Erstwhile Records
Encyclopedia
Erstwhile Records is an independent record label
devoted to free improvisation
, particularly the electroacoustic
variety. Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999
, and his knowledgeable (but highly opinionated) personality and tastes are closely identified with the label.
Characteristic label artists include guitarist Keith Rowe
, percussionist Günter Müller
, guitarist/turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, home made electronics group Voice Crack
, Jason Lescalleet, guitarist/laptop composer Fennesz, guitarist Burkhard Stangl
and synthesizer player Thomas Lehn
, as well as younger musicians such as clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski
.
With Tom and Gerry, an epic double-disc duet between Lehn and drummer Gerry Hemingway
, however, Erstwhile gradually shifted. Perhaps even more important was the fifth Erstwhile release, World Turned Upside Down, featuring a trio of guitarists Keith Rowe
, Taku Sugimoto
and percussionist Günter Müller
. Rowe and Müller would both become fixtures of the label, and are a generation older than many of their younger collaborators.
Subsequent Erstwhile releases have largely focussed on a style of improvisation which could be called "post-AMM
": slow-moving, often rather quiet, making non-standard use of computers and electronics (such as Sachiko M
's "empty sampler" or Toshimaru Nakamura
's "no-input mixing board"). Such unorthodox electronics are often paired with acoustic instruments, which are themselves often defamiliarizing by use of amplification and extended techniques (trumpeters Matt Davis and Axel Dörner, for instance, sometimes blow their instruments through the valves rather than the mouthpiece).
Sometimes the music can be conventionally beautiful, with almost-orthodox moments of melody and rhythm: releases like guitarist Martin Siewert and drummer Martin Brandlmayr
's Too Beautiful to Burn or laptop artist Christof Kurzmann and guitarist Burkhard Stangl
's Schnee could well appeal to adventurous pop music or "post rock" enthusiasts. At other times Erstwhile's albums can be demanding even for veteran listeners to avant-garde music: Good Morning, Good Night, for instance, by Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M and Toshimaru Nakamura, is 100 minutes of extremely high-pitched sine waves, blips, crackles and snatches of vinyl record static.
The label's output is often controversial even among longstanding fans of free jazz
and free improvisation, partly because some recent releases feature significant editing and overdubbing (both were often looked down upon by earlier experimental musicians who thought that such recording studio antics somehow betrayed the ideal of live improvised music), and also because much of the music released on Erstwhile has left behind most resemblances to earlier generations of free jazz and free improvisation. Regardless, the aesthetic has slowly found its own audience, though as yet there is not even an agreed-upon name for the genre ("laminal music," "granular music," "reductionism," "the new London silence," "Onkyokei
," "Berlin minimalism," are a few of the terms that have cropped up); though "eai"--"electroacoustic improv" seems to be winning out at present, perhaps for reasons of brevity.
The music itself is part of an instantly recognizable, coherent packaging and aesthetic. Much of this is the responsibility of designer Friederike Paetzold, whose elegant packaging designs often entirely forgo details like artist's names, instrumentation and album titles in favour of striking minimalist images (often artworks by guitarist Keith Rowe
, who is also a painter). Critic John Eyles writes, "Just as such labels as Blue Note
, ECM, and Incus
have captured and defined the zeitgeist
at various points in the past, Erstwhile is now doing so. Like them, it has its own distinctive roster of players, its own sound and a distinctive visual style ... No need to see the label to know it’s on Erstwhile."
Unusually, Erstwhile's releases have been issued without UPC
s.
' label Quakebasket, called ErstQuake.
Perhaps the most useful survey of the label's aesthetic and history up to 2002 remains Dan Warburton's review of AMPLIFY02: Balance. http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2004/01jan_text.html
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
devoted to free improvisation
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
, particularly the electroacoustic
Electroacoustic improvisation
Electroacoustic improvisation is a style of music that incorporates aspects of both electroacoustic music and free improvisation.-Origins:Live electronics has been part of the sound art world since the 1930s with the early works of John Cage...
variety. Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999
1999 in music
-Events:*January 7**After eight years of marriage, Rod Stewart and supermodel wife Rachel Hunter announce their separation.**Paul McCartney attends the first of his stepdaughter Heather's first housewares collection in Georgia....
