https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXe86w6ivcs

I heard this in London last night - it stole the snow in this concert

https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/contemporary/eliane-radigue-exploring-occam-rhodri-davies-friends/

On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 8:42:06 AM UTC+1, Mandryka wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXe86w6ivcs
>
> I heard this in London last night - it stole the snow in this concert
>
> https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/contemporary/eliane-radigue-exploring-occam-rhodri-davies-friends/

Sorry, wrong link. Try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMqvZdl6Kzc&ab_channel=H%C3%A9l%C3%A8neBreschand

On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 4:10:04 PM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 8:42:06 AM UTC+1, Mandryka wrote:
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXe86w6ivcs
> >
> > I heard this in London last night - it stole the snow in this concert
> >
> > https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/contemporary/eliane-radigue-exploring-occam-rhodri-davies-friends/
> Sorry, wrong link. Try this
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMqvZdl6Kzc&ab_channel=H%C3%A9l%C3%A8neBreschand

Pretty weird to hear PLUCKED strings in an Occam piece.

how did the acoustics of your venue compare to in this video?

I've long felt like the Occam series is one of the most exciting things happening right now and I look forward to every Shiin or other release of them..

In article <b4c619fc-0f39-48d3-9879-02e638791182n@googlegroups.com>,
cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
>Pretty weird to hear PLUCKED strings in an Occam piece.

I looked at this Subject line twice, thinking I must have just seen
the performer somewhere else too:

https://helenebreschandfloykrouchizafertwilelliottsharp.bandcamp.com/album/dispossession

(From last month.)

>I've long felt like the Occam series is one of the most exciting
>things happening right now and I look forward to every Shiin or
>other release of them.

Radiague is an influence for Lamb, and so I revisited the Bozzini's
recording at that time too.... (And Rhodri Davies is someone I
note in general.) So I've listened to many of these, but I guess
they've never really motivated me further....

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 11:50:25 AM UTC+8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> Radiague is an influence for Lamb, and so I revisited the Bozzini's
> recording at that time too.... (And Rhodri Davies is someone I
> note in general.) So I've listened to many of these, but I guess
> they've never really motivated me further....

Perhaps this is too much of a pigeonhole but I feel like you tend to gravitate towards maybe more rigorously exploratory/investigative sounds... like we can put Radigue and Tenney at opposite ends of a particular axis within 'microtonal new music', right? And you're closer to the Tenney end...

In article <1e2077a9-b931-477a-aad9-a4f437dce1e9n@googlegroups.com>,
cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
>Perhaps this is too much of a pigeonhole but I feel like you tend
>to gravitate towards maybe more rigorously exploratory/investigative
>sounds... like we can put Radigue and Tenney at opposite ends of
>a particular axis within 'microtonal new music', right? And you're
>closer to the Tenney end...

I can't argue, but I don't know if the idea gets me anywhere
either....

Does this Occam series have a theme?

I think the all the Occam music is a collaboration with the performer. I’m not sure how much improvisation is involved in each performance, whether there’s a score of some kind and of whether they’re published.

Any thoughts on what (exactly!) “Occam” might me referring to here?

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 1:10:33 PM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> I think the all the Occam music is a collaboration with the performer. I’m not sure how much improvisation is involved in each performance, whether there’s a score of some kind and of whether they’re published.
>
> Any thoughts on what (exactly!) “Occam” might me referring to here?

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 12:08:17 PM UTC+8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> Does this Occam series have a theme?

I don't right now have the, iirc, quite extensive Shiin booklet essays in front of me to look at, but from what I remember and also in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aioj8Om2cVU , the basic idea with Occam is to pare down music to what we are really talking about at minimum/simplest, which is fundamentals and overtones, and then to build from there as a conceptual basis. And Ocean refers to this idea that waves are implicated in everything everywhere constantly, from huge radio waves to tiny x ray waves or whatever, and implicated especially in the beginning of time and the progression of time. So the most obvious/iconic visible body of waves-qua-waves, the ocean, is a useful shorthand or metaphor.

Each piece is written in collaboration with its intended performer, who Radigue views as kind of symbiotic with and having a unique relationship with their instrument. The first step is focusing on a particular theme which is a particular body of water or maybe a particular type of body of water. I'm not sure if the final score is like, a photograph of that body of water which serves as mnemonic device, or a stylized drawing of it, or something more score-like and abstractly based on the body of water, or maybe it varies, but in any case I guess the standard is that it be kept private by the performer so that it can stay just a tool for prompting certain musical results, rather than attracting attention in itself(?). Each piece is conceptualized as a series of gradual processes for the performer to perform, without any truly static moments, but the expectation is that exact durations would not be maintained across performances, largely in response to the acoustics of the performance space, for example if you're gradually increasing bowing pressure until you can clearly hear a particular overtone somewhere up in the higher frequencies, then how long that takes will depend hugely on the space you're in, the weather that day, etc. - or, if a particular section of the piece is really not working today, you are empowered to rush through it!

