Browse by Artist: NIBLOCK, PHILL

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	The Movement Of People Working
Label:	EXTREME (AUSTRALIA)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	MC 766DVD

New version (with slightly revised visuals, same video and audio content) of this classic Niblock DVD release, originally from 2003. Double-sided DVD; Total time: 3 hours, 28 min. Features 6 short movies (25 to 70 minutes each), plus separate 5.1 DVD-Audio tracks. "This DVD collects a number of Niblock's documentary films analyzing the dynamics of motion involved in manual labor. The images on the disc are all accompanied by Niblock's own minimalist approach to soundtracking. Niblock started making these films back in 1973, upon visiting Mexico and Peru. It was here that he set out on his observation of the impersonal machinations of work. These films concentrate specifically on the work of human hands, both in terms of crafts, like weaving, and on the more industrial scale of farming, as is focused on by the films shot in Hungary, made in 1985 (the most recent work here). In this Hungarian sequence a man reaps in a field using an old-fashioned scythe: the worker's rhythmic torsional movements are beautifully mirrored by Niblock's droning woodwind, as the composer continually renews his breath and restarts on the same pitch, replicating the visual cycle of unbroken repetition. Later on, we see a close-up of a woman milking a cow. Again, a rhythmic structure is established in both visual and auditory terms. It's pretty bewitching stuff considering how simple the component elements are. In addition to the conceptual success of the piece - which finds Niblock evoking a powerful sense of existential non-movement - he amply shows off his chops both as a filmmaker and a composer. The films here were produced on beautiful Kodachrome print stock, while the music is utterly timeless, the kind of infinite-chord drone work that only the very best artists in the genre can come up with. Magnificent." NTSC format, multi-zone format. 5.1 audio.

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Disseminate
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 131CD

'Disseminate Ostrava': For orchestra; Ensemble OCNM, conducted by Petr Kotik. 'Kontradictionaries': For trio with electronically sampled sounds; The Kontra Trio. 'Disseminate Q-02': For ensemble, Q-02 Ensemble. First Recordings. "Phill Niblock (born in Indiana, 1933) is a seminal figure in 'drone' music who crosses the Downtown and Improv scenes. A characteristic of Niblock's drone style is its subtle, gradual alteration of pitch which leads one to loose a sense of 'time' and draws one deeper and deeper into the sound itself. The remarkable thing is that Niblock achieves this effect by almost always using traditional acoustic instruments. Niblock is an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video and computers; he initially was trained in the visual arts and worked as a photographer; he takes inspiration from minimal artists, including Rothko, Judd and Andre.

       'Disseminate Ostrava': In this orchestra piece, the players read from a conventional score. There is no after-recording manipulation of the material. The recording comes from the Ostrova Days Festival in the Czech Republik, where the 41-piece Ensemble OCNM is supplemented by members of the Janacek Philharmonic.

       'Kontradictionaries': This work was written for the Kontra-trio. The trio (formed in 1992) of Bischof, Mejer and Bachmann concentrates on the sound of low wind instruments. The three wind contrabasses are used as sources for acoustic phenomena. Here, the musicians recorded 'samples' of the notes in a recording studio. Niblock then edited the samples, mode pitch shifts of them, and combined this material in a multi-track score. There is no manipulation of the sound of the instruments, the combination of the different microtonal pitches and timbres of the instruments modifies the sound. The musicians later added 'live' parts to the Niblock multitrack-mixed-to stereo recording.

       'Disseminate Q-02': Written for the Belgian ensemble for contemporary and improvised music, Q-02. The work creates a haze of slowly shifting, vibrating sounds."

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	G2,44+/x2
Label:	MOIKAI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	M12 CD

"Yep, in this day and age, there's money in this minimalism thing. Which is nice for a fellow like Phill Niblock, a man who's been out in the field for over thirty years. While some may be happy to dabble in approximate music, or that only hinted at in whispered tones by those who still subscribe to the idea of the 'tonal auteur,' Phill Niblock makes the very stuff around which this particular world of music revolves. Thusly (and finally and thankfully), a finished record, to add to the handful of other Phill Niblock releases available today. Guitar too for four, you say? Indeed. Phill Niblock has assembled here a full roster of 6 stringers, and that means simply, a lot of guitar players. The project started some time ago, when the original recordings were made by Phill and Robert Poss. These were then made into a 'version' (like a dub record -- dig the crossover appeal!) by Portuguese man about town Rafael Toral. A new 'street-level' version was made in New York, with more chaos provided by Alan Licht, Kevin Drumm, Lee Ranaldo, and Thurston Moore. All of these folks have performed the piece live, and brought the 'vibe' into the studio. The whole thing was overseen by Phil and Moikai head honcho O'Rourke. The disc features both versions of the 32-minute missive."

