Joel Ryan and Keir Neuringer

Posted on February 25, 2009 by John CS Keston

After Joel Ryan and Keir Neuringer’s appearance at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on February 21, 2009 for the Spark Festival, I had an opportunity talk with Keir during the night life event at the Bedlam Theatre. I told him all about Audio Cookbook and he agreed to posting a segment of his performance here.

The performance consisted of two improvisational pieces with Keir on saxophone and Joel Ryan processing the sound in real-time. The sheer breadth of textures and mood produced by the duet made it difficult to decide what to include in this entry.

The first piece was 23:55 minutes long, while the second was 10:15. Here’s a fifty-seven second segment from the first piece that illustrates some of Keir’s unorthodox techniques on the saxophone as well as Joel Ryan’s approach to real-time audio manipulation.

Joel Ryan and Keir Neuringer (Excerpt)

Metamorphoses by Clifton Callendar

Posted on February 24, 2009 by John CS Keston

The opening piece at Spark, Concert 5 on Thursday, February 19, 2009 was Metamorphoses by Clifton Callendar for three cellos, or solo cello and digital delay. As it happens, it was expertly performed in the latter configuration by Evan Jones. The level and timing of the delay made the piece often sound as though there was more than one instrument present, and auto-panning on the delay trails sent the ghost instruments back and forth across the stage. The cellist was wearing headphones, perhaps listening to a click track. Here’s a short segment from the performance.

Metamorphoses by Clifton Callender

Free Turntablism

Posted on February 22, 2009 by John CS Keston

The best way I can think of to describe the work of dj sniff is “free turntablism” as in “free jazz”. That said, like a good free jazz musician, he clearly knows and anticipates every move he makes with precision. His work is more often angular and arrhythmic than not, and was entirely engaging for me as a listener. Currently dj sniff is involved with STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam) as their Artistic Director, curating events while lecturing and performing regularly on behalf of the studio. I recorded this brief segment of his set at the Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis during his performance for Spark on February 19, 2009.

dj sniff at Spark

Michael Croswell at Spark Festival

Posted on February 19, 2009 by John CS Keston

Here’s a short section of Michael Croswell’s ambient combination of french horn and sampled industrial sounds from his performance on Wednesday, February 18, 2009. This was the first “Nightlife” performance at Spark, and lots of really great music has happened since, so there is much more to come.

This is one of the first times I have used the Sony PCM D-50 to record a performance other than my own. What was nice about this instance is that the audience was very quiet. Micheal’s music was quite dynamic throughout his entire performance, but in very slow sweeping waves with few abrupt movements. This recording would not have been possible with a noisy audience.

Michael Croswell

Rhodes Loop from the Nublu Backline

Posted on February 14, 2009 by John CS Keston

One of the nice things about playing at Nublu is the fact that they have a Rhodes in their backline. I don’t know very many clubs that do, and most of the time, if they do they are in disrepair. Instruments in backlines suffer a lot of abuse. The Rhodes is not a delicate instrument but with heavy use certain things break. Most commonly the tines. So I went to the club early just to check on the Rhodes and offer to repair it if needed.

In fact, two tines in the upper register were broken, but fortunately Nublu had a “parts” Rhodes in the basement that had both of the broken tines intact. I quickly replaced the tines and made a few other minor adjustments and the vintage keyboard was ready for an evening of music. Here’s a clip that I created while improvising during our second set to give you an idea what shape the Rhodes was in.

Nublu Rhodes Loop