NO BULLSHIT - A Sonic Tribute to Zbigniew Karkowski (Bandcamp edition)

NO BULLSHIT - A Sonic Tribute To Zbigniew Karkowski (1958-2013)

'NO BULLSHIT - A Sonic Tribute to Zbigniew Karkowski (1958-2013)' is ready for release. It's an audio DVD of 5 hours commemorating one of the greatest experimental artists of all times. The piece I sent for the DVD was made together with Korean experimental artist Una Lee and is called 'MUTATIONS'. It was loosely based on 'Mutation', a relatively quiet soundpiece by the late great Japanese sound artist Aube and by Zbigniew Karkowski. They are two giants of noise music who passed away last year. The spoken poem itself is a mashup of parts of Armand Marie Leroy's book 'Mutants : on the form, varieties and errors of the human body'. For more information about the upcoming release check here: http://sonmarchive.es/index.php?option=com_muscol&view=album&id=4114&lang=es

Pink Floyd @ the UFO Club London 1967 - Excerpt from 'DOPE' by Flame Schon & Sheldon Rochlin.

Flame Schon & Sheldon Rochlin made the delicious 'DOPE' film in 1967 with rare images of early Pink Floyd in the UFO club in London. We worked with this 60s legendary filmmaker on a brand new videopoem with sounds by Una Lee and a rework by Gintas K. It's an hommage to the rippling still Mylar images by our mutual friend, the late poet, artist & filmmaker Ira Cohen. In the end, we made something different...

Valerio Tricoli - 'La Distanza' from 'Miseri Lares' on PAN.

Blood of a Poet Festival - 11.05.2014 - Riga, Latvia.

PARIAH - All my European friends have Asian girlfriends (copy/paste for John Duncan) - video

" it's / as real as anything else / so it's just as absurd to critizice

anyone with such a limit as being / personally / or / socially /

/ weak / "

(John Duncan, excerpt from an interview in the digital version 'MicroBionic - Radical Electronic Music & Sound Art in the 21st Century' by Thomas Bey William Bailey, A Belsona Books publication, 2012)

Antoine Chessex: "Ritournelle Fulgurante (for Leo Mingrone)".

Antoine Chessex: "Ritournelle Fulgurante (for Leo Mingrone)" from Physicofsounds on Vimeo.

Antoine Chessex special on Saturday 3 May between 6pm and 8pm on university Radiocampusbruxelles. Tracks will be featured from the new MONNO album, Chamber Works, Dust, Errances, Multiple (live at Cafe OTO) and lots more... www.radiocampus.be

Monno - III (from 'Cheval Ouvert').

Is everybody already running wild about the new Swans song 'A Little God In Our Hands'? Haha... Me, I'm more impressed by this new album by the combo Monno. Here's a crazy & ultraspeedy track produced by Roli Mossiman, the former Swans drummer....

Mazk (Masami Akita & Zbigniew Karkowski) - 'Not knowing what is and is not'.

'Idioticon' by Kris Verdonck, words by Peter Wullen.

'Idioticon', videopoem by Kris J. Y. Verdonck. The soundtrack is 'Koladé Spirit' by David Toop, with kind permission. 'Koladé Spirit' is a track from 'Mondo Black Chamber', the new David Toop compilation album on Sub Rosa. The original was included on 'Konstantin Raudive - The Voices of the Dead'. A Raudive celebration including unpublished material by Scanner, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky/That subliminal kid, Calla, Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth), Ensemble, Ramdom Inc., David Toop, Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Brett Dean. They have all composed an exclusive piece of music based on the Raudive material. It goes from a close examination of the material itself (CM Von Hausswolff, Lee Ranaldo) to a more evocative mood (Calla, Scanner, dj Spooky). The last piece, for viola solo, is a global homage to all the explorators of the unknown.

Two completely new Sappho poems discovered.

[ … ] But you always chatter that Charaxus is coming, His ship laden with cargo. That much, I reckon, only Zeus Knows, and all the gods; but you, you should not Think these thoughts, Just send me along, and command me To offer many prayers to Queen Hera That Charaxus should arrive here, with His ship intact, And find us safe. For the rest, Let us turn it all over to higher powers; For periods of calm quickly follow after Great squalls. They whose fortune the king of Olympus wishes Now to turn from trouble to [ … ] are blessed and lucky beyond compare. As for us, if Larichus should [ … ] his head And at some point become a man, Then from full many a despair Would we be swiftly freed.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/30/read-sappho-new-unknown-poem-papyrus-classical

'Black Canary' by Chris H Lynn, voice: Una Lee, words: Peter Wullen.

Black Canary from chris h lynn on Vimeo.

The aim of a poet is not to win prizes. To be famous. To be popular. Even not to produce books. That's left for the others to decide. The aim of a poet is to leave as much traces as possible during a lifetime. Like seeds we blow in the wind. Like water we flow in all directions. We project fire. We consume everything before we are consumed ourselves.

'MUTATIONS' by Una Lee & Peter Wullen.

We have our contribution to the 'NO BULLSHIT' tribute to ZK. It's loosely based on the piece 'Mutation' by ZK + Aube. I wrote the cutup poem 'MUTATIONS' as a starting point. Una Lee created the startling soundscape with sounds she found in Belfast. There's a dramatic breaking point in words and sounds in the middle of the sound poem which makes it breathtaking. It's a blast. It's LOUD. It's NO BULLSHIT....

Interview in Meander.