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Touch Works, For Hurdy Gurdy And Voice
Label:	TOUCH (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	TO 049CD

Featuring the following works: 1. "Hurdy Hurry" (15:20, October 1999; Jim O'Rourke, hurdy gurdy [samples]). 2. "A Y U", aka "as yet untitled" (21:30, October 1999; Thomas Buckner, baritone voice [samples]). 3. "A Y U, Live", (21:30, October 1999/2000; Thomas Buckner, baritone voice [samples and live]). "Phill is a sixty-something New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade-hopping. He says: 'What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly.' The stills in the booklet are from slides taken in China, while Niblock was making films which are painstaking studies of manual labor, giving a poetic dignity to sheer gruelling slog of fishermen at work, rice-planters, log-splitters, water-hole dredgers and other back-breaking toilers. Niblock writes: 'In October 1999, I made a concert at Merkin Hall in New York, as part of the series Interpretations, produced by Thomas Buckner and the World Music Institute. The concert was shared with Ulrich Krieger, a composer and saxophonist living in Berlin. Normally, concerts in this series have two parts. Since Ulrich and I are collaborators for some years, we decided to interleave our works, and also to make a long concert. It was about three hours, nearly twice as long as is usual in this recital hall. I was preparing two new works for this concert. You guessed it, the pieces on this CD. The works are for hurdy gurdy, a stringed instrument played by cranking a resined wheel, and voice. I had met Jim O'Rourke some time before, and had asked him if I could make a piece using samples of his playing the hurdy gurdy. I recorded the samples in the studios of Robert Poss sometime in the winter of 1999. Tom Buckner and I had talked for some years about a possible piece. I asked him if we could do it for this concert. Later, he explained that he commissions works, so that was a pleasant surprise. When we were recording in Poss' studio, Tom was interested in doing some throat singing. I expected to work on these pieces during the summer of '99. I didn't, of course. I didn't start until two weeks before the concert date. I finished the voice piece on October 11, made the hurdy gurdy piece on the 12th and 13th. The concert was the 14th. On the hurdy gurdy piece, we hear only the samples recorded by O'Rourke. In the first version of A Y U, we hear only the original recorded samples of Tom Buckner singing. On the second piece, Tom recorded again in the studio, singing a line along (listening with headphones) with the first version of A Y U, and four channels of pitch shift were added to his live voice. He did this three times, for the entire length of the piece. Thus version one has twenty four voices, multitracked from samples. Version two has an added 15 tracks of the live voice. In each piece, I constructed some pitch shifted samples, and some of them were one and two octaves down. These were used along with the original samples as source material. There is not any other modification of the samples during the recording and mixing process.' [A review by Kyle Gann, published in the Village Voice, New York, November 9, 1999]"

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Touch Food
Label:	TOUCH (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	TO 059CD

Repressed! CD1: "Sea Jelly Yellow" [Ulrich Krieger, baritone saxophone]; "Sweet Potato" [Carol Robinson, bass clarinet, basset horn, and Eb clarinet]; "Yam Almost May" [Kasper T. Toeplitz, electric bass]. CD2: "Pan Fried 70" [Reinhold Friedl, piano]. "In the music of Phill Niblock, we are confronted with the aural equivalent of trompe-l'oeil. Apparently static clouds of harmonically dense material turn out to be not so static as they appear. What's more, one has the distinct impression that the music is changing spatially over time. How is all of this possible? The key is in Niblock's use of time. In his music, the experience of time is as very slow and continuous. There are no disruptive, discontinuous musical events to disrupt the flow of time. Time is suspended. Niblock's music gives the impression of having always been and continuing to be. Yet, this is not the idea of Being as stasis. Each time one feels tha Niblock's music isn't changing, one realizes that it is never the same, an yet, always the same. Being and Becoming as one. Moving Immobility. This is a music that breathes slowly and deeply. It changes its spatial form slowly, as a person who is in deep meditation changes the form of his body ever so slowly as he peacefully expands and contracts the walls of his chest cavity with each new cycle of inspiration/expiration." -- Gerard Pape. "Phill Niblock is a sixty-something New York based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. That's as maybe: no one ever said the history books were infallible anyway. His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. He's even worked with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo on Guitar two, for four which is actually for five guitarists. This is Minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones. The result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you."

