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Niblock, Phill / Franck Vigroux / Kasper T. Toeplitz: BestiaIRE [VINYL] (Matiere Memoire)

Two large works of complex sound and drone composed by New York avant composer Phill Niblock and performed by the French IRE ensemble of Kasper T. Toeplitz on electric bass, Franck Vigroux on electric guitar & electronics, and Helene Breschand on electric harp, exploring Niblock's work through the innovative merging of electronic instrumentation.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Phill Niblock-composer

IRE trio-ensemble

Kasper T. Toeplitz-electric bass

Franck Vigroux-electric guitar, electronics

Helene Breschand-electric harp


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180gm Vinyl, Limited edition of 300 copies

Label: Matiere Memoire
Catalog ID: MATME006LP
Squidco Product Code: 30083

Format: LP
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: Belgium
Packaging: LP
No recording data listed.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Music by Phill Niblock, Kasper T.Toeplitz and Franck Vigroux.

The ensemble IRE was founded by composers Kasper T. Toeplitz and Franck Vigroux. Their aim is to take a different look at electronic music, or rather more specifically the "electronic mind" asapplied to today's 21st century music. IRE questions the notion on the live interpretation of electronic compositions, the use ofelectricity, and advancement of the organology towards hybrid instruments and orchestration.

Phill Niblock is an Indiana-born (1933) New York-based avantgarde composer and multimedia artist, founder of Experimental Intermedia. Niblock's program is, fundamentally, to create music without rhythm or melody, by slow accumulation of microtones. Niblock's droning soundscapes originate from the superimposition and juxtaposition of sustained sounds which are, in turn, obtained from reprocessing acoustic instruments. Since this requires a competent manipulation of the sounds actually produced by the instruments, Niblock's music is often eventually refined by the composer while sitting in front of an electronic or digital tool."-Matiere Memoire Editions


180gm Vinyl, Limited edition of 300 copies

Artist Biographies

"Phill Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade-hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. That's as maybe: no one ever said the history books were infallible anyway.

His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. He's even worked with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo on "Guitar two, for four" which is actually for five guitarists. This is Minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones. The result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you. The vocal pieces are like some of Ligeti's choral works, but a little more phased. And this isn't choral work. "A Y U (as yet untitled)" is sampled from just one voice, the baritone Thomas Buckner. The results are pitch shifted and processed intense drones, one live and one studio edited. Unlike Ligeti, this isn't just for voice or hurdy gurdy. Like Stockhausen's electronic pieces, Musique Concrete, or even Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting, the role of the producer/composer in "Hurdy Hurry" and "A Y U" is just as important as the role of the performer. He says: "What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly." The stills in the booklet are from slides taken in China, while Niblock was making films which are painstaking studies of manual labour, giving a poetic dignity to sheer gruelling slog of fishermen at work, rice-planters, log-splitters, water-hole dredgers and other back-breaking toilers. Since 1968 Phill has also put on over 1000 concerts in his loft space, including Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jim O'Rourke."

-Phill Niblock Website (http://phillniblock.com/2007/06/14/biography-photos/)
3/13/2024

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

"Kasper T. Toeplitz is a French composer and musician of Polish origin, born in 1960. He lives in Paris.

He has worked with academic research organizations, such as GMEM, GRM, IRCAM, and Radio-France, as well as with experimental musicians, such as Éliane Radigue, Zbigniew Karkowski, Dror Feiler, Tetsuo Furudate, Phill Niblock and Art Zoyd . Citing Giacinto Scelsi and Iannis Xenakis as influences, his early work was mostly written for traditional instruments. He received several prizes and distinctions for these works: 1st prize in composition for orchestra at the festival of Besançon, 1st prize in the Opéra Autrement/Acanthes competition, Villa Médicis Hors-les-Murs in New York, prize Léonard de Vinci in San Francisco, Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, and DAAD in Berlin. He has also written for his electric guitar orchestra, Sleaze Art. He then integrated computers into his work, via the programming language MAX.

His experimentation with computers continued, in 2003, with the creation of an instrument he calls the BassComputer, an electric bass with 5 fretted strings and 4 unfretted strings, as in the harp guitar. The instrument is intended to be interfaced with a computer. In 2004, he commissioned a piece from Eliane Radigue called Elemental II, which he interpreted for the BassComputer. This was an opportunity for him to set up his own label, ROSA (Recordings Of Sleaze Art). He later commissioned Phil Niblock's Yam almost may (Touch Records TO59), and Dror Feiler's Ousia. He also recorded Capture, one of his own compositions, on ROSA (Rosa#2, 2005), as well as ZKT, by Le Dépeupleur, a laptop duet, formed with Zbigniew Karkowski, and which has been together since 1999 (Rosa#3, 2006).

He has also written for dance (Myriam Gourfink, Loic Touzé, Olivia Granville, Emmanuelle Huynh, Hervé Robbe, Artefact, Christian Trouillas, Jean-Marc Matos), as well as theatre; he has always shown a great interest in literature (J'irai vers le nord, j'irai dans la nuit polaire, his first opera, was based on Sylvia Plath's texts, as was Great Expectations on Kathy Acker's texts; Ruine was composed on a François Bon text), and more recently he has developed "combined" pieces, mixing light and/or video images (K_apture, for computer solo, on Dominik Barbier's videos).

In 2007 he created, with Eryck Abecassis and Wilfried Wendling, KERNEL, a computer ensemble devoted to interpretation, live stricto sensu (without any samples or sequences), of electronic music compositions."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasper_T._Toeplitz)
3/13/2024

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

"Franck Vigroux is a multifaceted artist whose works range from experimental electronic music to modern composition and music theatre. Franck Vigroux's music is made of tectonic tensions, beats, electronic textures and a very personal approach to sonic exploration. He is equally prolific as a solo artist and as a collaborator, he has worked with musician such as Elliott Sharp, Mika Vainio, Reinhold Friedl, Ars Nova... Vigroux's uniqueness comes from his artistic approach that integrates new media and performance arts. He designs transdisciplinary shows and audiovisual concerts, collaborating with visual artists such as Antoine Schmitt and Kurt d'Haeseleer."

-Franck Vigroux Website (https://franckvigroux.com/#!biofranck.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Hélène Breschand is a French harpist, composer and improviser. Breschand leads a career both as a solo artist as well as in ensemble work, playing both a contemporary repertoire and premiering new works as much as she plays improvised music and musical theater.[1] She is a musician who plays on the verge of several genres ranging from contemporary music to jazz. She plays both written and improvised music."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne_Breschand)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Noizzze + I R E (Live) 23:03

SIDE B



1. Bestia 22:16

Related Categories of Interest:


Vinyl Recordings
Electro-Acoustic
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Sound, Noise, &c.
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Large Ensembles
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms

Search for other titles on the label:
Matiere Memoire.


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