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E-mail correspondence regarding the phenomenon of contemporary improvisation (page 1, 2, 3)

Feuld Gaber & Jim Connell, 2006



During the time of this correspondence, participators used widespread abridgement "eai" to refer to recent tendencies in improvised music; this was an informal conversation between the two listeners of contemporary music.




JC, 20th aug 2006

      I'd like to hear more in detail about what connects so-called "EAI" to the avant garde of the beginning of the 20th c. for you, as I'm rather more sceptical (we'd probably agree that there has been no continuity between contemporary improv and the European avant-garde movements of the early part of the century in the intervening period, even through European improv). I'm rejecting here Fluxus, Punk, and Minimalism as "avant garde" musical practices; and the idea of a classical-music avant-garde too to a certain extent, though a case could be made for Luigi Nono, Brian Ferneyhough and Helmut Lachenmann. Though hese last composers sound to me like the dying breath of that tradition rather than a new one.



FG, 21st aug 2006

      I'm sure you've read Russolo's manifesto "The Art of Noises" and Cage's "Credo". What those two strived for--the emancipation and liberation of music, in the name of the music--I think contemporary improvisers strive for also. Just look at those texts; their predictions, demands--don't you hear an anticipation of "eai" in them, ultimately? "New music," which demands totally new ears, and which, in turn, demands a whole new social basis to be properly set and widely disseminated. For it to become a right - essentially, not a privelege... It's the most radical break with the musical past our generation has seen and is the swiftest kick in the teeth for the culture industry and for reified academic praxis.

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JC, 26th aug 2006

      Just as a brief, maybe obvious, pre-amble: the first thing that occurs to me about such a history is whether you think it's the particular recordings or performances that are the principal force of musical change or whether it's the result of wider social factors. By saying "such and such a thing happened in such a year" (i.e. MIMEO did that, or Malfatti released that, etc.), it's easy to overlook the fact that musicians often start playing something similar at the same time, despite being  completely unaware of each other. They might be reacting to the same musical climate generally, for instance. So I think the facts as you suggest them here depend far too much on supposedly important recordings, groups, and concerts. (Though I agree they're the only way to document this history as it's unfolding.) But it's important that these two facts not be confused.

On 24th Aug 2006, at 16:56, FG wrote:
 "[...] well, for me, this area of music, whatever you want to call it, is basically defined as the results of the introduction of the Tokyo 'onkyo' (another bad term) crew to the Euro free improv world around 1998 or 1999, and the various widening repercussions from that interaction." this was said couple of months ago some other place...

      But to what extent were these two strands beginning to operate along similar lines anyway before this "introduction"? For instance, The News from the Shed group (1989), with Malfatti, already seemed to be anticipating future tendencies (as John Butcher has said himself since); and this long before any introduction to Japanese improvisers, most of whom weren't prominent as early as 1989 anyway. And, of course, many of the tendencies are already present in AMM around that time (i.e by the late 80s), in recording such as the "Inexhaustible Document" (1987).

"I just cannot agree with this (although there are elements of truth in it) because of two ensembles:
firstly, the Beinhaltung group, which consisted of Radu Malfatti, Thomas Lehn and Phil Durrant , and which had its first gig in 1996--specifically, 10 December in Bremen."

      But I see this anticipation of future tendencies in groups much earlier than this. Something else that should be mentioned is the influence Lachenmann had on Phil Durrant and Mark Wastell; they acknowledge their indebtedness to Lachenmann's cello piece "Pression", for instance. So, as you might imagine, I see the development of musical style and of aesthetic sensibilities to be much more evolutionary, rather than the sudden bursts and jolts that you suggest (although, naturally, there is an element of this as well). Placing too much emphasis on the supposed landmark events in the development of style and ideas just doesn't ring true to me--especially as musicians in this new area may not have even heard those gigs or recordings at all.

