Out now! Gonggong 225088 (wa008)

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

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.

Gonggong 225088: ‘Autopoiesis VI’

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.).

Coming soon from Waveform Alphabet

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.

Gonggong 225088 (wa008)

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

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.

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.

updates

05-23-24: released!
05-27-24: update with video playlist.

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.

Mixing noisy, pretty, gentle and disorderly peculiar music

Wondering what mixing strategy could possibly work for your recording of noisy, pretty, gentle and disorderly peculiar music? Hit me up if your left-of-field recording is in need of some in-the-box (with a little out-of-the-box thinking) mixing work.

recordings featured

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.

cover art (copyright 2020 Han-earl Park)

Peculiar Velocities (BAF002) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (saxophone) and Nick Didkovsky (guitar).

Track listing: Ballad of Tensegrity I (≥ 5:12), Ballad of Tensegrity II (2:28), Peculiar Velocities I (3:46), Peculiar Velocities II (3:36), Sleeping Dragon (5:22), D-Loop I (≥ 6:16), D-Loop II (5:13), Polytely I (≥ 5:01), Polytely II: Breakdown (5:33), Anagnorisis I (2:09), Anagnorisis II (2:19). Total duration ≥ 46:54.

© + ℗ 2020 Han-earl Park.

QLH: Only Regrets (cover artwork)

QLH: Only Regrets [details…]

Personnel: Quentin Tolimieri (synthesizers), Luca Marini (drums) and Han-earl Park (guitar).

Track listing: Pattern Clash (18:50), Linoleum Studs (3:10). Total duration: 22:00.

© + ℗ 2023 Tolimieri/Marini/Park.

disc art (copyright 2023 Ramble Records)

Juno 3 (RAM-163CD) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics).

Track listing: Orbital Dusk I (6:04), Orbital Dusk II (4:20), Orbital Dusk III (2:29), Orbital Dusk IV (6:03), Diel Vertical Migration I (6:31), Diel Vertical Migration II (4:38), Diel Vertical Migration III (4:33), Diel Vertical Migration IV (7:36), Metastability (7:24). Total duration: 49:36.

© and ℗ 2023 Ramble Records.

update

03–02-24: update Gonggong 225088 (wa008) info with track listing and artwork.

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…].

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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…]

Han-earl Park, Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia at Morphine Raum, Berlin

Monday, December 4, 2023, 8:30pm (doors: 8:00pm): Dream a little noisy, sweetly disquieting dream with Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone) at Morphine Raum (Köpenicker Str. 147, 10997 Berlin). Entry: €10 at the door.

Feel the grass under your feet, and the steel girders flying over your head.
As reeds pop, strings snap, and membranes flutter and resonate.
Trace the folds in the fabric of the interactive.

I feel enormously privileged to be part of this trio with Yorgos and Camila, and super happy to be recording this beautiful confusion of clicks, flutters and snaps, of standing waves and intermodulations. Please come be part of this process!

See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [Morphine page…] [Facebook event…]