夢枯記043 Werner Dafeldecker | long dead machines I–IX
17 06. 15 10:18 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Werner Dafeldecker
contrabass solo／cd／prestorecords／2008
http://www.dafeldecker.net
タイトルが「Long dead machines」とあるが、ほぼ楽器をわずかに叩いたりこするだけの音だけで、たぶん弓だろうが木の棒切れがベース胴体をさまざまに当てこするような、機械的な音がただ単調に展開されていく。無機質な繰り返されるベース胴体の音のまま途切れるように終わるから、どこかしら不安になるような消化しきれないものが残る。この後味の悪さ、気持ち悪さのようなものは意味付けしないほうが良いような気もするが、人間は漠たる不安を直視できないと、何かしら言葉で意味づけしないといられないところもある。そういう空の宙づり状態に立ち止まっておくこともまた難しい。ややもするとこうして書き始めたワープロのキーボードを叩く音の方がまだ人間らしく聞こえてくる気も…
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http://www.dafeldecker.net
タイトルが「Long dead machines」とあるが、ほぼ楽器をわずかに叩いたりこするだけの音だけで、たぶん弓だろうが木の棒切れがベース胴体をさまざまに当てこするような、機械的な音がただ単調に展開されていく。無機質な繰り返されるベース胴体の音のまま途切れるように終わるから、どこかしら不安になるような消化しきれないものが残る。この後味の悪さ、気持ち悪さのようなものは意味付けしないほうが良いような気もするが、人間は漠たる不安を直視できないと、何かしら言葉で意味づけしないといられないところもある。そういう空の宙づり状態に立ち止まっておくこともまた難しい。ややもするとこうして書き始めたワープロのキーボードを叩く音の方がまだ人間らしく聞こえてくる気も…
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夢枯記042 Peter Ind & Rufus Reid ｜ Alone Together
25 02. 15 15:30 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Peter Ind & Rufus Reid
contrabass, duo／cd／wave records／1998
http://www.peterind.com
http://rufusreid.com
毎日車で通る木曽川堤防沿い、道端の梅の花が徐々に開花してきている。毎日通りかかるとどうしてか無性に嬉しい。世界情勢が暗い闇に放り込まれていくなか、花のさく生き生きとした変化を感じるだけで満たされてくる、そんな気持ちになる。国内でも、健康状態もすぐれないだろう政治的リーダーの心的陶酔にもみえる暴走を、その近傍すらもが見て見ぬふりをしているようにしかみえない。ふだん以上に無力感を感じているいま、それでもおずおずと、久しぶりにコレクションから何か聴きたくなったのには少しでも意味があるのだろうか。なぜ音楽はあるのだろうかとあらためて思ってみても、以前ほど考えが浮かんでこないし進まない。想像しうる音、予定調和的な音楽には驚きもないが、かといって新しい音を求めているというわけでもない。ミズンの「歌うネアンデルタール人」のように、音楽が言葉以前に体に織り込まれているものであるとすれば、音楽を言葉で照射することもないようにも思えてきて、気が少し楽にもなる…もっと読む... Read more...
http://www.peterind.com
http://rufusreid.com
毎日車で通る木曽川堤防沿い、道端の梅の花が徐々に開花してきている。毎日通りかかるとどうしてか無性に嬉しい。世界情勢が暗い闇に放り込まれていくなか、花のさく生き生きとした変化を感じるだけで満たされてくる、そんな気持ちになる。国内でも、健康状態もすぐれないだろう政治的リーダーの心的陶酔にもみえる暴走を、その近傍すらもが見て見ぬふりをしているようにしかみえない。ふだん以上に無力感を感じているいま、それでもおずおずと、久しぶりにコレクションから何か聴きたくなったのには少しでも意味があるのだろうか。なぜ音楽はあるのだろうかとあらためて思ってみても、以前ほど考えが浮かんでこないし進まない。想像しうる音、予定調和的な音楽には驚きもないが、かといって新しい音を求めているというわけでもない。ミズンの「歌うネアンデルタール人」のように、音楽が言葉以前に体に織り込まれているものであるとすれば、音楽を言葉で照射することもないようにも思えてきて、気が少し楽にもなる…もっと読む... Read more...
