A short excerpt from my September 7 performance with Sara Neidorf at Morphine Raum, Berlin.
Music by Han-earl Park and Sara Neidorf.
Recorded September 7, 2025, Morphine Raum, Berlin.
Audio recording by Rabih Beaini.
Mixed by Han-earl Park.
Recording assistants: Lucas Brell and Valentina Costa.
Video by Han-earl Park.
This is a piece… well, a first shot at an idea-for-a-piece that I alluded to in my previous post. It’s rough, and, in terms of recording/filming, I’m still at the mercy of available light (thanks to the short winter days), but as a first attempt, it’s… got possibilities. I have a couple of variations in mind, and I’ll try and get to these soon.
Let me know what you think—I’d absolutely welcome any feedback.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
I’d had an idea for a piece—an actual piece—a kind of micro-composition. However, (just my luck) by the time I set-up,* warmed-up and re-tuned, my D-string decides to meet its maker (‘it is an ex-string’). So, by the time I’m in a position to hit record, I’m about to lose any available light (ah, winter time in Berlin).
So this is not a piece-piece (it’s barely a study), but just something to get down on (metaphorical, digital fairy dust) tape so I can get back into the swing of things.
More soon (I hope).
* Which takes a little longer with the still-new-to-me camera.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
The above is a behind-the-scenes mix breakdown. If you just want to listen to music (and who could blame you), please check out the original (video and album track).
Are you still here? Okay, Juno 3: Proxemics was mixed into multiple buses (including parallel processing of ‘melodics’ and ‘environmentals,’ for example) before hitting the master bus. One of those buses was fed a mix of the bass signals from each performer. How the bass was separated, in each case, was somewhat different depending on the nature of the electronics, for example, or the instrument (e.g. clean v. fuzz guitar).
Folk have asked me about my mix strategies in approaching experimental and improvised musics, and here’s a little window into how I approached some of the problematics (I mean that in a positive, creative sense) in this one. I’ve said that, in regards to Proxemics, there’s a different album that lives in parallel, and that’s partly because there’s separate mix (with its own automation and processing) in the bass/subs.
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics).
Track listing: Derealization I (4:07), Derealization II (4:57), Derealization III (3:52), Derealization IV (6:19), Derealization V (5:55), Derealization VI (3:47), Proxemics I (5:05), Proxemics II (3:54), Proxemics III (6:10), Proxemics IV (7:15), Proxemics V (6:10), Proxemics VI: Rumble (5:13). Total duration: 62:44.
© and ℗ 2025 Han-earl Park.
I’ve approached recordings and performance as very different animals. One way this lack of interest in ‘vérité’ manifests is in how I’ve been mixing recordings of my guitar playing; sending the guitar signal through a crossover, and processing the high and low frequency components separately, feeding them into separate cab sims, et cetera. I’ve also recently performed compositions by Carina Khorkhordina, and by Camila Nebbia, that involved multiple guitar and bass amplifiers. And this got me thinking about multi-amp setups, and practical (low component-count, portable, pedal-board friendly) ways to do this kind of dual-band processing.
So the above is a test; trying to figure out whether something like a simple crossover, coupled with, say, an analog octaver, might do the job in a live situation. (This test video is based around the recording from back in May, so if you want to listen to the music without the audio tinkering, please check out the original video.)
Watch Sara Neidorf’s performance of ‘Aspect,’ a videographic recomposition by Han-earl Park with Neidorf, with music by Sara Neidorf with Park. The performance was recorded on November 15 as part of DISTORTIONS, the two-evening event of improvised music and moving images.
A big, big thanks to Sara for committing to the collaboration, and for their smart, oblique, creative choices. Thanks also to everyone who participated in this project—Carina Khorkhordina, Camila Nebbia, Yorgos Dimitriadis, Rabih Beaini and everyone at Morphine Raum—and to initiative neue musik berlin without whose support this project—these compositions, these performances—would not have been possible.
Music by Sara Neidorf with Han-earl Park.
Videographic recompositions by Han-earl Park with Sara Neidorf.
Recorded November 15, 2025 at Morphine Raum, Berlin.
Sound engineer: Rabih Beaini. Second engineer: Malte Andrae.
Recording assistants: Valentina Costa.
Mixed by Han-earl Park.
Video by Han-earl Park.
Closing snap’n’shuffle from my solo performance at Kirkos, Dublin back in July. Complete with visual swipes (shuffles and foot traffic) and the occasional low frequency rumbles from passing vehicles.
Thanks so much to everyone at Kirkos for hosting the performance, and, in particular, a big, big thanks to Paul Scully for all his work making this happen, and for the audio and video recording.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
Taps’n’trots (and squawks’n’quacks) 👣
This might be my last in the #onetakestudy series for a while as I’ve got a couple of other projects that will be keeping me busy in the coming months. For those who’ve been following my studies, thank you so very much for listening.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
Or maybe I should have titled this one ‘Signal and Noise.’
Some ideas and fragments that I came away with from a session with Sara Neidorf. It’s a bit scattered, and very rough around the edges, but there’s stuff here that I want to return to over the coming weeks.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
Simple variation on a trope, technique, gesture, color and shape. This one might be a little more impressionistic than rigorous. Some of this, I think, works; some parts better than others. Enjoy.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
I almost called this one ‘Induced Atmospheric Vibration’ after some (likely untrue) reports from Portugal in regards to the recent blackout. As some of you know, I played an unplanned solo set after Kaffe Matthews, with whom I was to perform in a duo, got stranded in Portugal. (For those who had wanted to hear our duo, we will be back!)
If this one feels a little like a throwback earlier studies, yeah, I agree… at least in part. There’s some techniques almost directly lifted from earlier improvisations, but combined with some of the structural concerns from some of the more recent studies. I’m not 100% convinced this one works, but maybe it can be made to. We’ll see.
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these excercises; specifically something I’d once called a ‘structural paraphrase’ (my, my, did I go hard on artspeak with that one 😶). Anyway, please enjoy this very loose improvisative paraphrase (with apologies to CT).
And please excuse the scritchy-scratchy pots—the potentiometer in my volume pedal in particular may be beyond cleaning. (You can help me fix that.)
Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).
Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.
© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.
