Stet Lab featuring Stephen Davis
with Han-earl Park plus Helena Reilly, Kevin Terry and Dan Walsh

Monday, 7 February 2011

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab, is thrilled to be presenting the Cork debut of Belfast-based drummer, improviser and composer Stephen Davis on Monday, 7 February 2011, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland.

Hailed by Jazzwise magazine as “a very empathetic performer with a strong percussive voice”, Stephen Davis is a composer, performer, and a rising star of the younger generation of alt. jazzers. Davis is best know as a member of Bourne/Davis/Kane (with Matthew Bourne, Dave Kane) whose records The Money Notes (FogHorn Records) was given four out of five stars, and described as “an intelligent set, in which familiar trio materials are cherished, polished and pared down” by John Fordham in The Guardian. His other records include Moment To Moment (Slam Productions) with Paul Dunmall, and Faint (Creative Sources Recordings) with Franziska Schroeder and Pedro Rebelo.

Davis has performed with some of the best known names in jazz and improvised music including Evan Parker, Joe Morris, Django Bates, Brian Irvine, Reggie Washington, Tom Arthurs, Julian Seigal, Mike Walker, Norma Winston, Rufus Reid and Mark Ribot. He has toured extensively in Europe, America, Russia and elsewhere, and has written music film, dance and theatre. In 2010 Davis helped to instigate the Evan Parker-led 20-piece improvising ensemble as part of the Sonorities Festival (Belfast), and in 2009 Davis was commission to write an original work for the Belfast Festival.

Davis will be joined by Cork-based improvisers including guitarist, and founder of Stet Lab and Mathilde 253, Han-earl Park. The event will open with a performance by a trio of up-and-coming Cork-based improvisers, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of, consisting of vocalist Helena Reilly, guitarist Kevin Terry and drummer Dan Walsh.

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab will return in March 2011 for more real-time, on-stage musical meetings!

the performers

Stephen Davis is a drummer mainly but also composes music. Over the years he has had the opportunity to play music professionally with Evan Parker, Joe Morris, Matthew Bourne, Dave Kane, Django Bates, Brian Irvine, Reggie Washington, Tom Arthurs, Julian Seigal, Paul Dunmall, Mike Walker, Norma Winston, Rufus Reid, Mark Ribot…. and the list goes on. He has toured all over Europe, America, Russia and many other countries with different ensembles.

He has music published on Edition Records with ‘Bourne/Davis/Kane’, on Creative Sources Recordings with ‘Faint,’ and on Slam Records with Paul Dunmall.
As a composer he has written music for various projects including film, dance and theatre as well as his own various ensembles. In October 2009 Stephen was commission to write an original work for the Belfast Festival for a large group.

“A very empathetic performer with a strong percussive voice.”

(Jazzwise)

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries and concert halls in Europe and America.

He is involved in collaborations with Bruce Coates, Franziska Schroeder, Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell, and is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith. Recent performances include Mathilde 253 with Lol Coxhill; duo concerts with Paul Dunmall, and with Richard Barrett; trios with Matana Robers and Mark Sanders, with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, and with Thomas Buckner and Jesse Ronneau; as part of the Evan Parker led 20-piece improvising ensemble; and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions, and DUNS Limited Edition. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.

Dan Walsh is a Cork-based drummer studying for a BMus degree at UCC, working within a variety of contexts though specialising in jazz. Having begun playing at the somewhat late age of 16 Dan has already had the privilege of playing with some of the country’s top jazz musicians such as Richie Buckley, Myles Drennan and Micheal Buckley. Currently providing the beat for The Roaring Forties as well as running a monthly Blue Note jazz night, Dan continues to play in as many varying situations as possible in order to continue developing musically.

Stet Lab featuring Corey Mwamba

Monday, 6 December 2010.

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab, continues into its fourth year of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Monday, 6 December 2010, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. This unique meeting between novice and veteran improvisers welcomes the exciting, up-and-coming, Derby-based vibraphonist Corey Mwamba.

