Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone (guest mix)

Artist-musician, Graham Dunning invited me a few months ago to put together a mix for his radio show, Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone (NTS Radio). You can listen to that episode now!

Here’s the track list for my guest mix:

[Listen now…]

Thanks so much to Graham for inviting me to contribute something for his show, and for giving me the opportunity to share some of the noise I’ve made, and the noise that has impressed and moved me recently.

I wish I could say there was a theme beyond selecting music that I had just been listening to, and a selection from some of my more recent recordings. Considering the haphazard way I put the thing together, I’m as surprised as anyone by the way the overall mix flows—from how Catherine takes-off from where Theresa Wong lands; to how Isabel and Sara reassert, reframe and re-grid Yorgos and Camila’s snaps’n’clangs; to the futz, fuzz and buzzes that bridges Steph Richards’ Fullmoon, Juno 3’s Proxemics, and Nick’s Phantom Words.

Enjoy, and please, please check out the music of these artists (including those featured by Graham during the rest of the show)—I think you’ll be inspired.

Photo © Jazz em Agosto / Petra Cvelbar.

Featured discography

Proxemics cover art (copyright 2025 Han-earl Park)

Proxemics (BAF003) [details…]

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.

Gonggong 225088 cover art (copyright 2024 Han-earl Park)

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.

cover art (copyright 2021 NEWJAiM)

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.

improvisation, animation, sociality, tradition and politics (a Jazz Noise: 7 Questions)

Want to know what and who I’ve been listening to? or what I’ve got planned (hint: see video above)? read my take on the late-capitalist (spotified, airbnbified, uberized) bootleg economy? or how about my non-musical influences:

Politics.

Even in these so-called cynical times I find politics (in, for example, the interactions between basement-level activism, and the, to quote Zappa, ‘entertainment division of the military-industrial complex’; in the friction between good, sometimes great, journalism, and the for-profit-lubricated popularity-contest we call publishing) inspiring.

Other things…?

Animators whose subject matter are things like movement, weight, physics, physiology, intent, volition, presence, personality, empathy, when their materials, in many respects, are working against those expressions. It helps to remind those of us who work in practices where it is too easy to take those same things—movement, weight, physics, physiology, etc.—for granted because they are so effortlessly part of the form. [Read the rest…]

Over at a Jazz Noise, you can read my answers to Dave Foxall’s 7 Questions such as my take on collaboration or what I seek in collaborators:

Imagination, skill and reliability. In that order.

Probably.

Someone who has a levelheaded understanding (consciously or not) of their niche within the transnational improvised music ecology….

I gravitate towards improvisers who are always prepared for that which is, in a way, unforeseeable.

Also people who can patch the holes and weaknesses in my musical skill-set. So, thinking about those three-quarters of Sirene 1009, I think: Dom Lash’s assured, steady-handed control of his technique and sound-making; Mark Sanders’ range, seemingly boundless imagination, ability anticipate anything and everything, and ability to make sense musically regardless of what surrounds him; and Caroline Pugh’s handle and knowledge of genre, and how she seemingly can just jump in regardless of context. I think the various ways we move—our bodies and their relationship with the instruments, say—complement each other.

(I’ve said this before, but getting a group together is a kind of composition.) [Read the rest…]

Plus, the “opening track [from ‘Sirene 1009’ (BAF000)]—Psychohistory III (very Asimov!)—[is] exclusively available to a Jazz Noise readers (hear it here and nowhere else, folks) for this interview.” [Listen/read the rest…].

selected discography

Cover of ‘Sirene 1009’ (BAF000) with Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and Caroline Pugh (artwork copyright 2017, Han-earl Park)

Sirene 1009 (BAF000) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Dominic Lash (double bass), Mark Sanders (drums) and Caroline Pugh (voice and tape recorder).

© + ℗ 2017 Han-earl Park.

CD cover of ‘Anomic Aphasia’ (SLAMCD 559) with Han-earl Park, Catherine Sikora, Nick Didkovsky and Josh Sinton (artwork copyright 2015, Han-earl Park)

Anomic Aphasia (SLAMCD 559) [details…]

Performers: Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (tenor and soprano saxophones), Nick Didkovsky (guitar), and Josh Sinton (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet).

© 2015 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2015 SLAM Productions.