This November (Friday, 14th, and Saturday, 15th): Two evenings of improvised music and moving images with new works by Carina Khorkhordina, Camila Nebbia, Han-earl Park, with Sara Neidorf and Yorgos Dimitriadis. The events will take place at Morphine Raum (Köpenicker Str. 147, 10997 Berlin).
Details to follow. For updates, you can sign-up to Han-earl Park’s newsletter:
This Sunday (September 7, 2025): I’m performing with Sara Neidorf at Morphine Raum (Köpenicker Str. 147, 10997 Berlin)!
Sara is one of my absolute favorite drummers in Berlin, and pushes and pulls me to work hard in the very best possible way. Every time we play, the results are genuinely unexpected, and I’m super excited (and you should be too!) to see and hear what happens in the intensity of a duo concert. (Plus, Morphine is one of the best rooms for drums, and has my favorite amp in Berlin.)
See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [Morphine page…] [Facebook event…]
Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 8:30pm (doors: 8pm): Savor the beautifully abrasive music. Han-earl Park (guitar) and Sara Neidorf (drums) perform at Morphine Raum (Köpenicker Str. 147, 10997 Berlin).
See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [Morphine page…] [Facebook event…]
Shifting and switching from No Wave skronk to interstellar guitarist-as-drummer virtuosity, from stampedes of miniature Pomeranian Buffalos to All-You-Zombies heterophonies, Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been performing beautifully messy, joyously difficult, ambiguous and discordant improvised musics for over twenty years.
Park is the mastermind behind ensembles including Eris 136199 with Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky; Juno 3 with Lara Jones and Pat Thomas; and Gonggong 225088 with Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia; and performs as part of a duo with Richard Barrett. His ensembles have appeared at festivals including Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), EFG London Jazz Festival, Brilliant Corners (Belfast), Freedom of the City (London), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). Park’s recordings have been released by labels including NEWJAiM, Waveform Alphabet, Ramble Records, SLAM Productions, Creative Sources and DUNS Limited Edition.
Sara Neidorf (they/them, b. 1990, Philadelphia) is a Berlin-based drummer and film curator. Neidorf drums in the genre-expansive, heavy bands Mellowdeath, Mad Kate | The Tide, Soporose, and Sarattma. As a session musician, they’ve recorded and toured internationally with such artists as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Peaches, and Sometimes With Others, and have also drummed for theater and dance productions at the Volksbühne, Berliner Ensemble, Sophiensaele, Radialsystem, and at festivals such as Berlin Atonal, Tanztage, 3hd, and Grauzone. As an instructor, Neidorf has focussed their teaching efforts on women, queer, and non-binary students and has formerly taught at organizations as varied as BIMM University Berlin and Girls Rock Philly. When not drumming, Neidorf co-directs Final Girls Berlin Film Fest, which showcases horror made by women and NB filmmakers.
| date | venue | time | details |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 7, 2025 | Morphine Raum Köpenicker Str. 147 10997 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | Han-earl Park (guitar) and Sara Neidorf (drums). [Details…] [Morphine page…] [Facebook event…] |
| September 20, 2025 | Sowieso Weisestraße 24 12049 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | Gonggong 225088 (Han-earl Park: guitar; Yorgos Dimitriadis: percussion and electronics; and Camila Nebbia: saxophone). [Details…] [Sowieso listing…] [Facebook event…] |
| November 5, 2025 | Richten25 Gerichtstraße 25 13347 Berlin Germany |
8:00pm (doors: 7pm) | Kaffe Matthews (live sampling alchemical electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar). Details to follow… |
| November 14, 2025 | Morphine Raum Köpenicker Str. 147 10997 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | DISTORTIONS: First of two evenings of improvised music and videographic compositions with new works by Han-earl Park, Carina Khorkhordina, and Camila Nebbia, with Sara Neidorf and Yorgos Dimitriadis. Details to follow… |
| November 15, 2025 | Morphine Raum Köpenicker Str. 147 10997 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | DISTORTIONS: Second of two evenings of improvised music and videographic compositions. See above. |
Thoughts Of Trio by Aidan Baker, Han-earl Park and Katharina Schmidt is now available to pre-order from attenuation circuit (CD/digital) and Cruel Nature Records (cassette/digital).