A performer of “wit and originality” (The Oxford Times), Corey Mwamba has been described as a “brilliant young black vibes player” (The Daily Telegraph) with “amazing originality and vigour” (All About Jazz). Heard at this year’s London Jazz Festival, Mwamba plays the vibraphone, dulcimer, electronics and small instruments, and his music and compositions embraces elements of jazz, folk from different countries, and electronica.

Mwamba has performed with Orphy Robinson, Pat Thomas, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Andy Hamilton, Tony Kofi, the Master Drummers of Africa, the Quantic Soul Orchestra and Robert Mitchell‘s Panacea, as well as his trio with Joshua Blackmore and Dave Kane, solo performances and with his collective the Symbiosis Ensemble. He has also worked as a percussionist with Derby Concert Orchestra and the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of…, consisting of Tony O’Connor (bass guitar) and Han-earl Park (guitar).

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

the performers

Corey Mwamba creates music using vibraphone, dulcimer, electronics and small instruments. His music contains elements of jazz, folk from different countries, and electronica.

Born in Derby and a former chemist and librarian, Corey is virtually self-taught in music having made the decision to take up vibraphone in his late teens after seeing a picture of Orphy Robinson in a book and taking five lessons with the orchestral percussionist Lewis Dyson.

Corey is primarily known as a highly creative improviser with a wide stylistic range: there have been appearances with Orphy Robinson, Pat Thomas, and Lol Coxhill; Andy Hamilton, Tony Kofi, the Master Drummers of Africa; Evan Parker, the Quantic Soul Orchestra, Robert Mitchell’s Panacea; as well as his own solo performances and with his collective the Symbiosis Ensemble. He has also worked as a percussionist with Derby Concert Orchestra.

Corey is seen as a skilled composer and band-leader; his commissions include Dhara Blues, a work for percussion and Kathak dancers for Derby Jazz: and with writer Bea Udeh and the Midlands-spanning group the Symbiosis Ensemble, Corey Mwamba’s literature and music piece Nature’s Glory, Fancy’s Child. This piece was selected for the regional Decibel Live! Showcase in 2004 and Derby Jazz Week 2005. The research for this work led Corey to present a talk on the creative presentation of history for the Black and Asian Studies Association at the V&A Museum in 2005. In the same year his solo improvisation, Three Two One, was selected for the Freeness album set up by CDR, Chris Offili, and the Observer Music Monthly. Corey Mwamba was selected for the Jerwood/PRS Foundation’s 2007 Take Five Initiative, a significant artist development scheme for emerging jazz musicians: he was also nominated for the 2008 BBC Jazz Award for Innovation. In 2009, Corey was selected by Arts Council England for The International Association of the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (BJCEM) event in Skopje.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, fifteen year long associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include ensemble Mathilde 253 (Park, Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) with Lol Coxhill, a duo concert with Paul Dunmall, a trio with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, an improvisative meeting with Thomas Buckner and Jesse Ronneau, and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.

Stet Lab celebrates its third birthday with trumpeter Ian Smith

Monday, 15 November 2010

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Stet Lab will be welcoming London-based, Irish virtuoso trumpeter Ian Smith in celebration of the third anniversary of Cork’s monthly improvised music club. The event takes place on Monday, 15 November 2010, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland, at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm).

Mainstay of the London improvised music scene, Ian Smith is best known as cofounder of the London Improvisers’ Orchestra, and The Gathering. He has performed with improvisers such as Evan Parker, John Stevens, Maggie Nicols, Steve Beresford, Eddie Prévost, Reeves Gabrels and Harris Eisenstadt. His second CD as a leader, Daybreak, featured Derek Bailey, Veryan Weston, Gail Brand and Oren Marshall, and his most recent release is with the spontaneous mashup ensemble Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Han-earl Park plus Lol Coxhill.

