Gonggong 225088 entführt die Zuhörerschaft in eine Traumwelt voller Gegensätze: krachend-subtil, irritierend-melodisch, wundervoll dissonant.
Das international besetzte Trio… changiert mühelos zwischen Kulturen, mechanischen Effekten und tonalen Wechselwirkungen in einem beständig vorantreibenden Prozess. [Read the rest…]
The festival takes place at Schwere Reiter (Dachauer Straße 114a80636 München / Kreativquartier), and the event starts at 6:00pm (our set expected to be around 7:30pm). Also performing that evening are Espresso & Mud invites Ute Wassermann, and Le 7ème Continent.
Track listing: Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
I love what’s recorded (and sculpted) here as sound. There are behind-the-scenes stories about an impossible group emerging from the debris of lockdown and the tangles of inter-border bureaucracy (stories for another time). But also, to my ears as a listener, there’s something tricky and oblique about our music—an origami of fire music and improvisative mischief—knotted, folded-on-itself, and, at time, joyously vexed.
Yet, the feeling on-stage, it’s all near effortless ‘and then’s and ‘therefore’s; of effects and reactions, but also reframings and reflections and retroactions. We went, I think, to a lot of unexpected places in that one session.
So sit-back in your favorite sofa or beanbag, or, headphones ready, go for a wander and a walk, or maybe sit at the table with a good book, and enjoy the journey. [Read the rest…]
I’m very, very happy with the music on this album, and feel very privileged to have shared this journey with the creative people on-stage, and behind-the-scenes. Please enjoy the noise!
Catch a track (‘Autopoiesis VI’) from Gonggong 225088! The extended preview will premiere at 5pm CEST* on Thursday, May 23, 2024! [Click ‘notify me’…]
By turns light-as-a-feather, and heavy and prickly as a bucket of rusty nails, the music is of contradiction and ambiguity. Leaps into ’90s HatHut pastiche are followed by truckers-in-space-engine-rumbles; slow-crawls-from-the-swap of irony-free ‘bells’n’smells’ sound art followed by turns-turns-turns-on-a-dime mutant Free Funk. [More…]
Click ‘notify me’, and be ready with your headphones (and popcorn), and join me on Thursday for some origami fire music!
* 17:00 CEST, 15:00 UTC, 11:00 EST, and 8:00 PST. (Or: 12am in Seoul, 6pm in Athens, 12pm in Buenos Aires, and 5pm in Berlin.).
Track listing: Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
I love what’s recorded (and sculpted) here as sound. There are behind-the-scenes stories about an impossible group emerging from the debris of lockdown and the tangles of inter-border bureaucracy (stories for another time). But also, to my ears as a listener, there’s something tricky and oblique about our music—an origami of fire music and improvisative mischief—knotted, folded-on-itself, and, at time, joyously vexed.
Yet, the feeling on-stage, it’s all near effortless ‘and then’s and ‘therefore’s; of effects and reactions, but also reframings and reflections and retroactions. We went, I think, to a lot of unexpected places in that one session.
So sit-back in your favorite sofa or beanbag, or, headphones ready, go for a wander and a walk, or maybe sit at the table with a good book, and enjoy the journey.
Fluid, pliable motion…. The synergy between them is electrifying….
— Corey Mwamba (Freeness, BBC Radio 3)
Blue-green iridescence
(Crunch and more scatter)
A vacuum of warning
The latest project from Korean-American guitarist, improviser and composer Han-earl Park, Gonggong 225088 is his trio with Argentinian saxophonist, composer and visual artist Camila Nebbia, and Greek drummer, improviser and sound artist Yorgos Dimitriadis. Based in Berlin, the group emerged, piece-by-piece, from the darkly hazy, collective dream of masks, remote work, and social distancing.
By turns light-as-a-feather, and heavy and prickly as a bucket of rusty nails, the music is of contradiction and ambiguity. Leaps into ’90s HatHut pastiche are followed by truckers-in-space-engine-rumbles; slow-crawls-from-the-swap of irony-free ‘bells’n’smells’ sound art followed by turns-turns-turns-on-a-dime mutant Free Funk. Gonggong 225088 find overlapping-through-time, All-You-Zombies guitar gestures; stompbox-assisted saxophone punk ventriloquisms; and hive-mind metallophone creatures that migrate across the stereo field.
Here be dragons.
It’s music that is simultaneously earnest and full of ironic glee; a spaghetti junction of noise held together by a deep love of connection, and a constantly shifting center of balance found only in ensemble play.
Recorded with skill and sensitivity by Rabih Beaini, mixed by Han-earl Park to place the listener within the ensemble, and mastered for presence’n’punch by Andrew Weathers, this eponymous debut album captures Park, Dimitriadis and Nebbia in live performance at Morphine Raum.