New video (‘Niche Shift I’) from Gonggong 225088! As I wrote in the chat:
This was one of those videos that I almost decided against posting. I think this one really highlights the discrepancy, or dissonance, between the visual and the auditory. I felt like maybe uploading the video might take away from the magic of the listening experience (if that makes sense). Reveal[ing] too much of the nuts’n’bolts and pulleys’n’curtains’n’backdrops behind the sounding processes. Anyway, I love the pace—tides ebb’n’flow—that Yorgos and Camila created here. [More…]
What became ‘Niche Shift I’ was, for me, the key transitional passage from the album—the part of the performance that really caught the entire trio by surprise on the evening. Enjoy.
Gonggong 225088 (wa008) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone).
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.
© 2024 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2024 Waveform Alphabet.
May 23, 2024: Gonggong 225088 (wa008), the eponymous debut album from the trio of Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone) is out now on Waveform Alphabet! As I wrote:
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!
[About this album…] [Get the CD/download from Waveform Alphabet (Bandcamp)…]
CD: $15 plus shipping. Download: $10.
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.).
Gonggong 225088 (wa008) [details…]
Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone).
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.
© 2024 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2024 Waveform Alphabet.
Gonggong 225088 (wa008), the eponymous debut album from the trio of Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone) is out now on Waveform Alphabet!
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.
[Get the CD/download from Waveform Alphabet (Bandcamp)…]
CD: $15 plus shipping. Download: $10.
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.
Recommended reading: China Miéville. “Covehithe.” Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories (Pan Macmillan, 2015).
Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone).
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.
Music by Han-earl Park, Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia.
Recorded live December 4, 2023, Morphine Raum, Berlin.
Recorded by Rabih Beaini.
Mixed by Han-earl Park. Mastered by Andrew Weathers.
Video by Carina Khorkhordina. Video edited by Han-earl Park.
Design and artwork by Han-earl Park.
© 2024 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2024 Waveform Alphabet.
05-23-24: released!
05-27-24: update with video playlist.
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.
Music by Han-earl Park, Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia.
Recorded live December 4, 2023, Morphine Raum, Berlin.
Recorded by Rabih Beaini.
Mixed by Han-earl Park. Mastered by Andrew Weathers.
Video by Carina Khorkhordina. Video edited by Han-earl Park.
Design and artwork by Han-earl Park.
© 2024 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2024 Waveform Alphabet.
A quick, ‘no-prep’ improvisation as part of the ‘#onetakestudy’ series: here’s what my guitar sounds like, straight out-of-the-case, the day after a gig. (Guitar tuning thanks to Aidan Baker and Katharina Schmidt, plus lighting design courtesy of the Berlin sky.) 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.
| date | venue | time | details |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 21, 2024 | Morphine Raum Köpenicker Str. 147 10997 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | Thoughts of Trio (Aidan Baker: bass; Katharina Schmidt: drums; and Han-earl Park: guitar). €10 at the door. [Details…] [Morphine page…] [Facebook event…] |
| March 3, 2024 | PAS Kaiserin Augusta Allee 101 10553 Berlin Germany |
8:30pm (doors: 8pm) | Han-earl Park (guitar) and Marie Takahashi (viola). Also performing: Tom Malmendier, Marina Cyrino and Michael Thieke; and Alexander Markvart and Tom Malmendier. [Details…] [PAS page…] [Facebook event…] |
| March 27, 2024 | Neue Zukunft Alt-Stralau 68 10245 Berlin Germany |
9:00pm (doors: 8:30pm) | Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone) as part of Future Bash Reloaded #2. Also performing: Sofia Salvo, Alexander Markvart and Paolo Possidente. €7–15 at the door. [Details…] |
| April 23, 2024 | REH Kopenhagener Straße 17 10437 Berlin Germany |
8:00pm | Han-earl Park (guitar) and Kaffe Matthews (electronics) as part of Erweitert in der REH. Also performing: Caroline Cecilia Tallone and Alexis Baskind; and Sascha Banck, Daniel Erdmann and Isabel Rößler. [Details…] [Facebook event…] |
| May 31, 2024 | Club Manufaktur Hammerschlag 8 73614 Schorndorf Germany |
8:30pm | Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone). €26/22/16. [Manufaktur page (get tickets)…] [Facebook event…] |
| October 2024 | Venue TBA Germany |
TBA | Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone). Details to follow… |
Continue reading “Performance diary (Berlin and Schorndorf) 021924”