夢枯記041 Robert Black (Giacinto Scelsi) ｜ The Works for Double Bass
16 11. 14 08:59 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Robert Black
contrabass, cello, harp & tam-tam／cd／mode records／2007
http://www.robertblack.org
【Yumegareki 041】
"Utsukushii" music. From the darkness, a monk’s voice can be hard. Dewdrops of the mist that illuminate particles of a light imply the holy mountain peak. The evening sun is dazzling my ears. My skin is trembling. My reflection on the window is vague, melting me down. An intense light from the setting sun pierces into my eyes, whereas the silence enfolds and holds the faint playfulness of a light wave and the granulation of a sound stream. In a vivid but subtle movement of a sound, phonetic atoms are collapsing and converging, allowing the origin itself to become blur. Without realizing it, the air has changed. Just like the way the autumn is about to pass away, the time has already started to tick. A faint light created within a buried self-emitting light begins to change the color. It's a journey of light, swirling within the sound and breaking away from it. It's a music of a path created by the changing light.
Scelsi’s music is far more poetic than a pursuit of the tone of sound. Scelsi exists in the darkness of the world. If someone's voice, which depicts the moments of mutation, change and transition, is the invisible history to be heard, rather than the one expressed as a culmination of wisdom or political sediments, then, the music should live the moment within the time of history through sound, connecting directly to the origin itself. It appears that Scelsi tries to be the existence of time in another dimension, detaching himself from the visualized history. This is how Scelsi seems to sense an intense light in the sound. His music glows as if it had existed in time even before the sound started, gradually and abruptly falling down into the blackhall-like darkness.
I wonder if it is possible to express or define an amazing music with a single word, although it is impossible for a music made of simple words to shake me. When an experience of feeling a light, which exists neither within nor outside of me, suddenly comes to me, puts me in a total darkness and touches my skin to arouse a sense of fear, I am urged to express my feeling with a word, "Utsukushii." For Scelsi, music might have been a process of exploring a word of his own. His work appears to be a time-consuming impromptu rather than a music of the present-moment. It also seems like a record of occasional and natural memory of the musician. Throughout the album, Robert's performance remains outstanding. The most impressive part is the last piece, Mantram, a short bass solo music. It doesn't say when it was written, but it is different from the preceding ones in expressing the poetry of Scelsi. Although it appears simple, "Utsukushi-sa" of this piece and performance is something almost beyond description.
秋から冬への時期。一息ついてきた感もあって、まわりの光にうながされるようにこのアルバムを久しぶりにきいた。うつくしい音楽。僧侶の声がする。光の粒までを照らす霧の露は山頂の華厳を暗示し、西日の閃光に耳が眩まされる。皮膚は震え、窓にうつされた朧げな私が溶けだす。強烈な斜陽がこの目に差し込んで、静寂が光の波の微かな戯れと音の気流の粒立ちを支えている。一つの音の強烈で微細な運動のなかで、音原子が崩壊し合わさりながら、始原が滲んでくる。いつの間にか空気が変化しすでに秋が過ぎ去ろうとしている、このいまのように、時間はもうはじまっている。光の旅。ビックバン。埋もれた自明の光のうちに生じた微光が、徐々に色を変えながら、音のなかに渦巻いては立ち去っていく…
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http://www.robertblack.org
【Yumegareki 041】
"Utsukushii" music. From the darkness, a monk’s voice can be hard. Dewdrops of the mist that illuminate particles of a light imply the holy mountain peak. The evening sun is dazzling my ears. My skin is trembling. My reflection on the window is vague, melting me down. An intense light from the setting sun pierces into my eyes, whereas the silence enfolds and holds the faint playfulness of a light wave and the granulation of a sound stream. In a vivid but subtle movement of a sound, phonetic atoms are collapsing and converging, allowing the origin itself to become blur. Without realizing it, the air has changed. Just like the way the autumn is about to pass away, the time has already started to tick. A faint light created within a buried self-emitting light begins to change the color. It's a journey of light, swirling within the sound and breaking away from it. It's a music of a path created by the changing light.
Scelsi’s music is far more poetic than a pursuit of the tone of sound. Scelsi exists in the darkness of the world. If someone's voice, which depicts the moments of mutation, change and transition, is the invisible history to be heard, rather than the one expressed as a culmination of wisdom or political sediments, then, the music should live the moment within the time of history through sound, connecting directly to the origin itself. It appears that Scelsi tries to be the existence of time in another dimension, detaching himself from the visualized history. This is how Scelsi seems to sense an intense light in the sound. His music glows as if it had existed in time even before the sound started, gradually and abruptly falling down into the blackhall-like darkness.