"Secondly, the Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra, which was formed as early as 1997, and which was consciously assembled from experimental musicians working with electronics"

      In choosing this group of musicians I can see again the great emphasis you place on the electronic/laptop side of things. It's worth remembering that much of the musical style currently favoured in improvised music now was evident in acoustic groups: for instance, the "microscopic" music of IST and the Durrant/Russell/Butcher trio. And there are even earlier convergences of electronics and acoustic instruments, from the early 80s on, in, for example, Nono's music. Though of course this was done in a classical rather than an "experimental" milieu

"There's also the Polwechsel ensemble, which was formed by Malfatti and Werner Dafeldecker, and which issued its first album in 1993, shortly after Malfatti joined the Wandelweiser group - and that fact can be clearly heard in the ensemble's insistence on micro-precision and on periods of silence..."

      I think these elements are already there to a certain extent in AMM by this time, and even earlier. And the use of silence is an extremely prominent feature in Nono's msuic from 80s onwards (pieces too numerous to mention). So I think too much imporatance is attaching to your fixatation on this 1993 album.

"...ancient legend says that Radu Malfatti introduced the "aesthetics of silence" to improvised music after his tenure in Wandelweiser group, a group of contemporary composers dedicated to musical investigation of silence, under the influence of John Cage, who really is one of the greatest individual influences on this music"

      I think this is too simplistic, really. Such concerns were in the air much earlier than Malfatti. They were certainly there in composed music, as you suggest, which improvising musicians are certainly aware of also. So I can't agree that any one person "introduced" it. What would that even mean anyway? I'm aware of the necessity of simplifying musical development to discuss them, but the "legend" here is exactly that: a legend.

"...everything Malfatti had to say on his musical positions was said in interview with Dan Warburton although I'm not thoroughly happy with that interview, it has raised some significant points; it could be a sort of manifesto for "eai", but I think it overlooks certain parts."

      I think the interview is interesting to the extent that he requires (maybe in an exaggerated fashion) music to "push forward" and not "stagnate", even with all the immense historical weight on the musicians' shoulders. It does suggest that each new piece has to re-invent the wheel, something I'd consider unlikely (in the extreme). I'd be tempted too to connect his worries about "stagnation" to the rush for novelty as demanded by labels, magazines and "enlightened consumers." Fears about artistic stagnation (which musicians and audiences might have) are, in my mind, not unconnected to fears about financial stagnation (those of the recording and distributing branches of this music). Rapid artistic "progression" can be easily aligned with the journalist's keen ear for "novelty", for anticipating "the next big thing", or being the first to uncover a new "scene."

"in any case, Malfatti's innovations though Polwechsel and his solo work raised some interest throughout Europe..."

      Yes, agreed.

"in any ensemble he played (Polwechsel, Beinhaltung, King Ubu Orch...) he left a permament mark... I also think we have Malfatti to 'thank' for pointing out the way for the whole generation of free improvisers..."

      This I can't agree with, again because it places too much weight on the supposed influence of one person. There are countless other musicians who have contributed also. Butcher in England in various groups seems a huge influence. Paul Rutherford's trombone as early as the 70s (if we're really talking "generations" here, on, say, "Gentle Harm of the Bourgeoisie") left its mark on future reducing/dismantling tendencies, I would say.  Of course, this was nowhere near as extreme as Malfatti would evenetually take it—just  that his approach didn't emerge "out of nowhere".

"I think that his 'extended techniques' on trombone and stripping the sound bare naked ('reductionism') influenced greatly people like Axel Dorner, John Butcher, Franz Hautzinger, Michael Doneda, Robin Hayward..."

      "Extended techniques" on the trombone have a long history. Hayward (long before he moved) and Butcher would have known Rutherford's work.

"...for this acoustic side of free improvisation in Europe, Malfatti's stances and practice are, in my opinion, key parameters..."

      Maybe, yes...

"Keith Rowe is another key figure - as we know, the core of MIMEO was made up of a few European improvisers dealing with electronics (Rowe, Durrant, Lehn, Noetinger, Prins...) and the two most renowned figures of the glitch movement, Viennese laptopers - Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) and Christian Fennesz.. Historically, Keith Rowe maybe played the most influental role in the process of creation of what is now called "eai", because I think he was the prime catalyst in getting MIMEO together..."

