“Not the first collaboration between Mueller and Kahn, their 2007 tour was based on adapting the sounds of the instruments (percussion, cassette tapes and analog synthesizer) to the various places they touched in those days. An itinerant installation in a way, the sonic perspectives changing from night to night, the physical reaction of both room and occupiers depending on how the performance developed. That said, the CD documenting these evenings is made of five tracks where the variations on a basic theme are reduced to a minimum. The instantly recognizable nervous roar of the snare characterizing many of Mueller’s recent works is always there, its presence felt in proportion to the synthetic corpulence that Kahn brings out together with his customary percussive subtleties, here often overwhelmed by a thick crust of interference and grittiness (tapes are still very useful when one wants to apply layers of blurry lacquer to a composition). There are neither concessions to typical aesthetic levigations nor equivocal winks to easy affordability, this being symbolized by my incapability of decoding the small print in this record prior to finally sitting down - headphones on - and giving full attention to the subplots that each selection presents. That’s right, it took several listens to realize what really happens in the dark corners of this stuff which - if used as wallpaper audio - only amounts to five pieces of burly noise without apparent finesse. The diamonds are to be found in the mud, though, and the hands must get real dirty to retrieve them. Uncompromising material, perfectly coherent with the seriousness of these artists’ incessant research on the disguised aspects of seemingly normal things.” - Massimo Ricci

Some rare goodies are up on the block.

An interview with Robert Haigh can now be found in the Read section. Look for his new CD, “Written on Water” by August.

“There’s a lot I could write about Topography, the most recent collaboration between seasoned improvisers Jon Mueller and Jason Kahn, but there’s almost nothing of importance about the release that can’t be conveyed by its packaging. Granted, you’d have to take it out of its wrapper, feel it with your fingers, tilt it around until the text captures light, and check a second and third time to make sure there’s nothing else in there. What you’d find in the stark white casing is wastelessness, texture, careful organization and a sense of vastness built from the tiniest spaces.

The sounds are all milky white and mostly fluttering. Columns of grain and pop rise from resonant fields and there’s a sense that everything making these sounds is suspended. As the title suggests, the live performances captured here are in space and with space. Rich feedback, the kind Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting In A Room seeks to define, is present and important here, but only as a part of a larger exploration. Throughout, Kahn and Mueller masterfully skirt falling into the wash of sound that might tempt, trick or screw-over less restrained players. They almost do fall, though, and it’s the risk that they might that makes for a compelling listen.

If Topography sounds, for a moment, like a swarm of insects trapped somewhere between your air conditioner and refrigerator, it doesn’t sound like that for long. Not that it sounds much like the synth, cassette and percussion it’s drawn from either. A lone snare–– rubbed, scraped or rattling––constructs the single block of sound straightforward enough to reveal its source to the listener. Everything else is wide open and uncertain.

Of natural concern is the ability of a music so focused on opened-up space to translate well to a closed-in format. In a certain sense, it doesn’t. A bit headphone resistant, Topography sounds best out loud and up loud. Its careful editing deletes any audible trace of a crowd. This creates an interesting tension, because the presence of an audience is somehow palpable regardless. If part of the collective experience is lost on disc, however, an opportunity to revisit these spaces (and perhaps gaze deeper into them) is gained.”

By Sean Schuster-Craig

Check the CD out here.

A selection of rare LPs can now be purchased from our Gemm store. Featuring many experimental, free jazz, and rock LPs from the 70s onward.

‘Topography’ by Jon Mueller and Jason Kahn is a split release from Crouton and Xeric. We now have limited copies of this available directly from us. However, in connection with Xeric, the release will be available worldwide through Secretly Canadian so it should be available from a wider range of music sellers as of next week. In either case, get one while you can.

Thursday, September 11
Milwaukee

More details to come.

A new CD from Robert Haigh is imminent. Titled ‘Written on Water,’ Haigh brings us moments of his early ‘Valentine Out of Season’-era piano work combined with pulsing rhythms created by various repetitive note placements. Mesmerizing and highly enjoyable. More info and audio sample here.

JON MUELLER & JASON KAHN - TOPOGRAPHY (CD by Xeric/Crouton)
It went a little past by me, but Jon Mueller is now fully signed up to Table Of The Elements, so they already released in the last six months eight titles that include his work. Either solo, or with his band Collections Of Colonies Of Bees, or such as here in collaboration with the like wise prolific Jason Kahn. Together they have been on the road about a year ago in the North-east area of America. This CD is a documentation of that tour, spanning five tracks. Of course you do realize that both are drummer boys, but with an added extra. Kahn plays percussion and analogue synthesizer and Mueller plays percussion and cassettes. He places this cassette players below the skin of his percussion and through the rumble of the cassette the skin starts vibrating, making a rattling sound. Over the years Kahn’s playing has turned more and more subtle and delicate and is much drone related these days. His synthesizer hums away, while I could never figure out what he does with his percussion, to be honest. These five pieces which flow nicely into eachother, thus perhaps presenting a concert as it could have been, displays very well what they. I believe this is a microphone recording, rather than a line recording, which adds a certain nice quality to the atmosphere. Drone like, and hardly percussive, but with great depth. Minimal in approach, maximum in the way it sounds like it. Great stuff, but I hardly expected anything different. (FdW)

“Topography merges Mueller’s percussion and cassettes with Jason Kahn’s percussion and analog synthesizer in a fifty-minute collection recorded at various stops on a March 2007 US tour. The duo eschews cacophony in these five live settings and instead opts for controlled feedback and smears of industrial character, resulting in rumbling electro-acoustic drones of shape-shifting character where nary a conventional percussive attack occurs. “New York 1” pairs what resembles the amplified rubbing of a steel drum’s surface with a background howl that slowly intensifies until it mutates into placid exhalations of metallic character. The machine static coursing through “ New York 2” gradually escalates from low-level beginnings to a more combustible and violent pitch, eventually suggesting the clatter of train cars near its close. In contrast to the frenetic city pace of the locales with which they’re associated, the pieces unfold unhurriedly and exude a sense of time-suspension, especially when each is eight minutes in duration or longer.”

Full review here.

‘Topography’ will be released on June 17 by Crouton/Xeric. More info here.