The Squid's Ear Magazine


Rowe, Keith / Toshimaru Nakamura : Between (erstwhile)


 

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Personnel:



Keith Rowe-guitar, electronics

Toshimaru Nakamura-no input mixing board


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Label: erstwhile
Catalog ID: erstwhile 050-2
Squidco Product Code: 6132

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2006
Country: USA
Packaging: Jewel Tray
1-1, 2-1, 2-3 recorded by Christoph Amann at Amann Studios, Vienna on July 2, 2005. 1-2 recorded by Christoph Amann at Amann Studios, Vienna on July 1, 2005. 2-2 recorded by Masaki Hatsui at Theatre Arsenic in Lausanne on April 30th, 2005. Mixed and mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura, produced by Jon Abbey.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.
In their second Erstwhile release, Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura present five extended recordings from the summer of 2005 - four from Vienna at Amann Studios and one in Lausanne (Switzerland). The compositions are detailed and high pressure dialogs, as amazing for their sonic quality as for their control and pacing. Rowe's sound palette is varied and expressive, from the most detailed bits of motion to overwhelming outbursts, while Nakamura provides pressure and unexpectedly jarring environments. The subtlety is fascinating and almost disturbing, but consistently innovative and interesting, neither overloading the listener nor easily letting him go.

Artist Biographies

"tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the influential AMM in the mid-1960s (though in 2004 he quit that group for the second time) and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums. After years of obscurity, Rowe has achieved a level of relative notoriety, and since the late 1990s has kept up a busy recording and touring schedule. He is seen as a godfather of EAI (electroacoustic improvisation), with many of his recent recordings having been released by Erstwhile Records.

Rowe began his career playing jazz in the early 1960s-notably with Mike Westbrook and Lou Gare. His early influences were guitarists like Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian and Barney Kessel. Eventually, however, Rowe grew tired of what he considered the form's limitations. Rowe began experimenting, slowly and gradually. An important step was a New Year's resolution to stop tuning his guitar-much to Westbrook's displeasure. Rowe gradually expanded into free jazz and free improvisation, eventually abandoning conventional guitar technique.

This change in his approach to guitar, Rowe reports, was partly inspired by a teacher in one of his painting courses who told him, "Rowe, you cannot paint a Caravaggio. Only Caravaggio can paint Caravaggio." Rowe reports that after considering this idea from a musical perspective, "trying to play guitar like Jim Hall seemed quite wrong." For several years Rowe contemplated how to reinvent his approach to the guitar, again finding inspiration in visual art, namely, American painter Jackson Pollock, who abandoned traditional painting methods to forge his own style. "How could I abandon the technique? Lay the guitar flat!"

Rowe developed various prepared guitar techniques: placing the guitar flat on a table and manipulating the strings, body and pick-ups in unorthodox ways to produce sounds described as dark, brooding, compelling, expansive and alien. He has been known to employ objects such as a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips, and common office supplies in playing the guitar. A January 1997 feature in Guitar Player magazine described a Rowe performance as "resemble a surgeon operating on a patient." Rowe sometimes incorporates live radio broadcasts into his performances, including shortwave radio and number stations (the guitar's pick-ups will also pick up radio signals, and broadcast them through the amplifier).

AMM percussionist Eddie Prévost reports that Rowe has "an uncanny touch on the wireless switch", able to find radio broadcasts which seem to blend ideally with, or offer startling commentary on, the music. (Prévost, 18). On AMMMusic, towards the end of the cacophonous "Ailantus Glandolusa", a speaker announces via radio that "We cannot preserve the normal music." Prevost writes that during an AMM performance in Istanbul, Rowe located and integrated a radio broadcast of "the pious intonation of a male Turkish voice. AMM of course, had absolutely no idea what the material was. Later, it was complimented upon the judicious way that verses from The Koran had been introduced into the performance, and the respectful way they had been treated!" In reviewing World Turned Upside Down, critic Dan Hill writes, "Rowe has tuned his shortwave radio to some dramatically exotic gameshow and human voices spatter the mix, though at such low volume, they're unintelligible and abstracted. Rowe never overplays this device, a clear temptation with such a seductive technology - the awesome possibility of sonically reaching out across a world of voices requires experienced hands to avoid simple but ultimately short-term pleasure. This he does masterfully, mixing in random operatics and chance encounters with talkshow hosts to anchor the sound in humanity, amidst the abstraction." "

Some accounts report that Rowe's guitar technique was an influence on Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett: "Taking his cues from experimental guitarist Keith Rowe of AMM, Barrett strived to push his music farther and farther out into the zone of complete abstraction."

Rowe has worked together with numerous composers and musicians, including Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, Howard Skempton, Jeffrey Morgan, John Tilbury, Evan Parker, Taku Sugimoto, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz, Burkhard Beins, Kurt Liedwart, Toshimaru Nakamura, David Sylvian and Peter Rehberg.

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Rowe)
11/8/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo.

He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar, and started working on circuit bending. He uses a mixing console as a live, interactive musical instrument: "Nakamura plays the 'no-input mixing board', connecting the input of the board to the output, then manipulating the resultant audio feedback."

Nakamura's music has been described as "sounds ranging from piercing high tones and shimmering whistles to galumphing, crackle-spattered bass patterns."

Nakamura founded the ensemble A Paragon of Beauty in 1992. He has recorded solo albums, worked as a session musician, and collaborated with artists including Sachiko M ("a kindred spirit"), Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe, John Butcher, Nicholas Bussmann, Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, dancer Kim Ito, and drummer Jason Kahn."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshimaru_Nakamura)
11/8/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



Disc 1:



1. Vienna (34:51)

2. July (24:35)



Disc 2:



1. 13630 khz (8:48)

2. Lausanne (41:21)

3. Amann (20:11)

Related Categories of Interest:

erstwhile
Electro-Acoustic
Improvised Music
Sound, Noise, &c.
April, 2006
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Keith Rowe
Free Improvisation
Duo Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
erstwhile.


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