      If you're drawing attention with this example to the incorporation of electronics, they're there on "The Crypt", although naturally "primitive" by today's standards.. Tony Oxley and the Parker/Lytton duos of the early 70s seem like early examples of just such a convergence also. More so, in fact, as the electronics in those earlier cases are approached often with a more improvising attitude than in MIMEO, which can sometimes, maybe unavoidably, be a total mess. And it often uncritically draws in "electronica" styles of music, too.

"We all know that AMM's "laminal music" and its principles (the focus on texturization, vertical parameters of music, continous sounds, small gestures, the negation of "ego" in all spheres...) are the key aesthetic parameters for today's "eai" music. In fact, I think that the most appropriate name for this music would be "laminal music", and later on I will expand on that idea..."

      I'd say it's inappropraite to the extent that it's a scientific term not in common usage. No name is necessary other than "improvised music"; in my opinion, if it is indeed so, as no particular (temporary) stylistic features attach to it.

"Although, it's quite clear that Keith Rowe had his vision of sound as early as the first days in AMM. When he recorded the album "Weather Sky" with Nakamura in 2001 he said that the music presented on that album was "something he wanted to do for the last 30 years, but he had no-one to do it with"...poetic as Keith Rowe may be sometimes, I ask myself why MIMEO wasn't so good in his opinion.."

      The reasons (to me) are fairly obvious: the resulting undifferentiated mess was a disaster in most cases, on record and in performance. The exception to this, for me, is the Hands of Caravaggio, which is the only one that succeded in its aim of combining in a fruitful way acoustic and electronic elements.

"It brings us close to Rowe's desire, and that is creation of music cleaned of tops and bottoms, of easily recognizable sounds, cleaned of horizontal time progression (even in its most abstract sense), of the "Dionysian energy" so much associated with Free Improvisation (especially the branches rooted in Free Jazz)"

      To go out on a limb here, I wonder what's behind all this "cleaning"? Why the clean/dirty thinking!...are dionysisan energies in music "dirty"??? The way you've phrased it would lead me to some very strange conclusions about current trends. [...]

"I think that this wide "abstract electronica" field (including glitch, sound art, lowercase music...) that developed through the second half of the '90s and its progressive sides was first spotted by Keith Rowe in the world of improvised music...

      Yes, I think this is true, but it's something I'm not too thrilled about. For instance, "Cloud" to me sounds like just such a convergence, and I found it terribly boring to listen to. No dionysisan energy, to say the least, or any other kind.

"Here is seen his musical and critical superiority over others from his generation, who would never even turn their head in this direction..."

      I don't know about this. I think some heads would consider a potential convergence with "ambient electronica" to be a musical retreat; its main feature being an abandoning the philosophical, ethical, and musical reasons for improvising. Where it triumphs (as it does on "Cloud") we have a seriously unappealing, diluted, mixture.

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      We disagree again here on the importance placed on individual "great men" to alter musical style generally.

"...Malfatti was largely responsible for this foundation of an almost completely new area in avant-garde music, but I'm not really sure how much he was aware of his own desires regarding the way he wanted to go, almost the same as Taku Sugimoto...my personal impression is that those two didn't quite accept "eai" as a new territory to explore (it seems it wasn't of great interest to them). For those two it was just a sideline stop towards further progressing into un-playing..."

      I think some of their musical-philosophical conceptions about the "purity" of silence over the filth of sound-making led them into a pretty difficult position that was hard to come back from.

"In some weird way, Malfatti and Sugimoto (Sugimoto explicitly) abandoned "eai" after just a few years in it..."

      Yes, their philosophical positions on music demand it.

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FG, 26th aug 2006

      1) I no longer see "eai" as a simple successor of free improvised music. This seems to be a mistake often repeated, even by those people aware of the fact that "eai" developed its language through intercourse with various elements unknown (or heavily overlooked) to improvised music until the end of the '90s.
      I think here we're dealing with a far more complex phenomenon, with direct influences from many tendencies from the last 50 years. I think it's a very valuable fact to consider.

      2) A question would be: how would we draw lines of differentiation between the improvising of Evan Parker and and that of Keith Rowe, aside from immediate aural differences? What would the primary structural concerns of improvisers engaged in the "eai" circle be?

