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2006 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
2007 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 12 |
2008 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
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2011 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 12 |
2012 | 01 | 02 |
2012-02-08
■[music] Erstwhile 2月の特別セール実施中！
今年も昨年に引き続き、２月末までアーストワイルのCDとDVDの割引セールを行っています。セール期間中は、下記の割引と特典がありますので、どうぞご利用ください。
●セール対象は、Erstwhile/ErstLive/ErstSolo/ErstPopのシリーズとなります。シングルCDは10ドル、2枚組CDは17ドル、DVDは16ドル。
●上記のCDまたはDVDを合わせて5枚購入者には、さらにCD1枚（シングル盤）無料進呈いたします。（尚、２枚組CDの購入も、１枚分とみなされます。）
●ErstLive005（３枚組）は28ドル。これと合わせてさらにCD２枚の購入者には、CD１枚（シングル盤）を無料進呈いたします。
●〈AMPLIFY 2002: balance〉ボックスセットは100ドル、購入者にはCD2枚（シングル盤）を無料進呈いたします。
送料は別途になります。尚、ディストリビューション部門で扱っている他レーベルの作品はセール対象外です。
尚、カタログ番号 004, 007, 010, 012, 014, 015, 021, 031, EL004は在庫切れです。
2012-01-21
■[food] Pasta Tasting Dinner for 6 People
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13715378@N00/6734076747/in/photostream/lightbox/
2012-01-17
■ Photo essay by Hiroyuki Ito (photographer for The New York Times)
Heartbreaking story yet so beautiful, with stunning photos.
2011-12-30
■[music] Best 10 Releases of 2011
1) Michael Pisaro - Hearing Metal 3 (gw 006)
1) Jürg Frey / Nick Hennies - Metal, Stone, Skin, Foliage, Air (L’innomable, 2011)
3) Michael Pisaro - Hearing Metal 2 (gw 005)
4) Michael Pisaro - asleep, street, pipes, tones (gw 004)
5) Michael Pisaro - Close constellations and a drum on the ground (gw 003)
6) Lucio Capece / Radu Malfatti - Explorational (b-boim 025)
7) Dominic Lash / Patrick Farmer / Sarah Hughes - Droplets (at45)
8) Taku Unami / Takahiro Kawaguchi - Teatro Assente (erst 062)
9) Greg Kelley / Olivia Block - Resolution (erst 063)
10) Radu Malfatti / Keith Rowe - Φ (erst 060-3)
10) Graham Stephenson - Defiantly Not (PT15)
■ My Top 10 Highlights of 2011
Live concert of Manfred Werder (stück 1998), Mark So (hedges of understanding [readings 38]), Sam Sfirri (little by little), Jason Brogan (ensemble) at Presents Gallery in Brooklyn NYC (4/20)
Live concert of Radu Malfatti and Taku Unami (improvisation) at The Stone, NYC (9/11)
Live concert of Michael Pisaro and Katie Porter (asleep, street, pipes, tones) at The Stone, NYC (9/15)
Greg Stuart playing percussion at The Stone, NYC (9/14-15)
David Kirby and his sound system at AMPLIFY 2011 in NYC
Making 9 cover designs for Gravity Wave and Erstwhile CDs
Making a chart of 'Hearing Metal 3' (Michael Pisaro)
Learning macaron making from Pierre Hermé's recipes
Oswald Egger 'Die ganze Zeit' (gift from Christoph Amann)
Studio Ghibli box set (gift from Jon)
2011-12-19
■[music] Chart of Michael Pisaro 'Hearing Metal 3'
As my year-end project of 2011, I made a visual chart of Michael Pisaro's 'Hearing Metal 3' from his 64-page score. It looks small here, but actually consists of 30 pages of A4 papers. You can see a bigger version here.
I made the timetable sheets with Excel first, then printed them out to fill the cells (each cell is 4 seconds unit) with color pencils by hand, then scanned them into my computer to patch them together in one big chart, using Illustrator. One thing I could not reflect in the chart was the fact that these 16 players set their cymbals on 7 different materials on the flour - tile, metal, wood, paper, ceramic, leaves, res (drum-like surface) which must affect the sounds of rice or grains falling on each material on the flour - the complexity of the sounds made by the force of gravity, rice or grains and the 7 different materials at the moments of contacts. I may try to figure out how to incorporate that into the chart, perhaps by adding some different colors under the streams of each rice/grain fall. Anyway, it was fun!
