Gravity Wave

Announcing GW 007

2012-01-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

The next Gravity Wave release (GW 007) will be fields have ears (6), a 56-minute piece for guitar and electronics. It has had a long composition history, starting from a solo for classical guitar and sine tones (premiered in Munich in July of 2010). It was subsequently performed in Seattle (August, 2010), A Coruña, Galicia (May, 2011) and New York (September, 2011). For each performance a new version was created, incorporating recordings from the previous locations (including parts of previous performances), and other sounds that I began to associate with the history of the piece: turntables, radios, records, field recordings, earlier pieces of mine, etc. The process reached its endpoint in December of 2011 (with me recording all the parts on electric guitar). What started as a fairly simple piece is now a densely layered object, that carries its history on its back like a tortoise shell.

The disc should be available near the end of February.

Year-End Sale

2011-12-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

Starting today there is a sale on all six Gravity Wave discs.

Normally discs are $14 each, but until December 31, 2011 they will be $11 each or $60 for all six (plus shipping).

This sale has been extended until January 8, 2012 (at the stroke of midnight, EST).

If you are interested send a note to erstrecs@aol.com.

Thanks for your continued support of this label!

Zeit Werden

2011-12-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

This performance of my zeit werden: harmony series no. 3, by Lucio Capece (bass clarinet), Johnny Chang (violin), Hannes Lingens (accordion) and Koen Nutters (contrabass) is so wonderful that I thought it was worth sharing on the blog. Hope you enjoy it!

Concerts: October/November, 2011

2011-09-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to maintain something of a list of upcoming performances, especially when groups of them are occurring together, as is happening over the next couple months. I hope it is useful (and not annoying). Please say hello if you are in the neighborhood of one of these!

France/Belgium/England

Saturday, October 8, 7:30p.m. Sonorités, Montpellier, France

I will be giving the first performance of a new piece for solo electric guitar: melody, silence and playing fields have ears (4) with an ensemble assembled by Didier Aschour.

October 12–15, Field Fest, Q-02, Brussels, Belgium

Concerts, installations and talks, along with, among others, Manfred Werder, Annea Lockwood, Toshiya Tsunoda, Eric La Casa, Jason Kahn, Jez riley French and Emmanuel Holterbach.

Monday, October 17, 6 p.m., CRISAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice), London College of Communication

A field recording symposium along with Annea Lockwood and Emmanuel Holterbach (including a discussion of flussaufwärtstreiben).

The Carolinas, October 21th to the 26th

Friday, October 21, 9 p.m., Conundrum Music Hall, Columbia, South Carolina

Michael Pisaro / Greg Stuart, New Music Workshop

Transparent City (2.12)

fields have ears (4)

First performance of The Bell-Maker (performance version).

Saturday, October 22, 9:30 p.m., Nightlight, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

GregStuart/Michael Pisaro and Ryan Gustafson

A transparent gate (with ten panels) performed by Greg Stuart

Sunday,October 23, 2 p.m., WXYC Radio, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The Beckett pieces (8a – 8e), from the harmony series (Michael Pisaro, Greg Stuart)

Tuesday, October 25, 7 p.m. Experimental Percussion with Greg Stuart and Michael Pisaro, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina

Selections from the harmony series (Greg Stuart, Michael Pisaro)

Hearing Metal 3 (New Music Workshop, Greg Stuart)

Wednesday, October 26, 8 p.m., Recital Hall, Simons Center for the Arts, Charleston, South Carolina, Pisaro, Stuart, members of the New Music Workshop (Columbia, SC), and New Music Collective (Charleston, SC)

The rain of alphabets [harmony series no. 19]

This is the longest (and largest) of the harmony series pieces: over two hours, with fourteen musicians.

A few other performances in October and November:

Haptic performs Concentric Rings in Magnetic Levitation, a new, hour-long piece written specifically for the talents of Adam Sonderberg, Joseph Clayton Mills and Steven Hess.