Autopoiesis I (≥ 10:14), Autopoiesis II (≥ 4:29), Niche Shift I (16:09), Niche Shift II (≥ 4:45), Niche Shift III (4:35), Niche Shift IV (≥ 12:52), Autopoiesis III (3:26), Autopoiesis IV (≥ 5:03), Autopoiesis V (≥ 3:17), Autopoiesis VI (3:37). Total duration ≥ 70:14.
Catch the first ten minutes (‘Autopoiesis I’) from Gonggong 225088! The extended preview will premiere at 5pm CET* on Friday, March 1, 2024! [Click ‘notify me’…]
By turns light-as-a-feather, and heavy and prickly as a bucket of rusty nails, the music is of contradiction and ambiguity. Leaps into ’90s HatHut pastiche are followed by truckers-in-space-engine-rumbles; slow-crawls-from-the-swap of irony-free ‘bells’n’smells’ sound art followed by turns-turns-turns-on-a-dime mutant Free Funk. [More…]
I am super, super excited to finally be able to share this with you. The session was awesome: Rabih Beaini and his team did phenomenal work with the recording (it was a pleasure to mix), and I’m so happy that Carina Khorkhordina made time to be there and capture the performance on video.
Click ‘notify me’, and be ready with your headphones (and popcorn), and join me on Friday for some origami fire music!
* 17:00 CET, 16:00 GMT, 11:00 EST, and 8:00 PST. Or: 1:00 in Seoul, 18:00 in Athens, 13:00 in Buenos Aires, and 17:00 in Berlin.
What happens to interaction when gesture and context are removed by distance? A playful, noisy exploration of the oblique fictions of Here and Now, and Then and There.
Watch the first eight minutes of ‘Bandwidth,’ my audio-visual piece performed as part of SPLICE back in October.
What happens to interaction when gesture and context are removed by distance? A playful, noisy exploration of the oblique fictions of Here and Now, and Then and There.
What happens to interaction when gesture and context are removed by distance? Han-earl Park and Carina Khorkhordina each perform their compositions for solo improviser and video projection. Building on their work developed before (and during) ‘all-our-lockdowns,’ SPLICE is a playful, noisy exploration of the oblique fictions of here and now, and then and there.
It’s an unusual situation for me, as an improviser, whose work depends on a certain kind of immediacy of response—of audience feedback—to present a work for the first time ‘for real’ after having lived with it for this long. ‘Nervously excited’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling. Please, please join me next week on this moment of discovery.
Was passiert mit Interaktion, wenn Geste und Kontext aufgrund von Distanz nicht mehr vorhanden sind? Han-earl Park und Carina Khorkhordina stellen jeweils ihre Kompositionen für Solo-Improvisatoren und Videoprojektion vor. Aufbauend auf ihrer Arbeit, die sie vor (und während) der “all-our-lockdowns” entwickelt haben, ist SPLICE eine spielerische, lautstarke Erkundung schräger Fiktionen im ‘Hier und Jetzt’ und des ‘Dann und Dorthin.’
What happens to interaction when gesture and context are removed by distance? Han-earl Park and Carina Khorkhordina each perform their compositions for solo improviser and video projection. Building on their work developed before (and during) ‘all-our-lockdowns,’ SPLICE is a playful, noisy exploration of the oblique fictions of here and now, and then and there.
Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe, Korea and the USA.
Park is the mastermind behind ensembles including Eris 136199 with Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky; Juno 3 with Lara Jones and Pat Thomas; and Sirene 1009 with Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and rit.; and has a duo with Richard Barrett. He is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Pauline Oliveros, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury and Franziska Schroeder.
His ensembles have appeared at festivals including Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Freedom of the City (London), Brilliant Corners (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including NEWJAiM, SLAM Productions and DUNS Limited Edition. Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.
Carina Khorkhordina is a trumpet player, photographer and an interdisciplinary artsit living in Berlin since 2014. Aside from developing her music on the trumpet and playing concerts she is working on a series of site-specific performances in the public space of Berlin in collaboration with different musicians, presented as short films and bringing together her interest in urban space, sonic possibilities of the trumpet, field recordings and video documentation.
She has been performing in the context of improvised and experimental music since 2017. The active groups include the duo with Eric Bauer, Slurge (with Eric Bauer, Burkhard Beins, Wolfgang Seidel), Klub Demboh, the duo with Axel Dörner and the trio with Eric Bauer and Lena Czerniawska, as well as a variety of ongoing collaborations.
Between 2016 and 2020 she was a student of various photography programs at FotoDepartament Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.