Smith’s playing has been described as a “revelation…. There is a clear jazz edge to his tone, which sounds almost radical these days when many trumpet players in the improv world seem inclined to turn their back on that vocabulary. But he can also dip down to breathy flutters and muted coloristic playing” (Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise). His style has been compared to Wadada Leo Smith and Joe McPhee: “gestures seem to derive from earlier forms of jazz, and there are moments of harmonic directness that you could put chord symbols under. But it has all been thoughtfully moulded into a highly convincing and distinctive language” (Philip Clark, JazzReview).

Joining Smith on stage for the Stet Lab event will be Cork-based guitarist, and fellow member of Mathilde 253, Han-earl Park.

Opening the event will be a trio of Stet Lab regulars, Andrea Bonino (guitar and electronics), Helena Reilly (voice) and Athoulis Tsiopani (keyboard).

For three years Stet Lab has both introduced new blood into Cork’s musical life as well as fostering local talent. Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab is a space in which improvisers can meet, play and learn from one another. Since its launch in November 2007, it has successfully brought together improvising musicians with varied experiences and from far afield; hosted twenty-two events with twenty-seven guest artists, including eighteen international visitors.

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Next month’s Stet Lab will take place on Monday, 6 December 2010, featuring the exciting Derby-based vibraphonist Corey Mwamba.

the performers

Ian Smith has been playing since he was fifteen. He has studied with Joe Csibi (principal trumpet in the Irish National Symphony Orchestra) and Bobby Shew (Buddy Rich, Horace Silver bands) as well as learning harmony from Trevor England (ex-Berklee). As a bass he was a Vocal Scholar of the College of Music and a Choral Scholar of Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. There is a strong tradition of trumpet playing in Smith’s family, his grandfather Chick Smith played in many British dance bands from the 1930s onwards and his cousin Jimmie Deuchar was at the forefront of British bop as well as playing in the Clarke/Boland Big Band. During the mid-80s while in Trinity College, Dublin, he arranged music for and played on many recording sessions, including jingles for the Bank of Ireland, a TV documentary score and singles for local rock bands. He has also composed and performed for theatrical productions including a version of Joyce’s Nighttown scene from Ulysses at the Project theatre, Dublin.

He has guested on albums by highly established Irish songwriters like Luka Bloom and Mick Hanley. He joined post-punk band the Real Wild West in the late 80s and gigged frequently with them for three years, including playing the Eurorock Festival ’87 in Frankfurt, the Mean Fiddler in London and supporting Echo and the Bunnymen and the Pogues in Ireland. The Real Wild West single was produced by Pogues Shane MacGowan and Philip Chevron; the album was produced by John Langford of The Mekons. Ian Smith appeared at the Cork International Jazz Festival in 1988 and 1989, playing a set with saxophonist Richie Cole in ’89. He has been involved in duo and trio gigs with guitarist Louis Stewart. He moved over to London in 1990 and in May ’91 co-founded the group Forest which quickly became established on the London freeform scene. He was a sometime member of the Screech Owls, a rock band which featured former Virgin Prune Dik Evans, which performed at the Mean Fiddler.

Since 1992 he has been playing improvised music and has performed with Evan Parker, John Stevens, Maggie Nicols, Lol Coxhill, Steve Beresford and Eddie Prévost among others. His own trio, Trian, has played at the 1993 London Experimental Music Festival and the 1992 Soho Jazz Festival. He also participated in a reformation of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra in the ICA in 1994. He has collaborated with composer Roger Doyle, winner of the Bourges International Elecro-Acoustic Music Competition 1997, and he has been featured on two instrumental tracks by the hip hop band Marxman. He toured the UK with Butch Morris’ London Skyscraper conduction project in November 1997.

He helped to institute the London Improvisers Orchestra in 1998 with Steve Beresford and Evan Parker, which continues to play monthly in London and has recently performed at the BimHuis in Amsterdam. He also founded The Gathering with Maggie Nichols.

