Don’t Use the M-Word [Minimalism]
Original position in magazine: pages 28-29
BELOW are three important musicians whose work you should investigate immediately, and as no decent musician approves the term ‘minimalist’ (who can blame them!) it’s safer by far to say they have absolutely nothing in common. So let me relate a tale. At Art College we had to do this exercise where we were told to colour a large sheet of paper solid black, in as many different ways as possible - magic marker, india ink, charcoal, 6B pencil…then the tutor gathered the pages in and said, see how many different shades of ‘black’ you’ve all created! Well it may not have taught me much about drawing, but it did kinda help in listening to ‘minimal’ music - there’s much more to a ‘monotone’ than you think.
Phill Niblock
A New York composer, whose A Young Persons Guide to Phill Niblock is a double CD sampler on BLAST FIRST BFFP 102 CD (1995). Interestingly, the performances originate from acoustic instruments - for example trombones or saxophones, but multi-tracked beyond all reason and amplified mightily. Volume is the key! The louder you play it the better it is. Unvarying notes generating fields of almost physical energy. The aural equivalent of a huge abstract expressionist colour field painting. Although each piece starts off identifiable (eg as played by trombones), after the first ten minutes the overtones are winning, and something massive is resonating inside your inner core. Horrifyingly effective experiments. Undoubtedly, best listened to in the confines of a New York loft apartment, the only urban space environment large enough to contain the massiveness of these acoustic blocks.
Charlemagne Palestine
Strumming Music, NEW TONE NT 6742 2 (1995) is a 40+ minutes recording of a piano solo. Like La Monte Young, Palestine opts for the luxury of the full size Bosendorfer grand, and again like Young he explores the inner-space worlds of harmonics created by resonating strings. Palestine however opts to do it by using two notes only, which are single-mindedly repeated as a bouncing strum figure for the better generation of these harmonics. The sustain pedal is depressed throughout. And yes it’s all true - you can hear all manner of complex sounds, notes and rhythms that aren’t ‘really’ there, arising in a ghostly presence…as Palestine puts it, ‘complex mixtures of pure strummed sonority and their overtones’. Palestine is an extremely complex personality with his own unique and personal history for why his music has become what it has, linked to childhood experiences of singing long drones in the synagogue and playing church bells using the carillon. His music is extremely physical; you need strong arms and an iron constitution to perform Strumming Music. When you’re dealing with the sheer intensity of his trance piano works, you have to face facts and realise that he’s the only man in the world who could dare to play it. Only Cecil Taylor comes close in terms of pure energy and marathon endurance sessions at the old 88. Elsewhere I have tried to describe the kinship of one man with his keyboard to be found in the intense work of Mike Ratledge and Sun Ra. With Charlemagne there seems to be even more at stake, a real matter of life or death - you receive this quite frightening image of a man fusing with the workings of the piano, flesh and wires weaving together, like some David Cronenburg / Rob Botting cinematic monstrosity. Don’t forget to look out for Four Manifestations On Six Elements, BAROONI BAR 014, which is quite another trip; 1973 art gallery commissions for the Sonnabend Gallery, New York, these are both electronic and piano pieces.
Yoshi Wada
I know of only two vinyl issues, and good luck finding them citizen! Lament for the Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Crocodile (INDIA NAVIGATION COMPANY IN 3025, 1982) rewards the listener with a series of awe-inspiring vocal chants, a side-long marathon for your ears that comes close to delivering the power of a shamanistic trip. In fact Yoshi himself describes something approaching a hallucinogenic state as he stood there wailing his baritone drones against the tiled wall of an empty swimming pool for hours. Just the thought of a man doing this keeps me awake at nights - it seems to knock extreme performance art into a cocked hat, with the possible exception of Stuart Brisley. Good Heavens, can you imagine the vibrations set up in your inner ear and the chambers of the human body through performing this act of chanting? It’s a wonder he didn’t fly away like a helium balloon. If you dare to play this monster at home alone in the dark, I would recommend strapping yourself to the armchair first.
He also produced a bagpiping masterpiece called Off The Wall (GERMANY FREE MUSIC PRODUCTION SAJ 49, 1985), which similarly celebrates and emphasises the bouncing of sound off a solid force - the physical nature of sound reverberating in a specialised environment. And let me say folks, it’s an experience that transfers to vinyl pretty damn effectively - crank up the volume to the nine o’clock position and you’ll find out what I mean. He built these unbelievable huge bellows which you pump with your feet to play the pipes, whose dimensions were more on the order of organ pipes than regular chanters. You wouldn’t want to meet the Scottish chieftain who could actually lift such an instrument. This record is not as frightening as Crocodile, in fact I find it quite soothing, but the uninitiated should prepare for the full force of a massed angry wasp attack.
ED PINSENT