Friday, October 21, 8 p.m., Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago

Sunday, October 23, 7 p.m., Studio Z, St. Paul, Minnesota

Thursday, October 27, 8 p.m., The Wild Beast, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia

Guitar (+1), Charles Underriner, guitar

rapport abstrait (with Brendan Byrnes, guitar), é la fora (with Ingrid Lee, harmonium), black, white, red, green, blue (solo guitar)

Friday, October 28, 8 p.m. Rolf Julius Memorial Concert, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

Works by Julius, Hans Peter Kuhn, Bernhard Leitner, Miki Yui.

First performance of asleep, stream, rice, violin (a ten minute piece for 4-channel audio, including recordings of Johnny Chang, violin and Greg Stuart, rice percussion, and the Big Sur River)

Wednesday, November 2, 9 p.m., Concert Minimal, O Tannenbaum, Sonnenallee 27, Berlin Neukölln

Lucio Capece, bass clarinet, Johnny Chang, viola, Koen Nutters, bass, and Hannes Lingens, accordion, play Sometimes from the harmony series.

London/Wandelweiser

Wednesday, November 2, Poetry as Score, Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, 7:30pm (pre-concert discussion 6.30-7pm)

Jürg Frey- Landschaft mit Wörtern (selection) (2003)

Manfred Werder - 2009/4

Michael Pisaro - A single charm is doubtful [harmony series no.14] (2004-6)

Antoine Beuger - Confidential Letter #7 (2011)

Performers: Antoine Beuger, Angharad Davies, Sarah Hughes, Tim Parkinson, Michael Pisaro, David Stent, Carol Watts and Manfred Werder.

Grúndelweiser, November 3 to November 6, Cut & Splice, ICA, London

Members of Wandelweiser (Antoine Beuger, Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben, Marcus Kaiser, Radu Malfatti, Michael Pisaro, Burkhard Schlothauer, Manfred Werder) and Grúpat (Jennifer Walshe)

mind is moving IX (a short update)

2011-09-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to head to New York tomorrow, for Amplify11 and the Gravity Wave mini-festival at The Stone.

On Wednesday (September 14), for the second set, instead of mind is moving I, I will be playing a new piece: mind is moving IX for electric guitar and other objects (composed just this year: this will be the premiere). I will still be joined by Dominic Lash (who will be playing a slightly altered version of mind is moving IV).

The first set on Wednesday will see the first performance of A cloud drifting over the plain with the new ad libitum parts (for percussion, electric guitar, contrabass and piano).

If you are in NY I hope to see you there!

Gravity Wave Festival, September 14/15, 2011, The Stone, NY

2011-08-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Amplify 2011: stones will happen in New York from September 1^st to the 17^th. While I imagine the entire (amazing looking) festival is likely of interest to people who purchase Gravity Wave discs, the label itself will celebrate a “mini-festival” under this larger umbrella at The Stone, on September 14^th and 15^th. A wonderful group of performers will be participating, including GW stalwarts Greg Stuart and Barry Chabala, along with two superb players of low instruments: Dominic Lash, contrabass and Katie Porter, bass clarinet.

Wednesday, September 14

7:30 PM: A cloud drifting over the plain (Michael Pisaro, Greg Stuart, Barry Chabala, Dominic Lash) 

This is the final piece from my larger cycle, Four Pieces for Recorded Percussion (2008). Most of the sounds on the recording (played back on Amplify’s excellent sound system) emanate from drops of water falling on all manner of objects (including many percussion instruments). Greg Stuart recorded eighty separate tracks of these sounds, which were then overlaid to create surprising rhythmic aggregates. The quartet of live performers move in and around the sustained rainfall of Greg’s fantastic recording.

9 PM: mind is moving (I and IV) (Michael Pisaro, Dominic Lash) 

This is a duo version of this piece from 1996, the first time it will have been performed in this arrangement. The solo mind is moving I was one of my first recordings on the Edition Wandelweiser label (EWR 0106). The piece concerns the relationship between quiet, but often quite complex, overtone constellations and their surrounding silence.