      3) Since I maintain that "eai" is an integral component of the avant-garde music heritage, I hold this to be true: that music under the gawky acronym of "eai" has as its general goal the further expansion of musical possibilities and the emancipation of music making and listening--a broad goal unchanged from the first days of the twentieth century and from the whole tide of avant-garde movements in art.

      4) Improvised music, in general, was always seen, from my point of view, as the "avant-garde's avant-garde". I am of the opinion that improvised music in the last forty years was always on the front line of avant-garde music, and that its practices and methods were by far the most self-conscious and critical in the liberation of the music. This has proved true, since "offical" musical experts, institutions and the culture industry treat improvisation as conteporary music's failed abortion. Improvisation, and its use in music making, is certainly the most radical method since Schoenberg's twelve-tone system, since Cage's reflection on music (especially the use of silence) and since the use of electronic means to produce of sound. Avant-garde music should equally incorporate any new instrumentation or creative methods given to its disposal. Its "job" is to create, study and apply new solutions, and by that, setting new questions to answer. That is its circling, never-ending process.

      Now, if I'd been thinking aloud, I'd wonder about the fact that avant-garde music needed more than a few decades to put some of the above-mentioned features into practical use. Still, if I use materialist thinking, I'd conclude that if something didn't occure in a given moment of history, it was just because certain material conditions needed for that occurence weren't fulfilled in that exact moment.

      5) Two key features I'd like to emphasize in "eai":

      a) a full orientation towards "laminal surroundings" (emphasizing textural aspects of sound, that is, the complete switch to the vertical parameters of music), which, to me, is the best setting for the further development of sound organization; as a matter of fact, the only one possible in the twenty-first century.

      b) the introduction of electronic means, and the use of the full potential given to music by the development of technology, something that people like Cage and Schaeffer, for example, were very conscoius of..

      And now, things are getting quite muddy; how these two notions relate to each other;

      Since we're now deeply stuck, I remembered that I owe you an answer. You remember that I once said: "not to mention that using electronic equipment is no longer a matter of choice, but is almost a duty"? I promised you that I would explain this sentence, and I'll try now.

      As Cage said, as early as 1937: "I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced thorugh the aid of electrical instruments, which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.[...] Whereas in the past the points of disagreement have been between dissonance and consonance, it will be, in the immediate future, between noise and so-called musical sounds. The present methods of writing music, principally those which employ harmony and its reference to particular steps in the field of sound, will be inadequate for the composer who will be faced with the entire field of sound".

      These are great words; short and right to the point; you have in them compressed the whole intention of the musical avant-garde: the replacing of current musical systems (that are rooted in a time far earlier than ours) with new, improved, more appropriate one(s). And you're aware of my position that "eai", six decades after Cage's words, succeed in the intention to completely abandon the past, even its immediate past. Maybe musique concrete composers even succeed in that, maybe Merzbow did. But don't the duos of Marchetti and Noetinger sound far better and more precise? Or Noetinger's duo with eriKm ?

      Cage was insisting on the idea that only developed electronic music can fully emancipate music, and I'm sharing this position. Without discovering what electronics had to offer, and without full employment of their possibilities, "eai" wouldn't exist. And, as a matter of fact, I think that it's precisely electronic gear (its sounds) that motivated reed (acoustic) players to engage in the detailed examination of "extended techniques," directly or indirectly--because electronics, right from the start, widened this "field of sound" enormously, and there is no advancing without broadening the scope of aural potentials. Simply put, electronic means enabled music to be looked at from a different angle.

      "New music," in the real sense of the word, appeared with "eai"--not a single parameter of the past music cannot be traced in it; all are examined, removed and replaced during time (okay, the question remains: "with what have they been replaced?", one more important question). Harmony, melody, time and  rhythm were concepts superceded long ago - but still, some remnants remained, even camoflaged as the most distant left-overs, sometimes more overt, sometimes less so; but music has now fully the right to proclaim that it has liberated itself in totality, in regard to structural elements.Varese's idea about music revolving around parameters like timbre, mass, relationship to space... is now an easily obtainable task

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