I think there's some idea that the initial performer of each Occam is encouraged to teach that same Occam to further performers, without necessitating Radigue's input, but each transmission should itself also be an involved process of adapting the piece, to some extent, for the new performer's specific relationship with their instrument. So theoretically the Occam system can 'organically' expand far beyond even Radigue's stylistic intentions?

In article <f1e2b958-47f3-4b9d-9c48-37d9c4e405a6n@googlegroups.com>,
cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
>... the basic idea with Occam is to pare down music to what we are
>really talking about at minimum/simplest, which is fundamentals
>and overtones, and then to build from there as a conceptual basis.

Thanks for your discussion. It was helpful.

(One reason Lamb remains a good comparison is that both are clearly
inspired by Indian classical music, although that isn't evident in
every Lamb piece.)

So I've spent the morning with Radigue, maybe I'll keep up most of
the day, although I do have a couple of new improv releases to
hear.... Some thoughts so far:

As someone who mostly listens to improvisation, I always have to
ask "What does the composition add here?" And that's often meant
"trying something" in a more rigorous area, since something more
"fanciful" is already a lot like improvising.... But then, I'm not
really into solo improvising: It's when you bring people together
that it gets interesting for me (although I do listen to people's
solos to hear them working through ideas, which for me are more "in
preparation" for a social context...). So a couple of features
that seem to be standard in these Occam pieces (& I'm unsure how I
should judge differently Occam <Subtitle> pieces against each
other...) is that they really focus on one thing -- there's less
sense of more than one thing happening, what I might call either
counterpoint or sociality -- and that there's little space/silence
(pace Cage). It's pretty much continous (waves of) sound, so can
feel overbearing.

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 5:58:09 PM UTC+1, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> In article <f1e2b958-47f3-4b9d...@googlegroups.com>,
> cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >... the basic idea with Occam is to pare down music to what we are
> >really talking about at minimum/simplest, which is fundamentals
> >and overtones, and then to build from there as a conceptual basis.
> Thanks for your discussion. It was helpful.
>
> (One reason Lamb remains a good comparison is that both are clearly
> inspired by Indian classical music, although that isn't evident in
> every Lamb piece.)
>
> So I've spent the morning with Radigue, maybe I'll keep up most of
> the day, although I do have a couple of new improv releases to
> hear.... Some thoughts so far:
>
> As someone who mostly listens to improvisation, I always have to
> ask "What does the composition add here?" And that's often meant
> "trying something" in a more rigorous area, since something more
> "fanciful" is already a lot like improvising.... But then, I'm not
> really into solo improvising: It's when you bring people together
> that it gets interesting for me (although I do listen to people's
> solos to hear them working through ideas, which for me are more "in
> preparation" for a social context...). So a couple of features
> that seem to be standard in these Occam pieces (& I'm unsure how I
> should judge differently Occam <Subtitle> pieces against each
> other...) is that they really focus on one thing -- there's less
> sense of more than one thing happening, what I might call either
> counterpoint or sociality -- and that there's little space/silence
> (pace Cage). It's pretty much continous (waves of) sound, so can
> feel overbearing.

In fact, in performance on Sunday, there was a sense of counterpoint in the solo pieces. That's partly because there are many simultaneous pitches -- often the result of strings vibrating in resonance. It felt as though the Hélène Breschand and Angharad Davies were really controlling that, like a piano player may weight a chord.

That was one of the main things which made me feel that this music is very hard to appreciate with speakers. You'd need a very good system to reproduce those effects, and they may not be caught on the source.

In article <bae43021-d1a9-4ed9-b200-b99c1715037an@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>That was one of the main things which made me feel that this music
>is very hard to appreciate with speakers.

Well that could be... although, I'm hearing the beatings, etc.

A simple interaction of tones also doesn't necessarily feel like
counterpoint to me, although I should probably also note that you're
talking about the most recent performance of this music, so maybe
this is a factor that comes out more with experience for performers....
(I mean, it's not possible to do this music without simultaneous
tones, but that's not really the same thing. And actually real
instruments rarely emit a single pitch anyway, so timbre is basically
always composite from the start....)

Continuing to listen, I'm kind of getting the "what if you took a
3' Scelsi piece & extended it to an hour?" vibe here... -- to name
a composer who is about as capricious as they come.

(Angharad Davies is quite good. Check out the group "Common Objects"
w/ Rhodri & also her ea trio album _Dethick_.)

