Electronic music, North Sea Jazz and balcony gardening

Another update from Juha, having just recovered from the flu. Michiel has been ill too – way to go Non-fictionites. These past days have been all about the North Sea Jazz Festival, and a little bit of balcony gardening.

Already after the first time I give up writing a weekly update. I admit, I’m not disciplined enough. I will now rename it “randomly timed update of current affairs.” See, much better.

What happened this time? Apart from discovering that it is possible to garden on a balcony on the 4th floor, and by doing so becoming a Foursquare mayor of my local garden supply store, I have spent most of my time on finishing my proposal for this year’s North Sea Jazz Festival. Although I have a background mostly in beat driven electronic music, playing jungle, dubstep and other asymmetric electronic music as DJ at festivals and club nights, in the years of working for Kadir Selçuk and Huub van Riel in Lantaren/Venster and the Bimhuis since 2005, I have developed an interest in electroacoustic improvised music. Early concerts I did were with Jacob Kirkegaard, Christian Fennesz, Philip Jeck and BJ Nilsen, who are all part of the unsurpassed London music label Touch. Later on I collaborated with Yuri Boselie on inviting abstract beat  producers like Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke to the Bimhuis on the Beat Dimensions nights. And in between I worked with Alog, Stephen O’Malley and Icarus.

These experiences have led to the invitation by the North Sea Jazz Festival, to programme two stages: one with beat-driven music (Yukon), and one with electroacoustic improvisation (Volga). It’s a great honour to bring my favourite musicians to my old hometown, and I find it incredibly encouraging that such a big and respected festival is open to new developments, and reserves an important part of its line up to these cutting-edge musics. We are in the midst of booking the musicians, and hopefully within a few weeks we can present an allstar line up of stellar artists. The Yukon stage on Friday 9 July will present a new generation of beat makers, the Volga on Sunday 11 July multiple generations of electronically aided improvisors.

As for the garden, it looks stunning. I just hope the grass and bamboo will survive the heavy winds. At least there’s a Moomin looking after them.

By Juha — Posted March 29, 2010 — 273 Comments

On second day, Viral Radio goes from CDR to MAX/MSP

Viral Radio invited CDR to kick off the Viral Radio Festival 2009

Viral Radio invited CDR to kick off the Viral Radio Festival 2009

The first night of the Viral Radio Festival 2009 was a modest, albeit incredibly inspiring, success. An intimate crowd of producers, DJs and family and friends visited the first CDR night at De Verdieping. Thanks to everyone for their support, and Gavin, Tony, Mamiko, Hudson Mohawke and Icarus for their involvement. We look forward to the next one, which will most likely take place in August.

The second day of the festival will take place at the Bimhuis tonight, with Icarus hailing from London and Melbourne to bring electronic music by the guidelines of the International Standards for Jungle Music: 175 BPM straight for 12 years now, engineering their hyperrhythmic speed beats with MAX/MSP like scientists at the CERN Hadron Collider. They will be joined by another electroacoustic duo from the UK, Furt. ‘One of the most blisteringly energetic and experimental partnerships over the past twenty years.’ (The Guardian). In the cafe around the concerts we will hear Mrs. Mohawke herself, the ubiquitous Mamiko Motto (Samurai FM/Kindred Spirits).

We hope to see you tonight.

By Juha — Posted July 2, 2009 — 47 Comments

A loud no and an even louder yes

Marcel Duchamp and John Cage playing chess (photo: Shigeko Kubota)

Marcel Duchamp and John Cage playing chess (photo: Shigeko Kubota)

In an e-mail exchange with the English bassist Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) about a concert in Amsterdam, he confused me by writing that he did not consider himself a musician, and he was not even sure if he really liked music. Jenkinson is a drummer as well as a bass player, and ever since his first album, Feed Me Weird Things, released in 1996, he has been more or less idolized as an innovator of electronic music.

His music was used by filmmaker Sofia Coppola as the sonic translation of Tokyo’s lightscape in Lost in Translation. It has been presented in manic and sterile fashion by video-maker Chris Cunningham and recorded as a contemporary pendant of 20th-century experimental music by the London Sinfonietta, in a programme of such great composers as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Why would anyone of such stature not want to call himself a musician?

In search of an explanation, I called on a number of friends in the music scene and asked what their definition of music was, and whether you could make music without being a musician.

Nearly a century ago, the French composer Edgard Varèse referred to music as ‘organized sound’, a term that was reinforced in 1937 by John Cage in his famous lecture, The Future of Music: Credo. Some theorists see music as a language that enables interaction between people. Others see it as organized movement of air. Philosophers sometimes speak of a ‘practical form of philosophy in time and space’ (I kid you not). The Scottish sound theorist, Steve Goodman, speaks of music as a form of architecture that makes it possible for people to acoustically take control of their environment. As an example, he refers to South London’s dubstep producers, who want to cut off the intrusive noise of their immediate environment and the outside world and by using music equipment to carve out a space in sound.

With any of these descriptions, the question remains whether you can make music and not be a musician, as Jenkinson implies. Most people reply that, yes, you can. You can be ‘tone deaf, not master any instrument or forget to pay your membership to the Musicians Union’, as Ollie Bown of the Icarus electronic ensemble jokes. You might only call yourself a musician ‘if the context requires it and if it is less confusing to call yourself a musician, instead of an artist or theoretician’, as Bown’s cousin and composer Sam Britton pragmatically replies. You can make music and not be a musician ‘by working as an artist in the auditive domain’, adds Lucas van der Velden of the artists collective Telco Systems, or indeed, according to producers Kode9 and Cinnaman ‘by simply not caring what you call it’.

The answers vary from self-effacing to convincing and from indecisive to indifferent. If a distinction can be made between capable musicians who refine and develop their art according to a tradition, and ‘musicians’ who experiment with apparatus and instruments with no notion or interest in history, then perhaps Jenkinson is right. But can such a distinction be made?

Jenkinson also wrote, ‘I see myself as someone who clears the way for musicians and composers, brushing away preconceptions about what is permissible.’ Perhaps Jenkinson’s words indicate that it is ultimately about the experience of music, not about qualifying or analyzing it.

A final word goes to the buoyant Swiss artist Dimitri Grimm (Dimlite), whose e-mail response to my question of whether or not he is a musician was, ‘A loud no and an even louder yes. It depends on who is asking. That question almost never needs a reply (maybe for the phone book entry). The title “musician” is not really laden with a concrete association in my world. I have never learned the definition of a musician, so: I don’t know. There was a time when I used to say, “well, call me a music-maker”, out of respect, because I am not that guy who is reading or writing notes and mastering the craft of, let’s say, guitar playing. That is a musician, right? I grew up in a time when people scratching with turntables had already started calling themselves musicians. These days, we juggle zeros and ones by ear and eye, create sounds, rhythms, harmonies, melodies and good and bad ghosts of all sorts, by any means, for ears and souls, and it takes a lot of mastery. It is nobody’s right to decide who is a musician and who is not, and if they do, who cares?’

This article was published in Metropolis M of February/March 2009.

By Juha — Posted February 14, 2009 — 195 Comments