, and his knowledgeable (but highly opinionated) personality and tastes are closely identified with the label.
Characteristic label artists include guitarist Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
, percussionist Günter Müller
Günter Müller
Günter Müller is an Swiss composer, improviser and visual artist based in Lupsingen, Switzerland.Günter Müller is a German sound artist that originally performed as a percussionist and drummer active primarily in free improvisation....
, guitarist/turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, home made electronics group Voice Crack
Voice Crack
Voice Crack was a Swiss electronic free improvisation group. Formed in late 1972 by Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang, Voice Crack were initially a free jazz duo...
, Jason Lescalleet, guitarist/laptop composer Fennesz, guitarist Burkhard Stangl
Burkhard Stangl
Burkhard Stangl is a composer and musician, currently of Vienna, Austria. Using primarily guitar and electronics, he is a prolific performer in the world of electro-acoustic improvisation, having participated on over 50 recordings. One of his most noted recordings is schnee, a duet with Cristof...
and synthesizer player Thomas Lehn
Thomas Lehn
Thomas Lehn is a German-born piano and synthesizer player active in free improvisation and contemporary music.Lehn has recorded with Marcus Schmickler, Keith Rowe, John Butcher, Phil Minton, Phil Durrant, Radu Malfatti, Axel Dörner, Cor Fuhler, Gerry Hemingway and is a member of the electronic...
, as well as younger musicians such as clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski
Kai Fagaschinski
Kai Fagaschinski is a Berlin based free improvisational clarinet player and composer. He is self-taught, and his music has been described as "rooted in abstraction, but with an increasingly insidious melodious element."-Discography:*I’m So Awake/Sleepless I Feel - as a member of The Magic I.D...
.
History
The first few Erstwhile releases were something of a mixed set in terms of the music, ranging from the melancholy avant-blues of Loren Connors to the rather traditional free jazz of VHF.With Tom and Gerry, an epic double-disc duet between Lehn and drummer Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway is an American jazz composer and percussionist.He has performed with Ernst Reijseger, Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Leo Smith, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Ray Anderson, Mark Helias, Reggie Workman, Michael Moore, Oliver Lake, Marilyn Crispell, Christy Doran, John Wolf Brennan, Don...
, however, Erstwhile gradually shifted. Perhaps even more important was the fifth Erstwhile release, World Turned Upside Down, featuring a trio of guitarists Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
, Taku Sugimoto
Taku Sugimoto
Taku Sugimoto is a Japanese guitarist.He initially gained attention in the late 1990s for his restrained, melodic playing, unusual in the world of free improvisation. Critic Bruce Russell describes this era of Sugimoto's music by writing: "Sugimoto is perhaps the pre-eminent stylist on the guitar .....
and percussionist Günter Müller
Günter Müller
Günter Müller is an Swiss composer, improviser and visual artist based in Lupsingen, Switzerland.Günter Müller is a German sound artist that originally performed as a percussionist and drummer active primarily in free improvisation....
. Rowe and Müller would both become fixtures of the label, and are a generation older than many of their younger collaborators.
Subsequent Erstwhile releases have largely focussed on a style of improvisation which could be called "post-AMM
AMM (group)
AMM are an important British free improvisation group, founded in London, England in 1965.AMM have never been well known to the general public, but have been incredibly influential on the field of improvised music...
": slow-moving, often rather quiet, making non-standard use of computers and electronics (such as Sachiko M
Sachiko M
Sachiko Matsubara, who usually records as Sachiko M, is a Japanese musician, but she considers herself to be a "non-musician".She was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997, where she used a sampler. More recently, she has concentrated on music made from sine waves...
's "empty sampler" or Toshimaru Nakamura
Toshimaru Nakamura
Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo.He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar and started working on circuit bending...
's "no-input mixing board"). Such unorthodox electronics are often paired with acoustic instruments, which are themselves often defamiliarizing by use of amplification and extended techniques (trumpeters Matt Davis and Axel Dörner, for instance, sometimes blow their instruments through the valves rather than the mouthpiece).
