‘Halt’ (#onetakestudy Nº 5)

Latest single-take improvisation, this one is, in part, a response to the shortcoming of study Nº 4. Of that study, I wrote:

There’s aspects of this I really, really don’t like. I hate that it’s that constant, artless thud-thud-thud through out. But there’s some parts—the way it’s contoured like waves—that might be salvageable. [Source…]

Let me know what you make of this one.

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

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.

‘Grace’ (#onetakestudy Nº 4)

Latest improvisation part of the ‘#onetakestudy’ series. Enjoy! (I honestly couldn’t tell you if that’s an ironic title.)

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

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.

Gonggong 225088 (wa008)

Gonggong 225088 cover art (copyright 2024 Han-earl Park)
Gonggong 225088 (wa008) © 2024 Han-earl Park

Available to preview and pre-order from Waveform Alphabet: Gonggong 225088 (wa008), the eponymous debut album from the trio of Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) Camila Nebbia (saxophone).

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.

[Pre-order the CD/download from Waveform Alphabet (Bandcamp)…]

CD: $15 plus shipping. Download: $10.

description

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).

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.

recording details

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.

Gonggong 225088: opening 10 minutes!

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.

Recording details

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.

‘Drift After’ (#onetakestudy Nº 3)

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!

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

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.

‘On The Way Out’ (#onetakestudy Nº 2)

A quick one-take made before heading out. A simple, take-a-line-for-a-walk improvisation as part of the ‘#onetakestudy’ series. Enjoy!

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

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.

Gonggong 225088 on Freeness, BBC Radio 3

You can now listen again to Corey Mwamba’s Freeness on BBC Radio 3, and catch the extended preview of Gonggong 225088, my upcoming album with Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia. On the show, Corey described our music as having “fluid, pliable motion”:

And the synergy between them is electrifying…. So much intensity in that music. Even when the volume goes down the intensity is still there. [Listen to the rest…]

A big thanks to producer Silvia Malnati at Freeness, and big, big thanks to Corey for supporting our music, and supporting the broader communities of creative people.

The album artwork is complete, and I’ve been working the last couple of weeks with engineer Andrew Weathers, and label mastermind David Menestres on the album masters. Gonggong 225088 will be out on Waveform Alphabet later this year. More soon!

Be first in-line to hear the new album! Please sign-up to my newsletter:

Signup to the newsletter [details…].

[About the newsletter…]

SPLICE: ‘Bandwidth’ (coda)

Watch the closing six minutes of ‘Bandwidth,’ my audio-visual piece performed as part of SPLICE back in October. [Watch another excerpt…]

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.

Thanks again to Carina Khorkhordina for the audio and video recording, and to initiative neue musik berlin for funding this project.

Coming soon: Gonggong 225088

Gonggong 225088, an album of noisy, sweetly disquieting dreams by Han-earl Park, Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia will be will be released by Waveform Alphabet in 2024! Tune in to Freeness on BBC Radio 3 for a preview of the album. More soon!

Be first in-line to hear the new album! Please sign-up to my newsletter:

Signup to the newsletter [details…].

[About the newsletter…]

SPLICE: ‘Bandwidth’ (excerpt A)

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.

As I wrote previously, this was the first public, on-stage performance of my videographic compositional work which I’d been developing since the lockdowns, but became, over time, a broader explorations of ambiguity, and the possibilities of drama and narrative in tension with the improvisative. I hope to take this work on the road next year. More to be announced soon.

A big thanks to Carina Khorkhordina for the audio and video recording, and to initiative neue musik berlin for funding this project.

‘Rain Day’ (#onetakestudy Nº 1)

A ‘first-take’ made on a rainy day. First in a new series of studies (‘#onetakestudy’) that folows on from the #lockdownminiature series, and on parallel tracks to #spliceimprov.

I’m not 100% sure this improvisation holds focus entirely for its duration, and it could do, for my taste as a listener, with more contrast, but it meanders in a pleasing way. A kind of reverie on an overcast day. Enjoy.

As the looper becomes more a part of my sound, I begin to again question the disconnect between gesture—visible, weighty—and the auditory. As I watch myself in play (in video playback), I find myself alienated from the experience. [Read the rest…]

See the pinned comment to read my thoughts about this piece, and what I think doesn’t work about it.

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

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.

updates

10-29-23: added quote, and link to the pinned comment.

Reminder: SPLICE: Improvisation + Videografie at KM28, Berlin

Next week! Friday, October 13, 2023 at 8:30pm (doors: 8pm): SPLICE, an evening of improvisative performance and videography, takes place at KM28 (Karl-Marx-Str. 28, 12043 Berlin).

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.

Some of you know of my travels in audio-visual compositions that started, in part, as a response to lockdowns and isolation, but ended up becoming broader explorations of ambiguity, and the possibilities of drama and narrative in tension with the improvisative. SPLICE will be the first on-stage, in-person performance-presentation of this work.

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.

[Details…] [KM28 program…] [Facebook event…]