas fabryki? Jak bardzo różni się to, od tego co słyszymy my sami? "Silos" to nigdy wcześniej niepublikowana kompozycja Toshiya Tsunody, która - przygotowana zgodnie z zaleceniami artysty do realizacji w komunie// warszawa - będzie stanowiła główny punkt programu czwartej odsłony "Maszyn do słuchania".

Toshiya Tsunoda to kluczowa postać współczesnej muzyki eksperymentalnej. Nominalnie zajmuje się nagrywaniem terenowym, ale jego podejście stało się nurtem samym w sobie, w którym otaczająca nas rzeczywistość ujmowana jest nie z perspektywy ludzkiego ucha, ale innych obiektów słuchających. Uważnie pozycjonując mikrofony, analizując pejzaż dźwiękowy, który domykają oraz możliwe zjawiska akustycznie w nich zachodzące, Tsunoda przenosi nagrywanie terenowe w świat sound artu, instalacji dźwiękowych czy sound designu. Artysta niemal nie występuje na żywo, od czasu do czasu tylko wystawia swoje prace - formatem, któremu pozostaje najwierniejszy jest płyta CD.

MUZYKA EKSPERYMENTALNA

Michael Nyman, Muzyka Eksperymentalna. Cage i po Cage'u.
Wydawnictwo: słowo / obraz terytoria
Seria: terytoria muzyki

Przedmowa do polskiego wydania, Michał Mendyk

Przedmowa, Brian Eno

Przedmowa do drugiego wydania, Michael Nyman

1. W stronę (definicji) muzyki eksperymentalnej

2. Źródła

3. Początki 1950–1960: Feldman, Brown, Wolff, Cage

4. Patrzenie, słyszenie: Fluxus

5. Systemy elektroniczne

6. Niezdeterminowanie 1960–1970: Ichiyanagi, Ashley, Wolff, Cardew, Scratch Orchestra

7. Muzyka minimalistyczna, nowa tonalność i zdeterminowanie