Sometimes the music can be conventionally beautiful, with almost-orthodox moments of melody and rhythm: releases like guitarist Martin Siewert and drummer Martin Brandlmayr
Martin Brandlmayr
Martin Brandlmayr is an Austrian percussionist, drummer, composer and electronic artist.He is widely recognized for his work in a variety of so-called "post-rock" bands, namely Radian, Trapist, and Autistic Daughters, among others...
's Too Beautiful to Burn or laptop artist Christof Kurzmann and guitarist Burkhard Stangl
Burkhard Stangl
Burkhard Stangl is a composer and musician, currently of Vienna, Austria. Using primarily guitar and electronics, he is a prolific performer in the world of electro-acoustic improvisation, having participated on over 50 recordings. One of his most noted recordings is schnee, a duet with Cristof...
's Schnee could well appeal to adventurous pop music or "post rock" enthusiasts. At other times Erstwhile's albums can be demanding even for veteran listeners to avant-garde music: Good Morning, Good Night, for instance, by Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M and Toshimaru Nakamura, is 100 minutes of extremely high-pitched sine waves, blips, crackles and snatches of vinyl record static.
The label's output is often controversial even among longstanding fans of free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
and free improvisation, partly because some recent releases feature significant editing and overdubbing (both were often looked down upon by earlier experimental musicians who thought that such recording studio antics somehow betrayed the ideal of live improvised music), and also because much of the music released on Erstwhile has left behind most resemblances to earlier generations of free jazz and free improvisation. Regardless, the aesthetic has slowly found its own audience, though as yet there is not even an agreed-upon name for the genre ("laminal music," "granular music," "reductionism," "the new London silence," "Onkyokei
Onkyokei
The Onkyo music movement or is a form of free improvisation, emerging from Japan in the late 1990s. Onkyō places much more emphasis on sound texture than on musical structure, distilling elements of techno, noise, and electronic music into a unique hybrid.The Off Site, a venue in Tokyo, is home...
," "Berlin minimalism," are a few of the terms that have cropped up); though "eai"--"electroacoustic improv" seems to be winning out at present, perhaps for reasons of brevity.
The music itself is part of an instantly recognizable, coherent packaging and aesthetic. Much of this is the responsibility of designer Friederike Paetzold, whose elegant packaging designs often entirely forgo details like artist's names, instrumentation and album titles in favour of striking minimalist images (often artworks by guitarist Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
, who is also a painter). Critic John Eyles writes, "Just as such labels as Blue Note
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
, ECM, and Incus
Incus Records
Incus Records is an artist-owned record label, founded by Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters, specialising in the dissemination of free-improvised music. The first release on the label was The Topography of the Lungs, recorded by Bailey, Parker and Han Bennink in 1970...
have captured and defined the zeitgeist
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
at various points in the past, Erstwhile is now doing so. Like them, it has its own distinctive roster of players, its own sound and a distinctive visual style ... No need to see the label to know it’s on Erstwhile."
Unusually, Erstwhile's releases have been issued without UPC
Universal Product Code
The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology , that is widely used in North America, and in countries including the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for tracking trade items in stores. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item...
s.
Associated festivals
Abbey has also organized the Amplify Festival, an annual series of live free improvisation concerts; a boxed set of recording from the 2002 event was released as AMPLIFY02: Balance; the results of the 2004 event have been emerging as separate releases under the subsidiary labelname ErstLive, notably a continuous four-hour concert by Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura and Keith Rowe (Erstlive 005). In September 2005 Abbey/Erstwhile put on another music festival in New York, this time in coordination with Tim BarnesTim Barnes
Timothy Kent "Tim" Barnes is a Democratic party politician in Tennessee, representing the 22nd District as State Senator since 2009. He is perhaps best known for his primary challenge of then-State Senator Rosalind Kurita in 2008.-External links:...
' label Quakebasket, called ErstQuake.
Perhaps the most useful survey of the label's aesthetic and history up to 2002 remains Dan Warburton's review of AMPLIFY02: Balance. http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2004/01jan_text.html