I wonder if it is possible to express or define an amazing music with a single word, although it is impossible for a music made of simple words to shake me. When an experience of feeling a light, which exists neither within nor outside of me, suddenly comes to me, puts me in a total darkness and touches my skin to arouse a sense of fear, I am urged to express my feeling with a word, "Utsukushii." For Scelsi, music might have been a process of exploring a word of his own. His work appears to be a time-consuming impromptu rather than a music of the present-moment. It also seems like a record of occasional and natural memory of the musician. Throughout the album, Robert's performance remains outstanding. The most impressive part is the last piece, Mantram, a short bass solo music. It doesn't say when it was written, but it is different from the preceding ones in expressing the poetry of Scelsi. Although it appears simple, "Utsukushi-sa" of this piece and performance is something almost beyond description.
秋から冬への時期。一息ついてきた感もあって、まわりの光にうながされるようにこのアルバムを久しぶりにきいた。うつくしい音楽。僧侶の声がする。光の粒までを照らす霧の露は山頂の華厳を暗示し、西日の閃光に耳が眩まされる。皮膚は震え、窓にうつされた朧げな私が溶けだす。強烈な斜陽がこの目に差し込んで、静寂が光の波の微かな戯れと音の気流の粒立ちを支えている。一つの音の強烈で微細な運動のなかで、音原子が崩壊し合わさりながら、始原が滲んでくる。いつの間にか空気が変化しすでに秋が過ぎ去ろうとしている、このいまのように、時間はもうはじまっている。光の旅。ビックバン。埋もれた自明の光のうちに生じた微光が、徐々に色を変えながら、音のなかに渦巻いては立ち去っていく…
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夢枯記040 Paul Rogers ｜ Being
05 10. 14 09:21 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Paul Rogers
contrabass solo／cd／amor fati／2007
【Yumegareki 040】
Listening to the impromptu live performance titled “Being,” I was spontaneously thinking back on Chuang Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, who pursued the concept of “naturalness and nonaction”. He viewed things with relative magnitudes. As seen in his famous “the dream of the butterfly,” we can imagine that he entered the world consisted of both reality and dream, or nature and natural. Listening to Paul’s improvised sounds from afar, I felt a difference from myself.
Pascal Quignard, a French writer and musician, said that any artist must agree to abandon his/her life and that there is no difference in your capabilities of performing, creating, exposing yourself and dying in public. His words make me wonder what “Being” really means in terms of playing music. It raises a question of what constitutes the act of performance, rather than how to perform. It also asks about our body which is closely related to life and death. According to Chuang Tzu, a wind reverberates in a myriad of caves, but the wind itself has no sound. The caves represent the performers and the body of the performers is a shield, blocking the wind of death and creating sounds.
Our bodies always send something to the world and engage in creative activities. If this is true, the awareness of being myself and the consciousness of my sound are detached from me when I close my eyes and try to listen. Then some unexpected association and miracle may happen through my body. The sound carrying the invisible miracle doesn’t exist in the sound I made. Nor does the sound have me inside. I wonder whether listening to the wind of nature, exposing myself to the big wave of inaudible sound, facing our own death and asking about it, can be the art of creation. Asking about “Being” may go beyond the boundary of improvisation, continue to create "being" and exist as the source of creation.
残念なことに、いま腰痛があって、仕事に出かけてかえってくるのがやっとの体だ。身体を休息するための休みは貴重だと感じる。ときどき身体を動かす度に痛みが水を差すようにおとずれ、聴くのに最低限必要な身体感覚すらをも妨げてくる。いまは身体に不要な音をできるだけ聴きたくはないとどこかで感じているらしい。あるいはそれはまた、いま何かを聴こうとできる状況ではないということなのかもしれない。ただ救われるのは遠くから聞こえてくる近所の自然な音だ。無理をして聴くという行為がせっかくの音楽自身を死なせてしまうこともあるだろうが、こんな状況でも一枚のベースソロアルバムを聴こうとする自分がいるのもまた、いまの僕自身の自然なのだと、なんとか無理をして言ってみたい。荘子の有名な『渾沌』の項にあるように、そこにある作品に外部から不要な穴をあければ、その作為によってあるがままの作品は死んでしまうだろう。「Being」…もっと読む... Read more...