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Touch Three
Label:	TOUCH (UK)
Format:	3CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	TO 069CD

2006 release, repressed. This is Phill Niblock's third release on the Touch label. Phill Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V. Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. Touch Three is minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones, and the result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you. The vocal pieces are like some of Ligeti's choral works, but a little more phased. He says: "What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly." These nine pieces were made from March 2003 to January 2005. They were all made (except "Sax Mix") by recording a single instrument with a single microphone. The recordings were direct to the computer/hard disk, most of them using a Powerbook G4, Pro Tools, an M-box and an external firewire drive. The resulting mono sound files were edited to remove breathing spaces, leaving the natural decay of the tone, and the attack of the subsequent iteration of the same tone. Each note was represented by several repetitions, perhaps ten for each tone, of about 15 seconds duration each. Each piece uses a few tones. A simple chord, perhaps. Additional microtonal intervals were produced in Pro Tools using pitch shift. The pieces were assembled in multitracks, usually either 24 or 32 tracks. The recording environment varied from a simple apartment in Berlin (Ulrich Krieger's) to a very large hall used for symphony orchestra performances and recordings, with a sizable audience space. The recordings were generally done quite closely miked. One hears only the sound of the instrument. There is no electronic manipulation in the recording, the editing of the tones, or in the mix. The only changes to the recorded tones are the pitch shifts to create microtones...the microtones are doing the work.

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Four Full Flutes
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 101CD

Here is the complete CD catalog of this superior NYC composers collective label (aka Experimental Intermedia); although pretty low-profile, there are some amazing releases on this label in the spirit of long, droned tones and advanced new music composition. Don't let the title to this Niblock thing throw you off -- this is massive trance music and a key work in the unspecified field of "pure sound". "...adjacent tones beat violently against one another while clouds of harmonics hover above the wavering drone. When the piece ends, it takes the listener a few moments to recover. This physiological experience, when the ossicles slow their vibrating and the membrane hairs come to a standstill, is probably the only aspect of the music not regulated by the score. The four pieces on this 80 minute CD are for multiple tracks of alto flutes, flutes, flutes and alto flutes, and bass flutes, performed by Peter Kotik, Susan Stenger, and Eberhard Blum."

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Music By Phill Niblock
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 111CD

"Features The Soldier String Quartet performing in 'Five More String Quartets', a piece for five multi-tracked string quartets and in 'Early Winter' for flute, bass flute, string quartet and synthesizer, also featuring Susan Stenger (flute) and Eberhard Blum (bass flute)." This is purely awesome drone work and one of the loudest, most commanding minimal works you could ever dream of basking within, even living up to the following: "Dense, elusive trance music distinguished by its singular methods of construction and the intricacy of the relationships of its components with a surprising flux of pulsing adjacent tones which convey a stunning range of acoustic phenomena."

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	YPGPN
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 121CD

"YPGPN (Young Person's Guide to Phill Niblock) is the long-awaited re-release of a 2 CD-set that was a joint production by the UK based Blast First label and The Wire magazine in 1995. It includes the following works: Held Tones (1982-94) Barbara Held, flute; Didjeridoos and Don'ts (1992) Ulrich Krieger, didjeridu; Ten Auras (1994) Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone; Ten Auras Live (1994) Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone; A Trombone Piece (1978-94) James Fulkerson, trombone; A Third Trombone (1979-94) Jon English, trombone; Unmentionable Piece for Trombone and Sousaphone (1982-94) George Lewis, trombone and sousaphone. Phill Niblock and his music have been with us now for quite some time. In 1972 he guided an audience that had come to the New York venue the Kitchen for a concert of his compositions, to his loft... Now, some thirty years later, Niblock's work continues to draw new audiences. What is extraordinary about this, is that the principles of his music have not changed much over the years; that with the long timespan covered by each piece and the sparseness of the musical material and its elaboration, one could be forgiven to think that it is at odds with contemporary hasty tastes. In fact, just because of that, it has the power to draw attention to itself. The apparently immobile string of tones that is basic to his compositions, has a singular mesmerizing quality." -- Rene van Peer

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