Electroacoustic Improv

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420 iscritti| 53 messaggi in bacheca

Leader: Staalvlaad
Criteri di appartenenza: Approvazione del proprietario
Data creazione: 22 Ott 2006
Descrizione:
group for electroacoustic improv, electroacoustic improvisation, EAI, onkyo, onkyokei, lowercase, new london silence, berlin reductionism, echtzeitmusik, klingtorgianism

Origins
Live electronics has been part of the sound art world since the 1930s with the early works of John Cage. Source magazine documents the activities of a number of American groups in the 1960s, and in Montreal, Canada, there were two live electronic ensembles in the 1970s, MetaMusic and Sonde. This field has expanded rapidly with the use of powerful, inexpensive laptop computers.
EAI is rather loosely defined, but is sometimes characterized by quiet, slow moving, minimalistic textures, often based on extended droning sounds. EAI drew influence, in part, from the tradition of free improvisation but downplayed aspects that were typically associated with avant garde jazz. Combined with this was the influence of electronic and electroacoustic music, the music of American experimental composers such as John Cage, Morton Feldman and David Tudor, Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrete, and the so called instrumental musique concrete of Helmut Lachenmann. British free improvisation group AMM, particularly their guitarist Keith Rowe, contributed to the development of contemporary EAI.
Cities like New York City, Tokyo, Vienna and Berlin have all been centers of EAI. A variety of terms have been used to describe their music: "lowercase music" (a term coined by artist and musician Steve Roden for his own work), "Onkyokei" (also "onkyo") (used to describe the Japanese strains of the music), "taomud" (meaning "the area of music under discussion", an ironic acronym in lack of a better term), "New London Silence" and "Berlin reductionism". The term EAI is being used more frequently in describing this music.
The record labels Erstwhile Records, For 4 Ears, Cut, Durian, Charhizma, Improvised Music from Japan, Fringes Recordings, Mikroton Recordings and Mego have released a number of EAI albums.

Characteristics
Critic Arie Altena suggests that a defining characteristic of EAI is its "anti-virtuoso" aesthetic, arguing that conventional instrumental techniques are rarely emphasized in EAI, and thus there are few occasions when traditional technical virtuosity is considered appropriate. Critics also note that many musicians in EAI studiously avoid traditional sounds and timbres, and that "extended techniques" (unorthodox playing practices) appear to be standard in performance. Some EAI music also includes field recordings.
EAI sometimes differs significantly from music associated with the established free improvisation scene. One critic has suggested that a new vocabulary may be required to describe certain aspects of EAI. John Eyles writes,
One of the problems of describing this music is that it requires a new vocabulary and ways of conveying its sound and impact; such vocabulary does not yet exist - how do you describe the subtle differences between different types of controlled feedback? I’ve yet to see anyone do it convincingly - hence the use of words like 'shape' and 'texture'!
Similarly, critic Jeff Siegel writes,
In case you are as yet not indoctrinated into this music, there’s no easy road. The closest I know of to a simple explanation comes from the estimable Dominique Leone: “sort of an inverse of noise music.” That sounds about right. If you think of noise as a brick wall, then EAI is like a plaster mold of the cement in-between, an impression, a photo-negative, more silence than sound; it’s a constant hum, the first step up from complete silence; noise stripped down to a single sliver and stretched out, presumably forever.

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