【Yumegareki 040】
Listening to the impromptu live performance titled “Being,” I was spontaneously thinking back on Chuang Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, who pursued the concept of “naturalness and nonaction”. He viewed things with relative magnitudes. As seen in his famous “the dream of the butterfly,” we can imagine that he entered the world consisted of both reality and dream, or nature and natural. Listening to Paul’s improvised sounds from afar, I felt a difference from myself.
Pascal Quignard, a French writer and musician, said that any artist must agree to abandon his/her life and that there is no difference in your capabilities of performing, creating, exposing yourself and dying in public. His words make me wonder what “Being” really means in terms of playing music. It raises a question of what constitutes the act of performance, rather than how to perform. It also asks about our body which is closely related to life and death. According to Chuang Tzu, a wind reverberates in a myriad of caves, but the wind itself has no sound. The caves represent the performers and the body of the performers is a shield, blocking the wind of death and creating sounds.
Our bodies always send something to the world and engage in creative activities. If this is true, the awareness of being myself and the consciousness of my sound are detached from me when I close my eyes and try to listen. Then some unexpected association and miracle may happen through my body. The sound carrying the invisible miracle doesn’t exist in the sound I made. Nor does the sound have me inside. I wonder whether listening to the wind of nature, exposing myself to the big wave of inaudible sound, facing our own death and asking about it, can be the art of creation. Asking about “Being” may go beyond the boundary of improvisation, continue to create "being" and exist as the source of creation.
残念なことに、いま腰痛があって、仕事に出かけてかえってくるのがやっとの体だ。身体を休息するための休みは貴重だと感じる。ときどき身体を動かす度に痛みが水を差すようにおとずれ、聴くのに最低限必要な身体感覚すらをも妨げてくる。いまは身体に不要な音をできるだけ聴きたくはないとどこかで感じているらしい。あるいはそれはまた、いま何かを聴こうとできる状況ではないということなのかもしれない。ただ救われるのは遠くから聞こえてくる近所の自然な音だ。無理をして聴くという行為がせっかくの音楽自身を死なせてしまうこともあるだろうが、こんな状況でも一枚のベースソロアルバムを聴こうとする自分がいるのもまた、いまの僕自身の自然なのだと、なんとか無理をして言ってみたい。荘子の有名な『渾沌』の項にあるように、そこにある作品に外部から不要な穴をあければ、その作為によってあるがままの作品は死んでしまうだろう。「Being」…もっと読む... Read more...
夢枯記039 Morgan Guberman | Hamadryas Baboon
31 08. 14 17:36 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Morgan Guberman
contrabass solo／cd／rusted blade music/bmi／1998
【Yumegareki 039】
Relaxing my ears, I open myself to receive the sounds surrounding us. That is to bring up the remaining pieces of our animalistic senses, perceive the sounds, and bring them into consciousness. When I consciously perceived the sounds, they were gone. But then, the silence created between the sounds was filled by the words that appeared out of nowhere.Without realizing it, an enormous amount of time gushes out from here, right at the moment. It makes me feel nostalgic, bringing me back to the distant past. That was when humans began to acquire words by vocalizing the sounds. I wonder what kind of music the humans played.
Music expressed through our vocal energy and breathing might not have any objectives or intentions unlike that of the contemporary world. Voices repeated by animals, sounds in the nature, and the natural voices of human beings must have been combined to formulate the music. I don’t know when the human mind began shaping the form, but it might have started with the presence of music in a form of abundant animal-like carnal voices that were constantly changing or in the group rituals or in an expression of emotion or mind. In old days, a variety of music may have resonated without any constraints of words, philosophy, aesthetics, nor forms. Then, words extracted from the voices might have expressed certain meaning, controlled the fertile music, and confined the innate richness of the sounds.
This album and especially the latter part of voices are entertaining and interesting because it sounds like the voices are passing through the time to become music, just the same way as the evolution of human beings from monkeys. Without going through the filter of our thoughts, it tries to escape from the preconfigured music that objectifies the monkeys via words. I can hear the trace of that attempt. I also feel an animalistic destiny of human beings. It is a kind of grief that humans cannot reach a certain level even with the highly sophisticated words, were it not for music. This album projects directly to our hearts a sense of sublimity that is possessed by human beings as animals through inner voices of Hamadryas Baboons.