10:30 PM: fields have ears (6) (Barry Chabala, Michael Pisaro)

This piece has been evolving steadily over the last couple years. The core of the work is a solo piece for electric guitar – which lays down a kind of harmonic grid (in combination with sine tones). The piece has with each performance accumulated new sounds: from turntables, radios and the performance locations themselves (including at this point Munich, Seattle and A coruña). It is something like an overgrown garden, where the rectilinear format of the original planting is at times covered and distorted by layers of overgrowth.

Thursday, September 15

7:30 PM: A transparent gate with ten panels (Greg Stuart solo) (double length set) 

This 100-minute work will receive the premiere of the complete version during this festival. The basic set-up of the piece is solo percussion playing along with eight small speakers, laid out in an arc across the stage. The sounds in the speakers are derived from the same instruments (as performed by Greg) as those that are played live, creating a variety of “reliefs” between the live sound and the layered versions of itself being played back. It is organized into ten “panels” of 10 minutes each (with silences between the panels), a structure loosely based on Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise.”

10:30 PM: asleep, street, pipes, tones (Michael Pisaro, Katie Porter)

A live version of GW 004! Performed for the first time by Porter, bass clarinet, and Pisaro, electric guitar, at Experimental Intermedia in December of 2009, the piece is dedicated to Phill Niblock. The electronic parts consist largely of samples and field recordings and will (I hope) make full use of the Amplify sound system.

Two other nights might be of special interest to Gravity Wave fans.

The kick-off of the festival is on Thursday, September 1^st at The Stone (a Wandelweiser evening):

8 PM: Antoine Beuger-approcher s'éloigner s'absenter (premiere) 

10 PM: Michael Pisaro-hinwandeln, augen zu (premiere)  both sets performed by the trio of Barry Chabala/Dominic Lash/Ben Owen

The full title, hinwandeln, zwischen himmel und erd, is taken from Hölderlin. It refers to the movement, back and forth, between waking and dreaming. The score simply gives indications of the number of melodic/harmonic events in a certain sequence, asking the performers to create, under these conditions, a harmonious community on the spot. augen zu, picks up, more or less where hinwandeln leaves off: on it's way to steady state, with eyes closed. The score was written specifically for this trio.

The day before the Gravity Wave festival starts, Radu Malfatti and I will perform two sets, each one devoted to music we wrote for our duo.

Tuesday, September 13 (at The Stone):

8 PM: Claude Lorrain 2 (Malfatti)

10 PM: Ascending Series (6) (Pisaro)

Radu and I first performed this pair of pieces in Munich a couple years ago. We knew we wanted to write two duos for the same concert, but said nothing about what the contents might be. We were both pretty shocked at how much overlap there was been the two scores, given the different directions our music has gone in the past few years. The two instruments, trombone and electric guitar, seem like an obvious, natural combination.

Please come and hear us live, if you can, and of course, Gravity Wave discs will be on sale at the festival.

Gravity Wave 005 and 006 out now.

2011-08-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

The two new Gravity Wave discs are now available - two more pieces in the Hearing Metal series. Below I have posted basic credit info for both CDs. I will probably update with further information on the pieces in a while, but am curious to see what listeners make of them, before saying too much myself. As always, listeners may request scores (I'm happy to send those out). Greg and I are really proud of these and hope you enjoy them. (Ordering information is on the right side panel.)

Hearing Metal 2 (La table du silence)

Michael Pisaro (2010/2011) (after Constantin Brâncuşi)

to Yuko Zama

62’00”

Michael Pisaro: radio, guitar, sine tones, recording, assembly, mixing, mastering

Greg Stuart: percussion, recording

Greg Stuart plays almglocken, bell plates, brake drums, chimes,various metal instruments/objects with contact microphones, cymbals, glockenspiel, gongs, steel drums, tam-tams, vibraphone

Organ samples by John Pisaro

Field Recordings from Big Sur, California, Neufelden, Austria, and Haan, Germany

Hearing Metal 3 (Prometheus, 1911)

Michael Pisaro (2010/2011) (after Constantin Brâncuşi)

to red fish blue fish

45’20”

Michael Pisaro: sine tones, mixing, mastering

Greg Stuart: sixteen suspended cymbals, grains/surfaces, recording, mixing

Excerpts for Hearing Metal 2 and 3

2011-08-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

In advance of the release of Hearing Metal 2 and 3 in the next week or so, I'm posting three minute excerpts from each disc (click on the links below).