In article <ufhh6r$8uv$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>One reason Lamb remains a good comparison is that both are clearly
>inspired by Indian classical music, although that isn't evident in
>every Lamb piece.

Scraping my memory, another composer to mention in this arena is
Catherine Christer Hennix (b.1948, Stockholm). Anyone familiar?

I started a thread on this stuff ages ago -- revisiting Scelsi's 8th suite now.

One guy I've never managed to get into is Phil Niblock. .

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 10:01:53 PM UTC+1, Mandryka wrote:
> I started a thread on this stuff ages ago -- revisiting Scelsi's 8th suite now.
>
> One guy I've never managed to get into is Phil Niblock. .
I forgot the link to the thread

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,29778.0.html

In article <dd62ef84-3a9c-4da8-8384-df0210044b34n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>One guy I've never managed to get into is Phil Niblock. .

Hasn't really stood out for me either, but paired with Lamb on this
album (an important release for Lamb...) & enjoyable enough:

https://ensembleneon.bandcamp.com/album/niblock-lamb

In article <dd62ef84-3a9c-4da8-8384-df0210044b34n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>I started a thread on this stuff ages ago -- revisiting Scelsi's
>8th suite now.

I didn't notice anything about Hennix there. I reviewed her _Live
At Issue Project Room_ in June 2016....

Also hadn't noticed that new Scelsi String Trio release you note
there.... (It's from 1958, not really a late work.)

In article <ufi102$ja2$2@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>I didn't notice anything about Hennix there.

As long as I'm repeating myself, perhaps I should add that I also
thought that at least Cheregi might be interested in the subject
line's harpist's collaboration with Elliott Sharp, at times yielding
a sort of Levantine groove music....

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 10:27:39 PM UTC+1, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> In article <dd62ef84-3a9c-4da8...@googlegroups.com>,
> Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I started a thread on this stuff ages ago -- revisiting Scelsi's
> >8th suite now.
> I didn't notice anything about Hennix there. I reviewed her _Live
> At Issue Project Room_ in June 2016....
>
> Also hadn't noticed that new Scelsi String Trio release you note
> there.... (It's from 1958, not really a late work.)

No, Hennix is a new name for me.

By the way, a new book on Scelsi. If you can read French.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/2876237229/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Quite enjoying Hélène Breschand’s CD called Le goût du sel.

She has a recording on Bandcamp called Octopus, which has the Radigue Occam piece, and a composer I hadn’t heard of before called Kaspar Toeplitz

https://bocian.bandcamp.com/album/octopus

On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:58:09 AM UTC+8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> In article <f1e2b958-47f3-4b9d...@googlegroups.com>,
> cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >... the basic idea with Occam is to pare down music to what we are
> >really talking about at minimum/simplest, which is fundamentals
> >and overtones, and then to build from there as a conceptual basis.
> Thanks for your discussion. It was helpful.
>
> (One reason Lamb remains a good comparison is that both are clearly
> inspired by Indian classical music, although that isn't evident in
> every Lamb piece.)
>
> So I've spent the morning with Radigue, maybe I'll keep up most of
> the day, although I do have a couple of new improv releases to
> hear.... Some thoughts so far:
>
> As someone who mostly listens to improvisation, I always have to
> ask "What does the composition add here?" And that's often meant
> "trying something" in a more rigorous area, since something more
> "fanciful" is already a lot like improvising.... But then, I'm not
> really into solo improvising: It's when you bring people together
> that it gets interesting for me (although I do listen to people's
> solos to hear them working through ideas, which for me are more "in
> preparation" for a social context...). So a couple of features
> that seem to be standard in these Occam pieces (& I'm unsure how I
> should judge differently Occam <Subtitle> pieces against each
> other...) is that they really focus on one thing -- there's less
> sense of more than one thing happening, what I might call either
> counterpoint or sociality -- and that there's little space/silence
> (pace Cage). It's pretty much continous (waves of) sound, so can
> feel overbearing.

Here's something: prior to getting into traditional music, free improv etc i mostly listened to ambient music, 'electronica', drumnbass/jungle - in other words i was never accustomed to listening for discrete/coherent 'voices' tied to specific musicians whose interactions evolve over linear time, and actually i was fairly conscious of cultivating that awareness, finding it sort of awkward to listen that way for a long time.

I think I saw Radigue claim somewhere that she only got into electronic music because in late 1950s and 60s France she could not find musicians willing to go where she wanted to go, sonically, but on the other hand now she seems to 'write' for musicians basically the same way she 'wrote' for machines?

I wonder if there's any interesting research on listening for voices vs/alongside listening to totality of sound - it reminds me of reading about mbira ritual music in Zimbabwe, where musicians go to some effort to make sure listeners can't see their hands, and also there's a sense that 'voice-like' melodies emerge from the crossing melodic input of multiple musicians.