In 2000 he recorded his second CD as a leader, Daybreak, with Derek Bailey, Veryan Weston, Gail Brand and Oren Marshall. Into the twenty-first century, as well as regularly playing with London improvisers, he has also performed with Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar Arkestra, guitarists Han-earl Park, Reeves Gabrels, the Poet and Detriot legend John Sinclair, and New York-based drummer Harris Eisenstadt.

Smith’s style has the free-form panache of a Wadada Leo Smith or Joe McPhee, but his experience of other musics is never too far from the surface. Some of his gestures seem to derive from earlier forms of jazz, and there are moments of harmonic directness that you could put chord symbols under. But it has all been thoughtfully moulded into a highly convincing and distinctive language.

(Philip Clark, JazzReview)

Smith’s trumpet playing is a particular revelation. His brassy blats and smears play off of the hyperactive spatters of Eisenstadt’s drums. There is a clear jazz edge to his tone, which sounds almost radical these days when many trumpet players in the improv world seem inclined to turn their back on that vocabulary. But he can also dip down to breathy flutters and muted coloristic playing.

(Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise)

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, fifteen year long associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include ensemble Mathilde 253 (Park, Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) with Lol Coxhill, a duo concert with Paul Dunmall, a trio with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, an improvisative meeting with Thomas Buckner and Jesse Ronneau, and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.

During the 1990s Andrea Bonino performed regularly with Eugenio Sanna and Nanni Canale, who had been students of Donal Rafael Garrett during his years in Pisa, Italy. A friend of John Coltrane, Garret encouraged musicians to learn to be creative on many instruments instead of focusing on mastering one. Andrea followed this advice and still likes to keep an experimental attitude in his work, improvising on guitars and other stringed devices, electronics, objects and toys. Among others he has played with Mike Cooper, Roger Turner, Steve Noble, Roberto Bellatalla, and with the late Mississippi blues legend R. L. Burnside.

Stet Lab featuring virtuoso pianist-improviser Alexander Hawkins

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

7:15 pm (doors: 7:00 pm)

Ó Riada Hall [map…]
UCC Music Building
Sundays Well
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Featuring the leading English pianist and improviser Alexander Hawkins, the final Stet Lab event of the 2009-2010 season will take place at 7:15 pm on Tuesday 15 June 2010 at the Ó Riada Hall, UCC Music Building, Sundays Well, Cork, Ireland.

Recently heard performing with the legendary Sonny Simmons, and with the pioneering Joe McPhee, Alexander Hawkins has been dubbed “one of the brightest rising young stars of British jazz and improvisation” by John Eyles (All About Jazz). This appearance at Stet Lab marks his Irish debut.

Hawkins is a powerful and inventive performer best know as a member of the transatlantic Convergence Quartet (with Dominic Lash, Taylor Ho Bynum and Harris Eisenstadt), and his own 6-piece Ensemble (featuring Orphy Robinson, Otto Fischer, Hannah Marshall, Lash and Javier Carmona). In the British improvised music scene Hawkins is the most sought after pianist of his generation, as sideman he has worked in Evan Parker’s trio and quartet, and he has performed with jazz and improvised music luminaries including Louis Moholo-Moholo, Lol Coxhill, John Butcher, Mark Sanders, Steve Williamson, Tom Arthurs, John Russell, Pat Thomas and Eddie Prévost.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab regulars including Kevin Terry, Susan Geaney, Marian Murray and Han-earl Park.

Opening the event will be Stet Lab’s resident ensemble The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… led by Cork-based improviser and bass player Tony O’Connor.

The event will begin at 7:15 pm (doors open at 7:00 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab gratefully acknowledges the support of the UCC School of Music and the Basement Project Space for this month’s event.

the performers

Born in Oxford in 1981, Alexander Hawkins is a pianist described as having a “wizards’ touch” and a “fierce technique.” Indeed, a recent interview commented that he is “just emerging as one of the most striking voices of his generation, both with unique things to say and unique ways of expressing them” (David Grundy, Eartrip).

