The Squid's Ear Magazine

Blonk, Jaap / Damon Smith

Hugo Ball: Sechs Laut- Und Klanggedichte 1916 (Six Sound Poems, 1916) [CASSETTE]

Blonk, Jaap / Damon Smith: Hugo Ball: Sechs Laut- Und Klanggedichte 1916 (Six Sound Poems, 1916) [CA (Balance Point Acoustics)

Three free improvisations for voice & double bass + improvisations on Hugo Ball's Six Sound Poems from the duo of free improvising vocalist Jaap Blonk and double bassist Damon Smith.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Hugo Ball-composer

Jaap Blonk-voice

Damon Smith-doublebass


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Label: Balance Point Acoustics
Catalog ID: BPA-4-CAS
Squidco Product Code: 21550

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2014
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard sleeve
Recorded at KUHF on May 26th, 2014 by Ryan Edwards.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"This recording is a modern interpretation of sound poems written and performed by German Dadaist Hugo Ball almost a century ago. Those familiar with Ball know him as the author of these innovative works and founder of the Cabaret Voltaire, Dada's Zurich birthplace. Despite the sound poems' artistic legacy, they constitute only a small part of Ball's creative output. The purpose of these liner notes, then, is to consider the complex life and work of the man behind the sound poems.

Ball was born in western Germany at the end of the nineteenth century to a large Catholic family with ties to the region's leather industry. His parents pushed him to learn a useful trade, but young Ball identified as an artist. He studied literature and philosophy at university before leaving to learn acting. Germany's thriving experimental theater community would be his creative home from 1911 until 1915.

Ball excelled as a dramaturge, championing new repertoire, promoting local actors, and writing influential essays on modern theater. World War I interrupted his collaboration with the painter Wassily Kandinsky on what they called the New Theater, one "bursting at once in dance, color, mime, music, and word." (Ball, "Das Münchner Künstlertheater,"1914) It would be a Gesamtkunstwerk for the twentieth century, a vision Ball later realized at the Cabaret Voltaire.[...]"-Melissa Venator, from the liner notes


Artist Biographies

"Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet.He went to university for mathematics and musicology but did not finish those studies.In the late 1970s he took up saxophone and started to compose music.A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds.From around the year 2000 on Blonk started work with electronics, at first using samples of his own voice, then extending the field to include pure sound synthesis as well.He took a year off of performing in 2006. As a result, his renewed interest in mathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual work and poetry.

As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and almost childlike freedom in improvisation, combined with a keen grasp of structure. He has performed around the world, on all continents. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension.

Besides working as a soloist, he collaborated with many musicians and ensembles in the field of contemporary and improvised music, like Maja Ratkje, Mats Gustafsson, Joan La Barbara, The Ex, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Ebony Band. He premiered several compositions by the German composer Carola Bauckholt, including a piece for voice and orchestra. A solo voice piece was commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage. On several occasions he collaborated with visual computer artist Golan Levin, for the Ars Electronica Festival.

Blonk's work for radio and television includes several commissioned radio plays.He also makes larger-scale drawings of his scores, as well as visual poetry, which is being exhibited.

He has his own record label, Kontrans, featuring a total of 25 releases so far. Other Blonk recordings appeared on various labels, such as Staalplaat, Basta, VICTO, Ecstatic Peace, Monotype Records, Terp and Elegua Records.His book/CD 'Traces of Speech' was published in 2012 by Hybriden-Verlag, Berlin. Forthcoming is a sequel with the title "Traces of Cookery".A comprehensive collection of his sound poetry came out as a book with 2 CDs in 2013, entitled "KLINKT"."

-Jaap Blonk Website (http://www.jaapblonk.com/Pages/biography.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon's explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson's Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra's Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Roscoe Mitchell, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and five great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, David Dove & Chris Cogburn, Damon will move to the Boston area in the fall of 2016. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians."

-Balance Point Acoustic Website (https://www.balancepointacoustics.com/damon-smith/)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Prelude 7:35

2. Wolken (Clouds) 6:09

3. Katzen Und Pfauen (Cats and Peacocks) 4:38

4. Karawane (Caravan) 5:58

5. Interlude 7:35

6. Gadji Beri Bimba 5:57

7. Totenklage (Dirge) 7:04

8. Seepferdchen Und Flugfische (Seahorses and Flying Fish) 5:20

9. Postlude 7:59

Related Categories of Interest:


Cassettes
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Stringed Instruments
Unusual Vocal Forms
Duo Recordings
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Blonk, Jaap

Cassettes
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Stringed Instruments
Unusual Vocal Forms
Duo Recordings
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Blonk, Jaap
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Search for other titles on the label:
Balance Point Acoustics.


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