In this present time, it seems important to recombine music and words that are detached from the voices and restore the natural sounds. It is said that the ancient Egyptians worshiped Hamadryas Baboons. In a different context, the words, Hamadryas Baboon, may imply a mystic power. Just leaning toward these words and continuing a minute variation of each sound, tone and interval, the spirit of Hamadryas Baboon may emerge in a mirror of music. I am dreaming of the potential of such music, wondering whether modern humans need to feel fundamental and natural music and its depth.
今回はまさしくこのジャケットに共感して選んだ。Hamadryas Baboonはマントヒヒのことだ。古代エジプト人はマントヒヒを崇めたというが、わかる気がする。いまここにいることに相も変わらず不思議な感覚をいだく。これも果てしなく起こってきた地球規模の環境変動と幾多の偶然の結果だ。進化とも退歩とも特にはいえない大いなる変化があるだけで、善悪も何もかもすべてを含んだこの世界にどこか畏敬の念を抱き続けるのはなぜだろうか。環境のバランスが崩れ生物の多様性が失われれば、意外なところから天敵が出現する。人間だけの話ではない。畏れや予兆は本能的に絶滅を恐れたり死を受け入れることと無縁ではないだろう。言葉によって他を傷つけたり傷つきやすい自分自身の内部の、けがれのない動物的崇高性を古代人はマントヒヒに感じ取ったのだろうか。言葉の統制を経由しないような動物的理性や直観をもってマントヒヒを人間自身の鏡とし、世界に…もっと読む... Read more...
【Yumegareki 039】
Relaxing my ears, I open myself to receive the sounds surrounding us. That is to bring up the remaining pieces of our animalistic senses, perceive the sounds, and bring them into consciousness. When I consciously perceived the sounds, they were gone. But then, the silence created between the sounds was filled by the words that appeared out of nowhere.Without realizing it, an enormous amount of time gushes out from here, right at the moment. It makes me feel nostalgic, bringing me back to the distant past. That was when humans began to acquire words by vocalizing the sounds. I wonder what kind of music the humans played.
Music expressed through our vocal energy and breathing might not have any objectives or intentions unlike that of the contemporary world. Voices repeated by animals, sounds in the nature, and the natural voices of human beings must have been combined to formulate the music. I don’t know when the human mind began shaping the form, but it might have started with the presence of music in a form of abundant animal-like carnal voices that were constantly changing or in the group rituals or in an expression of emotion or mind. In old days, a variety of music may have resonated without any constraints of words, philosophy, aesthetics, nor forms. Then, words extracted from the voices might have expressed certain meaning, controlled the fertile music, and confined the innate richness of the sounds.
This album and especially the latter part of voices are entertaining and interesting because it sounds like the voices are passing through the time to become music, just the same way as the evolution of human beings from monkeys. Without going through the filter of our thoughts, it tries to escape from the preconfigured music that objectifies the monkeys via words. I can hear the trace of that attempt. I also feel an animalistic destiny of human beings. It is a kind of grief that humans cannot reach a certain level even with the highly sophisticated words, were it not for music. This album projects directly to our hearts a sense of sublimity that is possessed by human beings as animals through inner voices of Hamadryas Baboons.
In this present time, it seems important to recombine music and words that are detached from the voices and restore the natural sounds. It is said that the ancient Egyptians worshiped Hamadryas Baboons. In a different context, the words, Hamadryas Baboon, may imply a mystic power. Just leaning toward these words and continuing a minute variation of each sound, tone and interval, the spirit of Hamadryas Baboon may emerge in a mirror of music. I am dreaming of the potential of such music, wondering whether modern humans need to feel fundamental and natural music and its depth.
今回はまさしくこのジャケットに共感して選んだ。Hamadryas Baboonはマントヒヒのことだ。古代エジプト人はマントヒヒを崇めたというが、わかる気がする。いまここにいることに相も変わらず不思議な感覚をいだく。これも果てしなく起こってきた地球規模の環境変動と幾多の偶然の結果だ。進化とも退歩とも特にはいえない大いなる変化があるだけで、善悪も何もかもすべてを含んだこの世界にどこか畏敬の念を抱き続けるのはなぜだろうか。環境のバランスが崩れ生物の多様性が失われれば、意外なところから天敵が出現する。人間だけの話ではない。畏れや予兆は本能的に絶滅を恐れたり死を受け入れることと無縁ではないだろう。言葉によって他を傷つけたり傷つきやすい自分自身の内部の、けがれのない動物的崇高性を古代人はマントヒヒに感じ取ったのだろうか。言葉の統制を経由しないような動物的理性や直観をもってマントヒヒを人間自身の鏡とし、世界に…もっと読む... Read more...