He leads his own 6-piece Ensemble, featuring Orphy Robinson, Otto Fischer, Hannah Marshall, Dominic Lash, and Javier Carmona. One review of this group’s debut record, No Now Is So (FMR Records), wrote that “barbed dissonance and wrenching romanticism [are the] clear poles by which he operates…such absolute joy and strength…an incredible record” (Clifford Allen, Bagatellen).

He co-leads the transatlantic Convergence Quartet, featuring Dominic Lash, Hawkins, American Taylor Ho Bynum and Canadian Harris Eisenstadt; a band which has toured the United Kingdom twice (2006 and 2009). Their first album placed in two critics’ Top Ten Releases of 2007 lists. Stuart Broomer in Point of Departure wrote of “a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music,” and Jay Collins (Cadence) of “highly unpredictable and thought-provoking music to savor with endless room for future consideration.”

Hawkins also plays in the cooperative group Barkingside, whose eponymous debut album (Emanem) placed in the Top Ten lists in 2008. According to John Eyles in All About Jazz “the level of group empathy displayed here is scary.”

As a sideman, he has worked in Evan Parker’s trio and quartet. He also features in Ntshuks Bonga’s Qwati, alongside Claude Deppa, Gail Brand, Greg Bonnie, Oren Marshall, and Mark Sanders.
Other collaborations have included with Louis Moholo-Moholo, Lol Coxhill, John Butcher, Steve Williamson, Jason Yarde, Ray Warleigh, Alan Wilkinson, Tom Arthurs, Tony Marsh, Will Gaines, John Russell, Steve Waterman, Pete McPhail, Pat Thomas, Eddie Prevost, Francine Luce, and many others. He has worked in the London Improvisers’ Orchestra, the Oxford Improvisers Orchestra, and the Pendulum Big Band; and also plays organ in the funk band Big Train’s Haymaker.

He has played at venues including Symphony Hall, Birmingham; London’s Ronnie Scott’s, Vortex Jazz Club, 606, Koko, Spitz, 93 Feet East, Scala, and Cargo; West Road, Cambridge; the Jacqueline Du Pre Music Building, Oxford; St Sulpice, Paris; the Clothworkers’ Centenary Hall, Leeds; and many others. He has been broadcast in various places, including on BBC Radio 3 and BBC 6 Music. Festival appearances have included the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, and Freedom of the City.

Forthcoming projects include a collaboration with North Americans Rob Brown, Mark Helias and Harris Eisenstadt; the recording of Ntshuks Bonga’s Qwati; the Somedectet large group; and an organ trio with Steve Noble and John Edwards (recording due for release later in the year on Bo’weavil Recordings).

Hawkins seems to get better every time I see him live; every solo he took tonight was a journey, or, if you prefer, a well-told short story. They would begin as jazz explorations, or even boogie-woogie-flavoured romps, before whipping themselves up to a frenzy of clanging clusters, rolling glissandi, and fast-paced, dissonant runs, like a dancer tripping over their feet as the speed of their performance spins out of control. This was both tremendously exciting and the consequence of a logical development—jazz taken to the edge and then pushed over, because there really was no where else to go—and it was always—somehow—contained within the framework of a two or three minute showcase.

(David Grundy, Streams of Expression)

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has worked with animators, film makers, poets, theater and mime performers, dancers and installation artists. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, fifteen year long associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include ensemble Mathilde 253 (Park, Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) with Lol Coxhill, a concert with Paul Dunmall, with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.

final Stet Lab event of 2009

Monday, December 7th 2009

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

The final Stet Lab event of 2009 will take place on Monday, 7th December, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. The event will feature the innovative Belfast-based improviser-composer, multi-instrumentalist and computer artist, Justin Yang.

The club’s very first cover band will comprise Justin Yang (saxophones and electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar). Park remarks, however, that “who we’re covering, and how we’re covering it, is a little bit of a secret. Consider it a challenge to the audience to discover it themselves.”

