“C Spencer Yehchris Corsanonate Wooley” (Used 4 times)

ISSUE Project Room's annual Darmstadt Institute — which borrows the name (if not polemic) of the famous incubator of post-WWII difficult music — runs throughout the month of June, with imports like John Moran & Saori, Terre Thaemlitz (aka DJ Sprinkles), and Jennifer Walshe; Darmstadt stalwarts like TILT Brass, Claire Chase & Rebekeh Heller, and the Wet Ink Ensemble; and some revivals of underrepresented American artists such as David Borden's Mother Mallard Portable Masterpiece Co. and Larry Austin. Almost all of these artists are represented in the mix directly to the right of these words, in works ranging from late-70s pieces by Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co. – one of the first-ever synthesizer ensembles, counting Robert Moog and David Tudor among its members – to an improvisation by inimitable pianist Thollem McDonas, recorded last year in the Can Factory.

We'll continue adding to this mix, as we excavate more recordings from the seemingly endless ISSUE archive, and feature tracks from artists once or twice a week. For now, though, check out the full Institute schedule and, if you're in town, check us out.

I confess it's taken me longer to get this post together than it should have.  I definitely have the holidays to blame, some family obligations, the usual work, the usual play.  But honestly the main reason is that I have been thinking about what to write, and how best to articulate why I am such a huge fan of these three musicians individually, and then why getting them to play as a group on my show was such an enormous coup.  And I think I figured it out.

C. Spencer Yeh (violin/voice) is probably best known as the founder of Burning Star Core, a noise band with a surprising elasticity in terms of sound, timbre, texture, form.  He has played with probably every major "noise" artist you can think of and in weirder situations with people like Jandek.  Chris Corsano (drums/percussion) has been moonlighting with Bjork of late, and has a longstanding free jazz duo with Paul Flaherty that peels paint.  Again, he's collaborated with an enormous range of stylists and kingpins, from free jazz masters to heavy noise blasters, from pop stars to beardos.  Nate Wooley (amplified trumpet) is a specialist-in-all-styles type player who digs Charlie Shavers and grew up playing in big bands, has spent time doing lowercase music, traditional-sounding free jazz, post-bop, electroacoustic improv and extreme/harsh noise.  The three are primetime improvisors, it's the defining element that links all three.  But what appeals to me about each of them is that they don't really "fit" anywhere.  Noise, free jazz, post rock, bebop, punk, scuzz.  If you are to play with them, you are to accommodate them, to get with the sound and discard the baggage, to open it up wide and be humble and just cruise. 

They put in two long pieces. The first was a culmination of a handful of live performances of Nate Wooley's Seven Storey Mountain, a version of which was released on Important Records (with David Grubbs and Paul Lytton).  The second is unadulturated free improvisation.  Please enjoy.  Many thanks to Mike Sin for engineering.

I've upped another long-ish performance, this one coming at you from the Brothers Peeesseye, a duo subset of the trio Peeesseye (also know as PSI), featuring Jaime Fennelly on harmonium and electronics and Chris Forsythe on guitar. They played ISSUE last weekend (10/23) as part of their now-concluded tour.

Peeesseye, normally augmented through the drumming of Fritz Welch, have been kicking around since 2002 and have a pretty sizeable catalogue of cds, cdrs, cassettes, and 7”s, mostly all of which you can grab at Evolving Ear. Jaime and Chris sometimes show up as Phantom Limb, collaborating with such dope musicians as Nate Wooley and C. Spencer Yeh.

This half-hour jam slips back and forth, at a glacial pace, between slow simmer and scalding boil. Builds and unravelings so gradual and mesmerizing that the organic transitions remain nearly invisible – at one moment, clean and minimal guitar figures float in tonal consonance over a warm drone of harmonium; at another moment, nasty blues fragments dig heels against jagged eruptions of molten noise, the harmonium still a suspended backdrop. These moments don’t register, however, as harsh juxtapositions but as natural points on a fluid, timeless continuum that you’re not even aware is being traversed. Worth getting lost in, for sure.