Hearing Metal 2

Hearing Metal 3

Yuko Zama's designs

2011-07-21T10:15:00.001-07:00

We finalized the artwork yesterday, so I'm posting Yuko Zama's wonderful designs for the next GW discs. The parallels between the two covers reflect the fact that, although these are two parts of the Hearing Metal series, they can be played back-to-back as one 107 minute piece (005 has a duration of 62 minutes, 006 of just over 45 minutes).

We are sending them to the printers next week, just a bit ahead of schedule.

Hearing Metal 2

Hearing Metal 3

Hearing Metal 2 and 3

2011-07-12T11:52:00.001-07:00

The next releases on Gravity Wave are scheduled for September, in connection with Amplify 11 / stones (including a GW mini-fest on Sept. 14th and 15th).

Two recent compositions by Michael Pisaro, with his collaborator, Greg Stuart, percussion.

Hearing Metal 2 (La table du silence) (2010/11) (GW 005)

Hearing Metal 3 (Prometheus, 1911) (2010/11) (GW 006)

In homage to Constantin Brâncuşi.

Two new Gravity Waves hit the street

2011-03-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

The next discs of music by Michael Pisaro on Gravity Wave are now available.

GW003: Close constellations and a drum on the ground (2010) began as scored work with electronics but then developed a life of its own in the studio. It consists of the alternation of sedimentary layers of low percussion samples (mixed with guitar and many noise sources) in slow rotation, and clusters of slowly modulating high sine waves pierced by bowed crotales. (40’20”)

Greg Stuart, percussion

Barry Chabala, guitar

GW0004: asleep, street, pipes, tones (2009) is an investigation of the sounding properties of pipes and streets interspersed with a duo for bass clarinet and electric guitar.

The investigations form ten three-minute episodes, assembled in studio by Pisaro from samples—mostly organ, but also tiny snippets of vocal music and a single piano chord—and field recordings.

The instrumental parts, arranged in nine sections, also three minutes each, develop over the course of the 63’40” duration of the piece from a single tone into long descending melody.

In most sections the samples and instruments are augmented by sine tones.

Barry Chabala, guitar

Katie Porter, bass clarinet

Brief organ samples are taken from three recordings: Eva-Maria Houben, dazwischen/immer anders (EW 0407/8), Burkhard Schlothauer, abregistrieren (EW 0501), and André O. Möller, musik für orgel und eine(n) tonsetzer(in) …2003… (EW 0702), all performed by Eva-Maria Houben. Thanks to Edition Wandelweiser for permission to use them.

Follow the link to the right to order or go to erstdist: http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/distro.html.

Two more Gravity Wave releases on the way

2011-01-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

We are proud to announce that GW 003 and 004 will be released in early March 2011, and will be available from ErstDist around that time.

Final versions of both pieces are being mixed and mastered now, and below are Yuko Zama's final cover designs.

Gravity Wave 003: close constellations and a drum on the ground

close constellations and a drum on the ground (2010) began with Greg Stuart’s suggestion that I use samples of his percussion playing to make an electronic piece. He recorded over an hour of percussion playing solely for this purpose. Initially there were live parts for crotales and guitar, but these two (as recorded by Greg and Barry Chabala) are now embedded into the final version of the work. Some of the sections are very dense, with up to 50 simultaneous tracks of percussion, treated samples of percussion and guitar, sine tones and field recordings. This piece is dedicated to Luka Zagoricnik.

Gravity Wave 004: asleep, street, pipes, tones

The instrumental parts for asleep, street, pipes, tones (2009), played by Katie Porter (bass clarinet) and Barry Chabala (guitar), were recorded by Devin Maxwell at his studio in Brooklyn in January 2011. In this piece there are many samples as well, especially from various Wandelweiser organ works. The piece alternates (with occasional overlap) small environments created with the samples and electronic sounds with a simple duo for live instruments. It was premiered at Experimental Intermedia in December of 2009 and is dedicated to Phill Niblock.