"Een verhaaltje vertellen is een oeroude drift, maar het is helaas niet meer van deze postpostpostmoderne tijd. Om een groot publiek te bereiken moet je nu eenmaal een verhaaltje vertellen. Dat zie je ook in de gedichten van de jonge generatie van dichters. Er wordt weinig afgeweken. Maar ik wil daar resoluut van af."

http://meandermagazine.net/wp/2014/01/terug-naar-mals-groen-2-peter-wullen/

Zbigniew Karkowski (1958-2013)

"Many say they are sorry to hear of Zbigniew Karkowsky's death. I, for one, am not.

I still hear Zbigniew's infectious laugh, hear his voice, see the sparkle of mischief in his eyes. Ripping a poster of an exhibition that my piece BLIND DATE was in off the window of a packed Yamanote-sen in Tokyo, then showing it to a suited salaryman and encouraging him to take his children to look for it in the show. Both of us laughing hysterically when the train was gone.

Zbigniew always seemed utterly without fear. His final gesture, traveling for hours in a canoe into the Amazon jungle directly after flights from Europe lasting nearly 24 hours, to be treated by a Shipbo shaman is perfectly in keeping with everything else he did. All the way, no compromise. His final wish, if the treatment failed, was to be left in the jungle to be eaten. No ceremony, no grave. If it succeeded as he hoped, he said he would bring back stories of the adventure. Somehow, I still expect to hear them.

A Karkowsky concert often meant that we would see smoke rising from the burning speakers of the overdriven PA, fumes clearing the room. As much as he seemed to enjoy it when that happened, frankly I doubt that this was ever done for effect: he simply demanded that his music be heard with the power that he intended, that he himself heard. During a residency, one of several, at The Compound in San Francisco, director Naut Humon proudly remembered that Zbigniew played lower frequencies at volumes so high that they shattered the toilet bowl. Musicians who worked with him often spoke of him with unabashed admiration, said they looked forward to a chance to do it again.

Yes, Zbigniew was often cruel when drunk, plenty of those stories to go around. So far, I have yet to meet anyone who isn't. Alcohol is a seductive, motherless bitch to anyone who lets her have her way. She slams doors of friendship shut and, under her influence, Zbigniew slammed a few more than his share.

When Zbigniew moved to Tokyo, he was fortunate enough to meet Atsuko (I never did hear her last name), who stayed together with him for fifteen years, travelled to Greece to spend a last several days together, saw him off in Paris for the flight to Peru. If she and I never meet, here I send her a huge, heartfelt Thank You.

So today, and many more days like it, will be spent thinking of that laugh, that love of entertaining friends, that cavalier and uncompromising sense of daring. One of the first phrases in Japanese that Zbigniew said he learned was 'Omanko wa oishii' -- 'Cunt is delicious'. Here, too, he was absolutely right."

(John Duncan, 13.12.2013.)

Xopher Davidson + Zbigniew Karkowski - 'Processor'

The whole idea is to play this album extremely loud with ultra powerful loudspeakers. So loud that the plaster falls off the wall. Something you can't do at home, I suppose, unless you want to rebuild your home very cheaply. I played this at low volume. The low rumble caused some anguish downstairs.

Zbigniew Karkowski (feat Anton Lukoszevieze) - 'Nerve Cell_0'

The whole piece burbles away a bit. But when you sit long enough into the music, something incredible happens around the 30th minute. The composition starts to move... Hear for yourself! Not on YT of course. The real thing. Play it really loud so the foundations of the house start to shake... That's the whole idea! Play it as loud as you can.

Favourite albums of the year 2013.

BJARNI GUNNARSON - Processes and Potentials (3Leaves) - Einóma man releases a very intricate and organic solo album on field recordings label 3Leaves.

DALGLISH - Niaw Ot Vile (PAN) - Chris Douglas aka O.S.T. aka Dalglish gets picked up by the PAN label for an excellent and eclectic album.

C. SPENCER YEH/OKKYUNG LEE/LASSE MARHAUG - Wake Up Awesome (Software Studio Series) -Ubercellist Okkyung Lee teams up with Yeh and Marhaug for an album that really has it all, it's funny, it's clever and it's moving.

IRA COHEN feat. TESTING VAULT - Fungoid (or the Multimedia Shamanic Poetry of Ira Cohen) (Looney-Tick Productions) - Dani from Testing Vault took some spoken word tracks by the late Ira Cohen and gave them the shruti or Coil treatment in a very respectful manner, it works and it is a nice tribute to one of the greatest poets.

ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI (feat ANTON LUKOSZEVIEZE) - Nerve Cell_0 (for cello and computer) (Sub Rosa)- This one was lying on my desk the whole year since it came out, I even managed to play an excerpt on university radio. What can I say? The man died recently in one of these human tragedies...

XOPHER DAVIDSON + ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI - Processor (Sub Rosa)- This one too to remember the late great Karkowski.

FRANCK VIGROUX - Prisme (D'Autres Cordes) - The busiest experimental musician of France got it right again with his new album. I wrote somewhere that'Ressac' feels like concrete beats falling on your head. A beast!

GINTAS K - Slow (Baskaru) - Underrated but lovely album by Lithuania's finest experimental artist.

SOLAR BEARS - Supermigration (Planet Mu) - Overlooked but brilliant album by the best Irish band of the moment.

UNSUNG MINDS - Soundpoem Remix Project feat. Tom Smith, Emmanuel Mieville, Gintas K and Dalglish (unalee.bandcamp.com).

"ON THE PERIPHERY - David Sylvian: A Biography - The Solo Years."

http://www.sylvianbiography.com/

Ira Cohen feat Testing Vault - 'But What In Your Other Hand Lies Concealed'

Excerpt from the album 'Fungoid (or The Multimedia Shamanic Poetry of Ira Cohen)' by Testing Vault featuring the voice of Ira Cohen, A Looney-Tick Productions, 2013.