I listened to the first track from Helene Breschand et al, I was NOT expecting the rock n roll-y / funk-y (but not 'funky') vibe!! I can't say I got much out of it but so far the second track is MUCH more promising...

On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 1:35:54 AM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 5:58:09 PM UTC+1, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> > In article <f1e2b958-47f3-4b9d...@googlegroups.com>,
> > cheregi <elir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >... the basic idea with Occam is to pare down music to what we are
> > >really talking about at minimum/simplest, which is fundamentals
> > >and overtones, and then to build from there as a conceptual basis.
> > Thanks for your discussion. It was helpful.
> >
> > (One reason Lamb remains a good comparison is that both are clearly
> > inspired by Indian classical music, although that isn't evident in
> > every Lamb piece.)
> >
> > So I've spent the morning with Radigue, maybe I'll keep up most of
> > the day, although I do have a couple of new improv releases to
> > hear.... Some thoughts so far:
> >
> > As someone who mostly listens to improvisation, I always have to
> > ask "What does the composition add here?" And that's often meant
> > "trying something" in a more rigorous area, since something more
> > "fanciful" is already a lot like improvising.... But then, I'm not
> > really into solo improvising: It's when you bring people together
> > that it gets interesting for me (although I do listen to people's
> > solos to hear them working through ideas, which for me are more "in
> > preparation" for a social context...). So a couple of features
> > that seem to be standard in these Occam pieces (& I'm unsure how I
> > should judge differently Occam <Subtitle> pieces against each
> > other...) is that they really focus on one thing -- there's less
> > sense of more than one thing happening, what I might call either
> > counterpoint or sociality -- and that there's little space/silence
> > (pace Cage). It's pretty much continous (waves of) sound, so can
> > feel overbearing.
> In fact, in performance on Sunday, there was a sense of counterpoint in the solo pieces. That's partly because there are many simultaneous pitches -- often the result of strings vibrating in resonance. It felt as though the Hélène Breschand and Angharad Davies were really controlling that, like a piano player may weight a chord.
>
> That was one of the main things which made me feel that this music is very hard to appreciate with speakers. You'd need a very good system to reproduce those effects, and they may not be caught on the source.

I'm sure my mid-price headphones are even less adequate...

In article <90c788ef-97bf-4747-8069-893febafb569n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>https://bocian.bandcamp.com/album/octopus

Per initial comments here, I'm enjoying hearing the aspects that
feature more of a string attack v. all smoothness/sustain....

Reminds me more of Hennix's group The Deontic Miracle, specifically
_Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku_, which is on streaming....

In article <b30a754d-3bcd-4372-96ca-1aee531024d7n@googlegroups.com>,
cheregi <elirkerry@gmail.com> wrote:
>... on the other hand now she seems to 'write' for musicians
>basically the same way she 'wrote' for machines?

Does she? From what's been suggested, she's very collaborative
with the performers, who're making many of the choices....

>I wonder if there's any interesting research on listening for voices
>vs/alongside listening to totality of sound - ....

Well, do note that I specifically do the latter as well. I'm always
looking to track e.g. overall affect. So per e.g. mbira music (or
Bach...), the "amount going on" in music is not necessarily tied
directly to individuation of the performers, obviously. There's a
play between these ideas, perhaps, but it's also something (at least
for me) to ponder separately....

So as far as how much is happening? There's certainly a subjectivity
there, but even e.g. in an improvising trio, I'll sometimes get the
impression (& will say so...) that only one thing is happening...
that kind of contraction/concentration being, perhaps, part of an
overall dynamic itself....

Or maybe my mind is just all tangents.

I’ll just mention that I saw Jack Quartet play Catherine Lamb’s Divisio Spiralis about three months ago -I’ve been listening to their CD tonight.

Oh, and an interesting factoid, Occam’s Ocean 2 is for orchestra! I wonder how she worked with them. I had a chance to go to a performance but (regrettably) missed it.

In article <ufi102$ja2$2@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>Also hadn't noticed that new Scelsi String Trio release you note
>there.... (It's from 1958, not really a late work.)

Found it eventually on Bandcamp, the label's own Bandcamp site
appearing to have vanished this summer -- with this release not
appearing on the parent Spitfire Audio site (which might not have
offered a download anyway?):

https://londoncontemporaryorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/giacinto-scelsi-string-trio-galya-bisengalieva-robert-ames-max-ruisi

Anyway, thanks for pointing it out, in a roundabout way I guess....
(It really does amaze me how items of obvious interest end up not
coming to my attention.... That might be the most perplexing aspect
of the 2020s music industry.) It's the best reading yet of this
work....