Further thoughts on the first two Gravity Wave discs

2010-10-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

ricefall (2) (GW 001)

At the end of a beautiful, detailed passage describing all of the minute sounds of the rain in his backyard, John M. Hull in his book Touching the Rock writes:

The whole scene is much more differentiated than I have been able to describe, because everywhere are little breaks in the patterns, obstructions, projections, where some slight interruption or difference of texture or of echo gives an additional detail or dimension to the scene. Over the whole thing, like light falling upon a landscape, is the gentle background patter gathered up into one continuous murmur of rain.

I think the experience of opening the door on a rainy garden must be similar to that which a sighted person feels when opening the curtains and seeing the world outside. The rain presents the fullness of an entire situation all at once, not merely remembered, not in anticipation, but actually and now.

If only rain could fall inside a room, it would help me to understand where things are in that room, to give a sense of being in the room, instead of sitting in a chair.

[The book is a description of what Hull experiences as he goes blind in the middle of his life. Thanks to Matt Marble for recommending the book to me, many years ago.]

This passage, and the nearly endless refinement of the sense of hearing in implied was the spur behind the work on ricefall (2004) in its first version for 16 performers. I wanted to create something like that experience indoors in order to see if I too could “hear” a landscape. The grid I’ve pictured in the previous blog post on this piece is laid out in a space, with each performer allowing rice to fall (at various rates) on one of the materials. The field laid out for ricefall (2) (2007) as it was mixed for this recording is much more complex: the 64 parts with a greater variation of material are scattered throughout the stereo field. Greg Stuart and I thought that, on a recording with the ability to hear the acoustic situation many times, the landscape could be correspondingly complex.

Although the disc is constructed as one long 72-minute track, it is subdivided into four sections of 18 minutes each (each with 16 minutes of sound preceded and followed by a minute of silence). The whole has the shape of something like a brewing storm (which reaches its peak in the near white noise at the beginning of section 2) followed by a long aftermath, as the rain of rice slows to individual “drops.” Changes in density occur at one minute intervals.

July Mountain (three versions) (GW 002)

This piece also began as a response to something I had read, but this time, the provocation was direct. In the summer of 2008, Greg sent me the Wallace Stevens poem with the comment that he was “pretty sure we could do a piece using this”:

July Mountain

We live in a constellation

Of patches and of pitches,

Not in a single world,

In things said well in music,

On the piano and in speech,

As in the page of poetry—

Thinkers without final thoughts

In an always incipient cosmos.

The way, when we climb a mountain,

Vermont throws itself together.

It took me over a year to conceive of something, but then I hit on the idea of a crossfade between multiple field recordings and multiple percussion parts – and wondered what would happen as the one replaced the other.

The percussion parts are fixed in the score, but the field recordings may be supplied by anyone. For our first version of the piece, I made them myself (which is the “California version” on the disc). For a concert in Austin, Greg thought we might ask others to provide them, in part because we wanted to hear what kind of difference it would make to have different recordings. Thus in that version there are recordings made by Jez riley French, Greg Headley, Travis Weller, Greg Stuart and a couple others by myself. And it really does sound different. [Thanks to Travis, Greg and Jez for allowing us to use their work for this disc!]

We also thought that there were a couple good reasons to have a version with the percussion alone on the disc (i.e., without the field recordings).

First: I enjoy listening to it all by itself. It is actually extremely densely layered (increasingly so as the piece progresses) and in some way almost a shame that some of the details are inevitably covered by the field recordings. (Greg made beautiful recordings of his percussion for this.) The piece has to function that way, but on this disc we can have our cake too. I also think it is interesting, when one knows how the percussion sounds to hear all the effects of merging and masking that occur with the various sounds of the outdoors. The point at which the field becomes percussion is still quite mysterious to me, even when I know it is coming.

Second: If you have the percussion recording you can make a version of your own! Perhaps there are some industrious souls out there who would like to use 20 of their favorite field recordings in the manner indicated by the score, to hear how they eventually get “thrown together” in their contact with Greg’s percussion. Please email me (mpisaro (at) gmail.com) for a copy of the score.

