maybe you remember how a couple of months ago the noise-below crew participated as “nn+” in the tot festival that took place at knot gallery in athens (related posts here, here and here). well, nicolas already wrote about the whole thing, and today i wrote about it on my own blog (because you can never have enough of those…) here:

http://syndromesrandomcontent.blogspot.com/2010/08/nn-soundcheck.html

i also put up a recording of myself fumbling with the available equipment during the soundcheck. i ended up with a charming piece of noise + room ambience

enjoy,
kostis

NN+ soundcheck by syndromesuploadcloud

Tags: knot gallery, kostis kilymis, sites/blogs

hi

long since the last update or at least i think so.
so just out is cranc’s ‘copper fields’ cd co-produced with organized music from thessaloniki. in brief a noise-below release.
marks the 2nd cranc release exactly after a decade since their first ‘all angels’ cd on edo records and is far more different in style. listening both of them you may see the difference and progress (depnends on your opinion if is progress or whatever) the trio did in their sound search the last decade.
it also marks the end of absurd and an almost 14 year journey comes to its end.

there are various plans in mind for future projects not as intense as absurd at least at the moment (well absurd started like that in 96 you might say and then…). in early / mid july a new project starts and will be the main vehicle for this decade. also important as a vehicle is the ‘outside my window’ blog. my greatest interest wth it is field recordings but never sayno for proper mp3/flac releases. already a dead gum mp3 is uploaded also a binaural field recording of a specific site of the city of kalamata as recorded by nikos kyriazopoulos last april while cycling in the city.
check http://thenoisehitthemastheyopenedthedoor.blogspot.com

slowly will keep upldating the ‘story so far’ blog http://allnoisesswelltogetherinlandscapes.blogspot.com as still there are shitloads waiting to be uploaded.

also a kind of posthumous release is a 10″ by tasos stamou. a recording of a party held for the birthday of a friend’s daughter last july in the village of nea triglia in halkidiki, north greece. guess sometime in july will be out too.

as has happened with any project unearthed from the genital grinder zine saga and on a ‘link’ between absurd and the new project that is in the works will be a special release somehow the ‘official’ final a 7″ by howard stelzer & frans de waard which is nothing else than another brick on the ‘torn tongue’ wall they slowly built. i assume that it’ll be out sometime in september or october.

speaking of posthumous releases as well the ‘adieu absurd’ party thing will take place on saturday the 4th in the city of xanthi. further details to be announced sometime later during the year.

also ‘a question of re_entry’ has almost fulfilled its idea. a final co-production cdr is due for release sometime in 2010 and will mark its end as well.

hhmm guess that’s all for now. sometime in july will email infos on the new project, its first release, etc.

love & noise
nicolas

Tags: a question of re_entry, absurd, sites/blogs

a link to nicolas’ blog, ‘outside my window‘, where you can find available for downloading a recording of ilan manouach’s solo set at the xanthi folk museum last autumn.

ilan is a graphic artist as well as a formidable saxophone player whose work often flirts with noise. In the case of this concert (original post about it here) things got a bit out-of-hand, so much that ilan himself thought the recording was somehow defective when we played it back some days later. a very strong gig, get it here:

http://thenoisehitthemastheyopenedthedoor.blogspot.com/2010/05/ilan-manouach-live-at-xanthi-folk.html

Tags: ilan manouach, sites/blogs, xanthi

intervention in a zoo by artist Braco Dimitrijevic (from a recent zoologikokipologia blog post)

Zoologikokipologia is a greek language blog, recently set up by Thanasis Chondros & Alexandra Katsiani. The content revolves around the politics and the philosophy of zoos, focusing on their symbolism and their relation to/reflection of human civilization. From what i’ve seen so far, it promises to be more poignant than cooky (though with a little bit of both thrown in the mix)

-

http://zoologikokipologia.blogspot.com/

Tags: chondros & katsiani, sites/blogs

the Unnamed Music Festival was one of the more rewarding initiatives of the first half of this year. Currated by another timbre‘s Simon Reynell, it was held in mid-june in the cities of London and Leeds and featured an intricate mix of players that reflected its currators tastes as much as it reflected the until-recently imperceptible changes in the waters of improvised music. Some of those players came from the latest wave of London-based improvisers, some were more closely aligned to the EAI school of musicians, a couple of elder statesmen were included for good measure as well. Though on paper things didn’t look too spiky, the sets were full of subtle and rewarding moments. We witnessed strong working groups given ample space to flesh out their music (Tom Chant/Angharad Davies/Benedict Drew/John Edwards and Rhodri Davies/Louisa Martin/Lee Patterson with Lucio Capece filling in for missing members), delicate attempts to beauty (Sebastian Lexer/Aleks Kolkowski and Clive Bell/Matt Milton/Bechir Saade) and two sets full-on risk-taking improvisation (Paul Abbott/Jamie Coleman/Grundik Kasyansky/Ute Kanngiesser & the guns-blazing trio of Keith Rowe/Martin Küchen/Seymour Wright). There was also the duo set of Jez riley French & Patrick Farmer, but this was in Leeds, so i cannot comment.

the main reason for this post is not to bore you with my one-line reflections, but to point to the way of a download page that is now up at the another timbre webpage:

http://www.anothertimbre.com/downloads.html

in this page, and until september, you’ll be able to listen and download extracts from the music performed at the festival (from all but one of the sets that took place). Some very interesting music there, and quite different at places from the way i remember it -the workings of human senses never cease to confound.