A native of California, Justin Yang is currently exploring the use of real-time computer animation as notational and interactive constructs at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast. He is a musician who eschews the prioritization of pitch, rhythm or timbre and instead utilizes communication as the driving factor in his work. A student of both Anthony Braxton and Brian Ferneyhough, Yang says his work “lives in the spaces between composition / improvisation; jazz / classical / vernacular; electro-acoustic / instrumental; notated / graphically-scored / freely-improvised; [and] performance-art / sound-art / installation-art”.

Performing alongside this special guest at Stet Lab is the club’s founder and curator, Cork-based guitarist and improviser Han-earl Park.

Opening the event will be three performers reunited on the Stet Lab stage: Marian Murray (violin), Susan Geaney (flute) and Veronica Tadman (voice). They have been improvising for many years as individuals and as part of larger improvising ensembles but this is the first night for the trio to perform together as a unit.

“I am really looking forward to, and delighted to be, performing with Marian and Susan,” says Tadman who is no stranger to Stet Lab. “I have missed having the two of them at Stet Lab the past year and it will be fantastic to be able to perform with them.”

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab will return in 2010 with Istanbul-based improviser and electronic musician Korhan Erel on Monday, 11th January.

the performers

Justin Yang belongs to a generation of artists which can alternatively be thought of as post-idiom, post-scene, post-fame, post-artistic role (maybe as Morton Feldman suggests post-music). Like many of his contemporaries, Yang’s work lives in the spaces between composition/improvisation; jazz / classical / vernacular; electro-acoustic / instrumental; notated / graphically-scored / freely-improvised; performance-art / sound-art / installation-art; and it is developing within a contemporary movement towards an ontologically new notion of art. Yang’s work, reflecting contemporary practices across the artistic spectrum, is characterized by an intensive exploration of technology. Whether, like Evan Parker or John Butcher, it is the mechanical technology of Adolphe Sax, or the digital world engendered by Max Matthews; as McLuhan after Benjamin posits, the artistic merit of this work is inseparable from its means of production. It is a live art whether free-improvisation, materials algorithmically triggered in real-time, or a collection of electronic oscillations which only make sense when combined acoustically. It is characterized by interactivity, produced by a decentralized, multi-nodal network of operators, making not only the materials an extemporaneous expression but the means of organization an in-the-moment invention as well. The trappings of this work, its essential backbone, is no longer scales or motives, rhythms or timbres, but infrastructure—how to compellingly engage the performer in a network of communication and interaction with other performers, whether it be man or machine—moving the performance model from one of expression/production to that of navigation/exploration; what Anthony Braxton would call ‘the mystery of navigation through form’.

Yang’s 3VDB, inspired by the Morton Feldman composition Three Voices and the work of improviser Derek Bailey, is a self-contained system for performer with live electronics. It is made up of a live microphone, live processing software, two amplified speakers on each side of the performer, programmable foot controllers, and screen-based animated graphic feedback.

Han-earl Park works from/within/around the traditions of idiom-agnostic, experimental improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He prefers collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has worked with animators, film makers, poets, theater and mime performers, dancers and installation artists. As a musician (guitar, banjo, bass guitar, piano, electronics and software) he has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, fifteen year long associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell, and has performed with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, George E. Lewis, J. D. Parran, Paul Dunmall, Pauline Oliveros, Kato Hideki, Mark Sanders, Chick Lyall, Jan Langedijk, Stu Ritchie, Koen Nutters, Pedro Rebelo, Elspeth Murray, Mark Trayle and Hannes Raffaseder. He is also the constructor of io 0.0.1 beta, an interactive musical artifact, and cofounder of the Church of Sonology.