Gravity Wave discs are distributed by erstdist [http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/distro.html] and can be ordered from that site or using paypal from this blog.

July Mountain: three versions (also now available)

2010-10-14T17:32:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update: erstdist now also has copies of July Mountain: three versions (a bit sooner than expected). I will do a full post on the two releases soon. (Up top, a page of the piano part – just for fun.)

"ricefall (2)" has arrived!

2010-10-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

The first Gravity Wave disc, ricefall (2) has arrived at erstdist and may be purchased. (Yuko and Jon worked especially hard on the packaging and I have to say that it looks really beautiful!) Very excited to have this first disc out. July Mountain : three versions will be out in the next week or two.

Here are two images from the score — scroll down to have a look at Yuko's wonderful cover.

The Second Set of Releases

2010-09-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

We’re ready to announce the second pair of Gravity Wave releases, currently slated for February, 2011 – discs featuring works by Pisaro for electronic samples and live instruments.

Gravity Wave 003: close constellations and a drum on the ground

close constellations and a drum on the ground (2010) is derived from low frequency percussion samples by Greg Stuart which alternate with beating harmonies of high sine tones. To these crotales (played by Stuart) and electric guitar (played by Barry Chabala), are added at the threshold of recognition.

Gravity Wave 004: asleep, street, pipes, tones

asleep, street, pipes, tones consists of a bed of samples formed from field recordings, organ (air sounds, drones, overtones) and piano – along with sine tones. Sections of samples alternate and overlap with a duo for bass clarinet and electric guitar in this 65-minute piece. (Katie Porter, bass clarinet; Barry Chabala, electric guitar)

Reviewing the premiere of this piece at Experimental Intermedia in NY in December 2009, Brian Olewnick wrote: [T]he effect of the whole was one of sustained concentration and appreciation of sounds, their mingling with other sounds (and pausing to allow ample time for this appreciation), the artful pacing and the choices made of adjacent tones and beyond adjacency to the limits of one's memory. A gorgeous piece – hope to hear it on disc one day.

Press Release for Gravity Wave

2010-08-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Gravity Wave, a new CD label, curated by composer Michael Pisaro, designed by Yuko Zama and distributed by Jon Abbey (via ErstDist) will release its inaugural recordings in October 2010: two discs of Pisaro’s compositions as performed by his close collaborator, master percussionist Greg Stuart. The label will at first primarily serve to release works by Pisaro.

Gravity Wave 001: ricefall (2), a 72-minute piece for 64 separate tracks of rice falling on objects. This recording is the second part of a trilogy of the first disc length works by Stuart and Pisaro (an unrhymed chord is the first part, and A wave and waves is the third). The dynamic range of the recording is extremely wide. In the second of the four sections, there is a storm of falling rice that is certainly the loudest music the duo have made; the final section is an unbroken 16 minutes of lightly falling, slightly pitched sounds. The release features a short essay by Pisaro on working with Stuart.

Gravity Wave 002: July Mountain: three versions, contains a re-release of this 21-minute piece for field recordings and percussion (the original .point engraved edition is sold out), along with two additional versions (one with alternate field recordings by a range of artists, and one with the percussion parts alone, which can either be listened to on its own or combined with field recordings of the listener’s choice). The work is a translation of Wallace Stevens’ poem “July Mountain” into sound. There are 20 field recordings and nearly 100 separate percussion tracks.

Reviewing the initial release, Brian Olewnick wrote in Just Outside, “[It] sounds … extraordinary, mysterious, life-abundant. Twenty phased field recordings done in mountain or valley areas mix with percussion extracts (performed superbly by Greg Stuart) sourced from specific instrumental orientations covering an enormous range of timbre and pitch, all sequenced in a temporally exact manner. A great, great work, one I can easily see listening to for many years to come.”

Jesse Goin in Crow with no Mouth wrote, “July Mountain is a universe in 21 minutes, and from my vantage point, Pisaro is creating some of the most vital and extraordinary music available to us today.”

Gravity Wave will be distributed exclusively via ErstDist (contact erstrecs (at) gmail.com, distributor inquiries are welcome). Contact the label at mpisaro (at) gmail.com.