夢枯記038 Claude Tchamitchian | Another Childhood
30 07. 14 01:55 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Claude Tchamitchian
contrabass solo／cd／émouvance／2010
http://www.claude-tchamitchian.com
【Yumegareki 038】
The title, Another Childhood, reminded me of a word, “Infans.” Infans basically means a child before the acquisition of speech, to put it simply. But it may also refer to a child who doesn’t even know that he/she is a child or who cannot identify themself as an individual. In other words, infans may represent an incarnate body. All the songs here are addressed to someone in a form of bass music. A series of musical performance dedicated to someone goes beyond the intention of the performer, having an internal force of the music push something forward and exposing it there. This music seems to sit on the conflicting embodiment of “self” and “infans.” As I listened, I gradually retrieved my childlike innocence.
Children are just like music. They don’t just receive and listen to the music. Rather they are the living musical instruments. In the light that runs through the death, they start singing and keep on singing. They can sing because they live on light, although they are backed by the death. The deadly pitch dark is the birthplace of a song of the music and the song is the light. A ray of light provided by a song infuses life to children and helps them get out of their shell to start walking on their own feet. They will continue to live as long as they can find a single light, a single tone, or a single path for them, and live in the light by believing in it. But we cannot tell when they lose their light. They will develop the ego, or a light of selfhood, which may turn their eyes away from death. But their body continues to exist with a fear to live.
Listening to the music is an experience that awakens something in our memory. This awakened mobile substance doesn’t have a name. Sound can be an indescribable, permeating, and intermingling shadow of death. But a song emerges, being tied up at the border of the world and destined to disappear. The song is the voice of the living dead. Music gets to its feet out of the chaos as a song. Then, the song begins to take steps in the space time. Sound becomes the shadow of the song and the gravity of the sound pushes the song back. But still, the song survives, resisting the sound and creating time. Chaos supports song here and there, trying to screen song and reduce it to nothing. Time suspended by the song’s independent movements attracts a distant memory of vivid nostalgia as an afterimage of the death. Song communicates with nostalgia through death in an enormous ecstasy.
Being a child, I somehow manage to come back to myself. Nostalgia is a vivid and real experience of an encounter with the dead through music. It may be an indispensable experience in our life as it brings up the long-forgotten infans. Nostalgia is a lively physical regression to Another Childhood via song, music and death. It is an overflowing life that resumes living at this very moment.
音を聴くというのは、人間の記憶にある何ものかをゆさぶり起こす経験だ。揺さぶり起こされ、うごきだした何ものかは名付けえない。音楽は、ついには語ることのできない何ものか、死に向かって語ろうとする行為で、失敗を繰り返しながら何かを誕生させようとする力のようなものが音楽には宿っているのか。音楽は音でないものをまとっている。音楽を通じてそこで鳴っている音自体とは別様に示されるものとは、言葉では語りえないものだ。音楽において音は、語りえないものがしみ入り交差する死の影といってもよい。そうであるなら死者を懐かしみ思い起こすこと、ノスタルジアとは音楽を通じて死者と出会う鮮烈な実経験であるかもしれない。ヨーロッパ的なサウンド、その内側に入ることができれば、重厚な音楽だったように思う。ほとんどすべての曲が、それぞれの曲のタイトルに明記されているように、誰かへのオマージュになっているようだ。最も短いPeter Kowaldさんへのオマージュである『Off the road』という曲は、このアルバムのなかで短くも非常に印象的であった…もっと読む... Read more...
http://www.claude-tchamitchian.com
【Yumegareki 038】
The title, Another Childhood, reminded me of a word, “Infans.” Infans basically means a child before the acquisition of speech, to put it simply. But it may also refer to a child who doesn’t even know that he/she is a child or who cannot identify themself as an individual. In other words, infans may represent an incarnate body. All the songs here are addressed to someone in a form of bass music. A series of musical performance dedicated to someone goes beyond the intention of the performer, having an internal force of the music push something forward and exposing it there. This music seems to sit on the conflicting embodiment of “self” and “infans.” As I listened, I gradually retrieved my childlike innocence.