2011-12-14
■[music] Gravity Wave - 12/31まで年末特別セール開催中
マイケル・ピサロのレーベル「Gravity Wave」では、12/31までの期間、年末特別セールを行っています。通常14ドルのCDが今月中は割引価格の11ドル、gw 001から006までの全リリース６枚を一括購入する場合は合計60ドルに割引されます。詳しくは、レーベルのサイトで。
http://michaelpisaro.blogspot.com/
* * * * *
ちなみに先ほど、去年アーストワイルから出たマイケル・ピサロと杉本拓の「2 seconds / b minor / wave」(erst 061)を久しぶりに聴いてみましたが、これはじっくり聴くとやはり本当に素晴らしいコラボ作品だと改めて感動しました。来年は、アーストワイルからマイケル・ピサロと角田俊也のコラボ作品もリリースされる予定で、こちらもとても楽しみです。（現在制作中）
* * * * *
９月のNYでの２週間フェスティバルの後、連日浴びるようにライブ音楽を聴いていたせいか、音楽を聴く脳が休息を必要としていたような気がして、しばらく音楽から遠ざかっていた。あれから２ヶ月以上たって、ようやく脳が回復してきたような気がする。数年前にWandelweiserやマイケル・ピサロの音楽を聴くようになってから、音楽への反応の仕方が以前よりも強く敏感になってきたのか、何か他のことをしながらさらっと音楽を聞き流す…ということが難しくなってきた。小さな音の変化でも電光石火のように脳に届くというような敏感な聴き方に慣れてしまうと、時には音楽からの休息が必要になる。９月の２週間フェスでは、個人的にさほど興味のない音楽も、写真を撮る必要上結構聴かなくてはならなかったりして、音楽耳／脳の疲労が特にひどかった。
その後２ヶ月のいわば音楽からのデトックス期間を経て、久しぶりに聴いた音楽「2 seconds / b minor / wave」は、脳の一番奥まで浸透していった。以前は気づかなかったピサロや杉本拓の微妙な音の変化や、随所に現れる奇跡的ともいる両者の（テレパシーでも働いていそうな）音の交流と相互作用に改めて驚かされた。音楽とは、コラボレーションとは、こういう音同士の出会いと関わり合いから生まれる魔術的な相互作用による芸術なのだ…というシンプルな事実を再認識し、感動した。
2011-10-07
■ [music] Michael Pisaro / Greg Stuart - Hearing Metal 2 (gw 005)
Hearing Metal 2 is a continuous 62-minute piece, consisting of three parts. Part 1 begins with calm nature sounds - field recordings of water (rivers, waves) and birds chirping, softly fading in and out in between humble silences like ephemeral scenes in someone's dream. The various sounds of water featuring in this section (surging waves, streams of river) are so memorable - these sounds immediately captivated my ears with crystal-clear, transparent textures, without conveying any hint of heaviness or pressure of the real water. Occasionally inserted quiet sine tones, organ samples, string instrument sounds and whistle-like pure high tones create a surreal feel, like fleeting shadows in the middle of sun-lit nature scenes. These instrumental sounds intertwine with the lively, realistic feel of the field recordings, tingeing the nature sounds with an air of alertness and mysticism. In this part-real, part-unreal translucent soundscape, something begins to feel subtly and slightly 'off', as if I had a glimpse of the almost invisible (but surely existing) abyss or gap in between the peaceful nature scenes. The part 1 ends with the clear chirps of a bird, whose voice sounds like a prophet to hint an entrance to another world.
In part 2, this 'slightly unreal' feel (or the glimpse of the abyss) of part 1 becomes the focus, created by the thick layers of Greg Stuart's metallic percussion sounds, and revealing the hidden, massive power underneath the reality of the sun-lit nature scenes. It is a dark world that slowly revolves with the creaking wheels simultaneously with (and behind) the bright nature scenes presented in part 1, while filling the music with a foreboding but somewhat serene atmosphere. These dark wheels feel like the shadow of nature (or the underside of the real world), giving another dimension to the reality. It seems that two worlds of light and dark gravitate toward each other from the extreme opposites, while keeping the perfect harmony without polarizing the whole world in two.
The deepest core of the world is revealed with the thick complex of Stuart's metal percussion sounds, drawing the listener's brain into a deep, awe-inspiring consciousness. The earlier solemn organ sampling (played by Pisaro's son John) in part 1 now felt like a sign to hint at the connection between part 1 and part 2 - the sun-lit bright world and the dark underground world.
This feel of two different worlds (light and dark) moving forward simultaneously evokes in me some of Haruki Murakami's novel worlds, specifically 'Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World'. 38 minutes into part 2, the thick complex of metallic sounds of percussion started to sound like solemn, calm music (perhaps in my ears - though there is no actual melody or harmony recognized clearly), just like birds in nature sometimes start to sound like music when you are deeply immersed in the tableau. Soon after I started to feel I was hearing this calm music in the layers of intense percussion, part 2 ended -- as if its purpose had been fulfilled in that moment.
Part 3 started with the chirps of birds and the sound of winds - now bright nature is back again. While listening to the peaceful sounds of birds in the field recordings, my ears were still hearing the deep echoes of thick layers of metallic sounds simultaneously, as if the two worlds represented by part 1 and part 2 (light and dark) revealed their shapes in front of me at the same time. After these two worlds synchronized together in the part 3 (in my brain) in a few minutes, the music ends.
The concept of two opposite worlds (light and dark) simultaneously existing reminds me of the surreal feel of Pisaro's late 2009 piece 'asleep, street, pipes, tones', in which it felt as if several above-ground real world locations (New York streets, small towns in Europe or elsewhere) and perhaps even some unreal places were all connected through an invisible (or imaginary) network of underground pipes. Also in Pisaro's early 2009 piece 'July Mountain', two different worlds - field recordings (the sun-lit world) and Greg Stuart's percussion sounds (the dark shadow world) - were moving forward simultaneously while intertwining with each other to form one whole entity, never violating or crushing the other end of the extreme at all. This concept of two opposite worlds consisted of completely different materials (e.g., nature and metallic instruments) co-existing and creating a perfect balance and harmony seems to be one of Pisaro's significant achievements in his recent works. This sense of separation and unity co-existing in parallel is created in Hearing Metal 2 as well - in a more epiphanic way affecting the listener's subconsciousness. Hearing Metal 2 contains a similar concept as the aforementioned two pieces, but in a further developed, focused, more powerful form operating at a deeper level.
(7/31/2011)