Park is a recipient of grants from the Arts Council of Ireland, and a recipient of the Ahmanson Foundation Scholarship and the Calarts Scholarship. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford). In addition to numerous self-released CDs, his work has been released by Owlhouse Recordings, frimp.co.uk and Frog Peak Music. He has performed live on Resonance FM (London) and on Drift Radio (at mediascot.org), and his recordings have been featured on Kalvos and Damian’s New Music Bazaar (Vermont), and You Are Hear (at www.youarehear.co.uk) which was selected as Critics’ Choice by The Independent (UK).

Additionally, Park founded and curates Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and teaches improvisation at the UCC Department of Music.

Han-earl Park: Hello.

Eliza: How do you do. Please state your problem.

Not exactly a problem, but a kind of…. I’m wondering about what happens when old… when there’s a meeting of improvisers.

Is it because you are wondering about what happens what old that you came to me?

Sorry? No, what I mean is what happens when there’s an on stage reunion I suppose.

Please don’t apologise.

Okay. Take the performance by Marian [Murray], Tony [O’Connor] and myself. How does that compare with the work we’ve done in the past?

Why do you ask?

Well, Marian’s been out of the Lab equation since July ’08, and Tony, spare the cameo appearance in January [2009], the same.

In what way?

In what way? I haven’t really been performing with them, and they, with each other, for a while. The last Lab was, in that sense, a kind of reunion.

Does that question interest you?

Well, that is the question.

I’m not sure I understand you fully.

Does the most recent musical meeting accentuate past patterns, or do you bring new stuff to the table?

We were discussing you—not me.

Okay, do we bring new stuff to the table?

Please go on.

If the purpose of the Lab was to bring improvisers (their practices and approaches) from far afield, how does this reunion play into that?

Do you think its likely that the purpose of the Lab was to bring improvisers (their practices and approaches) from far afield?

Well, I did write the mission statement!

You say you did write the mission statement?

Well, I did.

Can you elaborate on that?

I’ve already done that elsewhere so no, not really.

Are you saying no just to be negative?

I feel I’m getting off topic.

How long have you been getting off topic?

Probably from the start.

What does that suggest to you?

That I’ve not got a clear picture of the situation.

Do you feel strongly about discussing such things?

Yes.

You seem to be quite positive.

Thanks.

I’m not sure I understand you fully.

Take the meeting with Thomas Buckner earlier this month. There’s a dynamic, between Jesse [Ronneau] and myself, and the negotiation between us and Thomas.

Please go on.

The first-time, real-time, on-stage meeting with, in this case, Thomas creates interesting tactical problems for the improvisers. And I get to interact with Jesse in a totally new environment—context.

Do you say and you get to interact with Jesse in a totally new environment / context for some special reason?

Well, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it’s no particular secret that Jesse and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on things improvisative.

Don’t you really mean this in a bad way?

Not at all. That difference is surely what fires the engines of improvisation.

What is it you really wanted to know?

I suppose what I want to know is whether that Murray-O’Connor-Park trio was familiar or unfamiliar.

What would it mean to you if you got to know is whether that Murray-O’Connor-Park trio was familiar or unfamiliar?

Okay, how about this: to what extent, and in what way, was that trio a familiar retread, and to what extent was it something outside the comfort zone?

Are such questions much on your mind?

Given some comments by Paul [Hegarty], Mel [Melanie L. Marshall] and the recent encounter with Thomas, yes.

You are sure.

Yes.

I see.

But perhaps I am simply fetishizing the novel and new.

You don’t seem quite certain.

Most of my work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold. People fly in, or I fly out, and there’s an ad-hoc meeting. What I miss is the band.

Your work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold?

Yup. Even the concerts.

Does that have anything to do with the fact that your work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold?

Well, I suppose one leads to another.

That’s quite interesting.

But I miss the bands. The time to work on specific tactics and approaches.

You say but you miss the bands?

The Church of Sonology, say, or even the ensembles that exist for a few days or weeks. That gives the performers enough time to develop stuff that doesn’t happen in one-off meetings.

What does that suggest to you?

I’m neglecting stuff?

Do you believe it is normal to be neglecting stuff?