.

relevant links:
unnamed impressions, by al jones @ bagatellen (http://www.bagatellen.com/?p=2390)
richard pinnell’s blog entries around the festival (http://www.thewatchfulear.com/?p=1156 & http://www.thewatchfulear.com/?p=1161)

Tags: downloads, sites/blogs

in case you missed the mention, there is now a blog cataloguing past activities of absurd & related entities (nicolas’s pre-absurd tape imprint, etc). in it you can find high-quality mp3 uploads of oop releases, as well as odds-and-ends that haven’t seen the light of day before (like live shows, raw material & private releases). quite different from the regular absurd catalogue found in this page

you can find the blog at:
http://allnoisesswelltogetherinlandscapes.blogspot.com/

another new blog, this time focusing on obscure greek underground releases (though might only be one of possible directions this blog will take):
http://excretemusic.blogspot.com/

last but not least is a blog set up by costis drygianakis. most known in these circles from his duo with nikos veliotis that absurd put out back in the early days, his ‘edo’ label put out the first ‘cranc’ cd, but his activities as a musician & music writer have mostly been known inside greece.

in this blog he’s set up (in greek) he’s focusing so far on local folk (& beyond) recordings, offering single tracks from recordings that usually fly below the radar & coupling them with detailed and valuable historical and musicological information.

a very pleasant surprise:
http://drygianakis.blogspot.com/

Tags: absurd, sites/blogs

hello friends, listeners and memories,

The das kleine field recordings festival 2008 has come to an end on january 30th. More then 20 evenings with -by low estimation – an overall audience of 600+, were set up.

This year’s modus will be “intercontinental”. The first evening will be on 27th of february with three guests from three different continents. These concerts will be transmitted live via the internet, details will be sent out next week. The transmission will be from 21.00 CET+1, until 01.00 CET+1 approx.
I would like to ask people on this list to send in a field recording (pure or used in a composition) of, say 6 minutes maximum. These recordings will be transmitted and played at the venue in the intervals.

I would also like to work on a realisation of the intercontinental concept:
a das kleine field recordings festival edition in one or more places on one or more different continents to be held at the same day.
My next edition will be somewhere in April.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: dkfrf, sites/blogs

mr. nyoukis has let us know he’ll be giving new life to the dormant chocolate monk blog. in his own words:

“gonna be tons of random shit going up of all things monk releated: live sets, video clips, interviews, reviews, deleted shit, mixes, rambling, whatever.
get it here: http://stinkheadache.blogspot.com/
or via chocolatemonk.co.uk

just added the bohman/nyoukis/robertson set from last years Colour Out Of Space.”

Tags: artist news, dylan nyoukis, sites/blogs

a new catalan portal has entered our radars. this one focuses on movement, improvised actions, etc .
an english version of the site is available; haven’t dug inside yet, but on first glance it looks like it’s worth a bookmark. bringing to our attention workshops, actions & broader projects.

http://www.lasospechosa.org

Tags: barcelona, sites/blogs

ok ok ok... it's been a while since the site of anet's being down & i've been too lazy to upload a new one. soonish i hope that the old site will be uploaded in a server run by some cool pals. and here's the new effort...'noise, a few decks below'. the site you'll navigate at the bloody moment looks most like a hybrid rathen the actual one... just a test let's say and not the permanent thing or the entity absurd has in mind to create. more changes are bound to happen from mid/late august & on.
for a long time now i had the wish to return back to the early absurd days, probably cos i was bored of absurdities and the sole review thing. not that it'll stop, but wanna focus also on reports, interviews,etc. won't say more at the moment, i'll let it flow and see what happens when the actual zine's site will start functioning.

at the moment, just a few links 'bout greece, a couple of reviews of which 'self portrait' i consider it the best as it was the performance that made me see things more clear at a certain confused point i was engulfed. like the early days of absurd's 'zero trilogy' striked me, it is an one take text, w/ just a little editing that i did after... since this performance i feel like words are sounds again! or to paraphrase 'two shot sons''s lp title 'in sound my memory is stored'..

also later this year a new zine is bound to start, 'lost transmissions from planet zero' kinda an entity of absurd's 2nd part of the 'zero trilogy'. uh, in greek.
plus finally the final part of the 'zero trilogy' (absurd #7 'bye bye butterfly') is bound to come as a supplement to overdub zine, influenced from the topic of sound as energy & the energy of sound... more details on it to follow later too.

plus more releases are bound to see daylight in the ongoing absurd's audio diary... check the releases page for more.

love & noise
nicolas

Tags: absurd, sites/blogs