Children are just like music. They don’t just receive and listen to the music. Rather they are the living musical instruments. In the light that runs through the death, they start singing and keep on singing. They can sing because they live on light, although they are backed by the death. The deadly pitch dark is the birthplace of a song of the music and the song is the light. A ray of light provided by a song infuses life to children and helps them get out of their shell to start walking on their own feet. They will continue to live as long as they can find a single light, a single tone, or a single path for them, and live in the light by believing in it. But we cannot tell when they lose their light. They will develop the ego, or a light of selfhood, which may turn their eyes away from death. But their body continues to exist with a fear to live.
Listening to the music is an experience that awakens something in our memory. This awakened mobile substance doesn’t have a name. Sound can be an indescribable, permeating, and intermingling shadow of death. But a song emerges, being tied up at the border of the world and destined to disappear. The song is the voice of the living dead. Music gets to its feet out of the chaos as a song. Then, the song begins to take steps in the space time. Sound becomes the shadow of the song and the gravity of the sound pushes the song back. But still, the song survives, resisting the sound and creating time. Chaos supports song here and there, trying to screen song and reduce it to nothing. Time suspended by the song’s independent movements attracts a distant memory of vivid nostalgia as an afterimage of the death. Song communicates with nostalgia through death in an enormous ecstasy.
Being a child, I somehow manage to come back to myself. Nostalgia is a vivid and real experience of an encounter with the dead through music. It may be an indispensable experience in our life as it brings up the long-forgotten infans. Nostalgia is a lively physical regression to Another Childhood via song, music and death. It is an overflowing life that resumes living at this very moment.
音を聴くというのは、人間の記憶にある何ものかをゆさぶり起こす経験だ。揺さぶり起こされ、うごきだした何ものかは名付けえない。音楽は、ついには語ることのできない何ものか、死に向かって語ろうとする行為で、失敗を繰り返しながら何かを誕生させようとする力のようなものが音楽には宿っているのか。音楽は音でないものをまとっている。音楽を通じてそこで鳴っている音自体とは別様に示されるものとは、言葉では語りえないものだ。音楽において音は、語りえないものがしみ入り交差する死の影といってもよい。そうであるなら死者を懐かしみ思い起こすこと、ノスタルジアとは音楽を通じて死者と出会う鮮烈な実経験であるかもしれない。ヨーロッパ的なサウンド、その内側に入ることができれば、重厚な音楽だったように思う。ほとんどすべての曲が、それぞれの曲のタイトルに明記されているように、誰かへのオマージュになっているようだ。最も短いPeter Kowaldさんへのオマージュである『Off the road』という曲は、このアルバムのなかで短くも非常に印象的であった…もっと読む... Read more...
夢枯記037 Vattel Cherry ｜ Is It Because I’m Black
06 07. 14 13:59 夢枯記 Yumegareki | Vattel Cherry
contrabass solo／cd／commercial free jazz／1982
http://www.reverbnation.com/vattelcherryssoulstation
【Yumegareki 037】
Playing music is, in a way, an act of telling story of our everyday life by using our body and asking the world a question about the body. What impressed me most were the music and words listed at the latter part of the album. They simply express a pure texture of the most important and most basic words for human beings. They can be the sound or words reflecting politics and culture. But at their foundation, all of them seem to be backed by self-recognition and identity. I think music is something that is alive in our daily life. Therefore, the memorable musical words linger deep in our mind. The real feeling of being alive in the world leads directly to the recognition of our existence. Then, music and songs that have been created by taking a lot of time are regarded as the indispensable components in that particular space. At one time, they are the love songs that help share a sense of nostalgia that coexists with a sense of death. On another occasion, they are the wishes for peace, ideal, or the world without war. On other occasions, they emerge as the resistance for survival on a more serious and realistic level and as a conscious expression of human pride. In this way, music is a self-recognition of our deeply rooted existence. But at the same time, it opens up a channel for communication through music. Although music is invisible, it lives by moving through the ruffles of time and space.
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought – Basho”
This is the motto of “Soulstation,” a music group led by Cherry. It is derived from the teaching of Basho Matsuo, one of the greatest haiku poets in Edo period in Japan. Just like Basho lived his life in journey, songs and poems live in human beings. Suppression of songs can deprive people of their identity and even squash them. But music and sighs of songs that are born as a natural consequence of efforts and pains associated with our lives will survive by transforming their forms. When we identify spirits and souls that the men of old aspired for within music, the music starts breathing in a place away from self-assertiveness. When music opens up to the world without losing its identity and linking to the ideas and words of the men of old, the true sense of being alive in this world gets stronger. I do want to believe at this point in time that music is supported by the spirit of people in various parts of the world who are seeking for something most precious for us and by the awareness that we live as human beings. Spirit of music should be open all the time. This should be remembered in this global information society fully covered by this capitalistic principle.