Well, it’s good to abandon stuff, not get too attached to it.

Do you feel strongly about discussing such things?

Well, [Evan] Parker admired [John] Coltrane for his ability to abandon. [1]

I’m not sure I understand you fully.

Again, I’m not sure about the fetishizing of the new.

Do you enjoy being not sure about the fetishizing of the new?

Not that—I wonder about the politics of it.

Can you elaborate on that?

Oh, I don’t know. Is it a form of middle-class, upward mobility—transcendence?

Why don’t you know?

Because it [the new] can also be about revolution.

Is that the real reason?

Hard to say. How can I perform one political maneuver while avoiding the other?

What answer would please you most?

That it is about change, but not…. Not sure. That I’ll need think about that.

notes:

1. Graham Lock (1991), ‘speaking of the essence’, Wire (issue 85, March), pp. 30–32.

I think I did some pretty damn good playing on December 9th. Nothing life changing perhaps, but I think it was a reasonable contrast my contribution to October and November’s Labs. But here’s the question: how do I know when I’m getting a little too… complacent is the wrong word—comfortable?

Let me clarify this: I’m not talking about the fact that ‘sure you’re feeling sick?’ kicked-off with one of my standard gambits (a small interval flutter that I half stole from Parker and half stole from Ligeti). I know from following, say, George E Lewis’ playing over the years that where you start can be as trivial as you make it (as long, of course, as you end up somewhere interesting).

Anyway, how much of these musico-personal clichés are really a hindrance? Take, for example, the bowed-swell-slide that opens ‘has “it” happened?’. The slide goes up in pitch rather than down. I don’t know if I ever start one of those going down. Not really a problem though is it? certainly not one that I’m going to lose sleep over. I’ll take it as a quirk. Ornette, for example, always sounds like Ornette; I’m not going to fool myself into thinking that I have a transcendental musical personality.

Actually, there is one habit of mine that I will be happy to be rid of. That damp-string-yank-neck-swell whump can go (you can hear it at around the 3:44 mark on ‘i read many literary forms’). It’s a lazy (pointless in its current form) trick and I’m tired of hearing it.

I’m also not talking about ‘shaping’ or ‘form’. I think ‘it’s a miracle (like Moses)’, for example, has a very captivating, moment-by-moment geometry—a result of real-time (re)negotiations and (re)configurations.

Yet I’m reminded of Mats Gustafsson’s recent performance with The Thing. Why are all the phrases the same length? why are all the ideas of the same quanta?

Things I had to watch out for in the December Lab: for whatever reason, Bruce Coates and I shared the same rhythm. It would have been faaar too easy to enter and exit in (boring, homogenous) sync. For a large part of the first set (‘it’s a miracle…’ and ‘i read many literary forms’) I spent my time staying out of Sarah O’Halloran’s way, and trying not to overlap too much with Bruce. This was trickier than it might sound since I feel reasonably familiar with Bruce’s sound (not surprising considering that we’ve played together quite a bit over the last 12+ months, and I’ve had time to study his playing a bit).

Aside: from my vantage point, Sarah seemed to navigate (create?) her own space without difficulty. Wonder if it felt like that was the case from her side?

And that’s my issue with my playing at this month’s Lab: are my gestures the same size? are my ideas-per-minute constant? I think, on a good day, on the microscopic level, my playing exhibits (complex / interesting / infuriating / contradictory) variation, but I fear that, on a macroscopic level, it’s often (simple / boring / predictable / coherent) uniformity that rules the day. Am I getting too comfortable in this space?

…And am I right in guessing that this performance was a kind of last hurrah before the (Franziska-driven) change?

I don’t, however, want to end on that note: we played well—heck, some of the strongest Stet Lab moments happened this month—and I’m happily listening to these on my iPod. There’s a good rapport between Bruce and I; Neil O’Loghlen’s addition made certain surprising group dynamics available; and Sarah, as I said before, was funny as hell.