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2LP
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SOMA 039LP
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"To be heard with ears half bent, or with one side facing what Maryanne Amacher calls 'the third ear'. The great reverence in which the Tanpura is held by Indian classical music, its transcendental but occulted place in the tradition alongside its normal function as a drone, made a strong impression on the composer such that it has taken decades to formulate even a simple Tanpura Study. The fundamentals, the Om, as well as the overtones, the music of the spheres -- all these have their valid rights, but in Tanpura Study they are embedded in a series of gestures, what I call signatures, on the melodic level. In 'Tanpura & Harpsichord', there is an encounter of overtones with chords braided into pun-notes, what Gerard Grisey calls 'degrees of transposition'. Taken together, this amounts to a non-spectralism in which, contrary to first impressions, there are no fundamental frequencies, even in the bass. Ajaeng Ajaeng: with respect to European string instruments, the technique col legno affords the direct encounter of wood and string, opening the way to a more tactile conception of the sustained sound, while bringing the materiality of the bow and its practices into question. In violin, viola, cello bows, Pernambuco wood offers an ideal example of extraction, colonialism, deforestation. With the Ajaeng, a Korean musical instrument, the situation is more complex. The dialectic of court to folk music, always political, always incendiary, may be heard here in the encounter of forsythia and silk, of Dae Ajaeng to So Ajaeng, and on a broader level of Dang Ak (Tang Dynasty music) to Hyang Ak (native Korean music) and their representations. Alternating music and sound, overtone arrays mingled with noise, marked by the bow change, in flamelike patterns which flicker, emerge, and fade again. A slow-down structure, also formalized in Time Medicine, seems to produce a long decrescendo, with the technique of the players drawing out the flicker patterns in a kind of game. The point here is not to produce a drone but to delve into the question of life in sound. This apparent emergence of life is due to the apparatus, what Marx calls a 'social hieroglyphic', which brings forsythia and silk together in technique, cultivated by practices which are themselves sustained by the real relations of student to teacher to student..." --Eyvind Kang, April 2020
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CD
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ANGELICA 037CD
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2019 release. As result of another AngelicA Festival production this Eyvind Kang album presents a new cycle of works including compositions and songs for mixed orchestra with Kang leading a large ensemble featuring traditional instruments (strings and winds), synthesizers, percussion, plus voice, and field recordings from Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls).
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LP
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ANGELICA 037LP
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LP version. 2019 release. As result of another AngelicA Festival production this Eyvind Kang album presents a new cycle of works including compositions and songs for mixed orchestra with Kang leading a large ensemble featuring traditional instruments (strings and winds), synthesizers, percussion, plus voice, and field recordings from Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls).
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LP
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ABDT 060LP
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A gorgeous set of new tracks by the brilliant composer and multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang. It took him a decade and a half to revisit the vibe concocted on his masterpiece from 2001, Live Low To The Earth In The Iron Age, but the wait was worth it. It features an array of spiritually intoxicating instrumentation: tamboura, electric guitar, organ, trumpet, oboe, trombone, and Korean traditional instruments. Eyvind Kang on Plainlight: "In 2002 I wanted to make a kind of sequel to my first solo record on Abduction, Live Low To The Earth In The Iron Age. I found that the 'weight' of sounds seemed to evaporate the compositions. The last thing I wanted to make was a traditional shoegaze recording. 15 years later, I had a strange dream: a voice said 'Because a plainlight has fallen in Heaven, heartbreak would cease.' This statement then became a kind of guiding image and method. Thus, with Korean traditional instruments playing the ostinato and drone, things fell into place. I would like to thank all the musicians, Randall Dunn, Alan Bishop, and each and every listener." Limited edition, one-time pressing; Edition of 400.
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CD
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TZ 7013
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Debut album by Kang (one previous 7" on RGI), who plays violin, keyboard, voice, piano, tape manipulations, bass, erhu, harp, tuba, microphone and noise, along with a large accompanying cast. Kang is well known for his associations with the Sun City Girls and has also played with Zorn, Joe McPhee, Wayne Horvitz, etc. "One of the quirkiest and most indescribable of sound sculptures from a new generation of experimentalists. A composition that will bring new revelations with each listening. Kang is one sick puppy." --Zorn
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