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought - Basho
故人の跡を求めず故人の求めたるところを求めよ（芭蕉）
F Vattel Cherryというベーシストは全く知らなかった。Cherryさんはニューヨークで活動していたらしいが、ネットで少しみてみると、ボルチモアの彼の率いる音楽グル―プ『Soulstation』の掲げている格言とは、芭蕉の書いたこの教えらしい。空海の言ったことばでもあるようだ。タイトルの＜is it because I'm black＞はこの教えの言い換えとも受け取れなくもないし、実際聴いてみると、この音楽はこの教えをよく貫こうと努力している演奏であることがわかる。このアルバムはまるごと、まさにベース的身体といえると僕は思う。決して大袈裟な音楽でもないが、ある種の主張をはじめのうちは感じる。だがその主張は気取ってはおらず、気負ってもいない必然的なものなのだとじわじわと感じられてくる。音量を上げてみても楽器の音や録音自体はやせているようにはきこえる。だがそれは見かけのはなしで、演奏者としての音が太いのはすぐにわかる。こういう音楽は即興とは何かとか、技術どうこうという話を先行させる…もっと読む... Read more...
http://www.reverbnation.com/vattelcherryssoulstation
【Yumegareki 037】
Playing music is, in a way, an act of telling story of our everyday life by using our body and asking the world a question about the body. What impressed me most were the music and words listed at the latter part of the album. They simply express a pure texture of the most important and most basic words for human beings. They can be the sound or words reflecting politics and culture. But at their foundation, all of them seem to be backed by self-recognition and identity. I think music is something that is alive in our daily life. Therefore, the memorable musical words linger deep in our mind. The real feeling of being alive in the world leads directly to the recognition of our existence. Then, music and songs that have been created by taking a lot of time are regarded as the indispensable components in that particular space. At one time, they are the love songs that help share a sense of nostalgia that coexists with a sense of death. On another occasion, they are the wishes for peace, ideal, or the world without war. On other occasions, they emerge as the resistance for survival on a more serious and realistic level and as a conscious expression of human pride. In this way, music is a self-recognition of our deeply rooted existence. But at the same time, it opens up a channel for communication through music. Although music is invisible, it lives by moving through the ruffles of time and space.
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought – Basho”
This is the motto of “Soulstation,” a music group led by Cherry. It is derived from the teaching of Basho Matsuo, one of the greatest haiku poets in Edo period in Japan. Just like Basho lived his life in journey, songs and poems live in human beings. Suppression of songs can deprive people of their identity and even squash them. But music and sighs of songs that are born as a natural consequence of efforts and pains associated with our lives will survive by transforming their forms. When we identify spirits and souls that the men of old aspired for within music, the music starts breathing in a place away from self-assertiveness. When music opens up to the world without losing its identity and linking to the ideas and words of the men of old, the true sense of being alive in this world gets stronger. I do want to believe at this point in time that music is supported by the spirit of people in various parts of the world who are seeking for something most precious for us and by the awareness that we live as human beings. Spirit of music should be open all the time. This should be remembered in this global information society fully covered by this capitalistic principle.
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought - Basho
故人の跡を求めず故人の求めたるところを求めよ（芭蕉）
F Vattel Cherryというベーシストは全く知らなかった。Cherryさんはニューヨークで活動していたらしいが、ネットで少しみてみると、ボルチモアの彼の率いる音楽グル―プ『Soulstation』の掲げている格言とは、芭蕉の書いたこの教えらしい。空海の言ったことばでもあるようだ。タイトルの＜is it because I'm black＞はこの教えの言い換えとも受け取れなくもないし、実際聴いてみると、この音楽はこの教えをよく貫こうと努力している演奏であることがわかる。このアルバムはまるごと、まさにベース的身体といえると僕は思う。決して大袈裟な音楽でもないが、ある種の主張をはじめのうちは感じる。だがその主張は気取ってはおらず、気負ってもいない必然的なものなのだとじわじわと感じられてくる。音量を上げてみても楽器の音や録音自体はやせているようにはきこえる。だがそれは見かけのはなしで、演奏者としての音が太いのはすぐにわかる。こういう音楽は即興とは何かとか、技術どうこうという話を先行させる…もっと読む... Read more...