Terran

Notice Recordings is pleased to present the release of Portland, Oregon-based percussionist Matt Hannafin’s “John Cage: Four Realizations for Solo Percussion”, which offers attentive, probing interpretations of pieces that bookend the final thirty years of the composer’s work. Simultaneously restless and nuanced, Hannafin’s performance demonstrates Cage’s continued relevance and enduring ability to push performers beyond their performative biases and toward the unexpected.

Written with no instrumentation, “Variations II” (1961) and “Variations III” (1963) both provide toolkit-like sets of marked-up transparencies which are allowed to fall into random overlapping patterns. “c Ȼomposed Improvisation for One-Sided Drums with or without Jangles” and “One4” (both 1990) are two of only five pieces Cage wrote specifically for solo percussion, and explore Cage’s late-career interest in directed improvisation. “c Ȼomposed Improvisation” was written for percussionist Glen Velez, with whom Matt Hannafin studied just three years after the piece was created.

Commissioned by Notice Recordings, these four performances are in dialogue not only with each other but with Notice itself, which has its roots in the underground/DIY realm while also exploring contemporary/academic composition. The accessibility, inventiveness, and challenge of compositions like these make Cage a unique pivot point between these two worlds.

NTR049 - John Cage & Matt Hannafin - Sided Drums With Or Without Jangles

We first became aware of Mike Weis through his drumming in Chicago's Zelienople, in which he blended hypnotic, delicate grooves and shimmering auxiliary percussion into the band's unique downcast drone-folk. In recent years, Weis has expanded his exploration into meditation and ritual in music performance, exemplified by this set recorded for the 2018 Winter Solstice. Weis' mix of such unconventional percussion instruments as tongue drum, dholak, and changgo, as well as gongs, bells, and objects, all performed live, is typical in its unerring time, tightly controlled dynamics, and dense yet drifting atmosphere. The music settles in places which aren’t visible upon first sight, and, like walking through a foggy, mid-December field, pock-marked with patches of snow and tufts of brown grass, sounds reveal themselves for a moment of recognition and familiarity, only to recede, vignetted by the enveloping atmosphere. Mike Weis has been deeply admired by Notice since our inception, and In Low Light provides an engaging illustration of his practice.

---

Mike Weis / mbira, tongue drum, dholak, changgo, bass drum, cymbals, gongs, singing bowls, bells, dharma bell, moktak, field recordings

---

Tracklisting:

1. Number 1 - 07:06
2. Number 2 - 05:34
3. Number 3 - 03:01
4. Number 4 - 05:14
5. Number 5 - 02:48
6. Number 6 - 05:35
7. Number 7 - 03:53
8. Number 8 - 05:16

---

Recorded early Winter 2018

Pre-mastering by Matt Christensen

Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland OR

Mike Weis - In Low Light (Music For The Winter Solstice) - 05 Number 5

©2021 ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ♥♥♥♥ X4 RECORDS 
https://x4records.bandcamp.com/album/--2
🛸 

1. Florian Förster - oho
2. Velum Break - Burning Reels Of Tape
3. Jerohme - Arecibo
4. The Simian - Freeze-Tile
5. Greystar - Distraction
6. Quadrawulf - 👁U👁
7. Danny Playamaqui - Sanitiser
8. Retape - On Stars
9. l̒̒̏oͧ͗ͯv̋̏̔҉̴́͞eͮ̒́ ̈́͐h͊͐̃ȭͪrͮ̀ͮs͗̃̎e̅ͣ̓s̔ͦ̾ - hunky dunky dip
10. lee - Kepler 186f
11. Mause - souj9b (t11c)
12. Dollarstore Keyboard - Invader Rim
13. Tunnel One - PRNK
14. Spoutnik Z - And Beyond
15. Colin Muir - DrumkitEFM
16. Jo Carius - Wall Head
17. Anitta - IZ II ZI
18. utopia cloak - space (ultra quiet rimshot mix)
19. fxbip - Oberheim Eternities (303 mix)
20. Anvil Stereo - Currents (Remix of Purpledaughter - pd|sw 22)

Mastered by Danny Playamaqui 
Artwork by Jerohme 
Tracklist curation by Purpledaughter

released December 3, 2021

© all rights reserved

bandcamp

And Beyond

Played & Recorded at Rex Bern by @tapebox aka Sculpture (live) during the Norient Film Festival

Sculpture (live) | Norient Film Festival - Radio Bollwerk - 12.01.2022

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Mongezi, one of the most passionate celebrations of a life in music ever laid to tape. Recorded in late 1975 by Blue Notes, then reduced to a quartet - Dudu Pukwana on  alto sax, whistle, percussion, and vocals; Johnny Dyani on bass, bells, and vocals; Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums, percussion, and vocals; and Chris McGregor on piano, and percussion - and issued the following year by Ogun, the album is a kairos; the first commercial release by one of free jazz’s seminal ensembles, captured them 13 years after their founding - at the height of their powers - delivering an explosive dirge dedicated to Mongezi Feza, their former bandmate and friend. 

Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962 and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew,Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens, and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa.

As a mixed race band under South African apartheid; this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964, as the pressure mounted, they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe, eventually settling in London during the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath.

In late 1975 however, Mongezi Feza - in the midst of a fruitful period collaborating with Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, and Okay Temiz - suddenly passed away at the age of thirty from pneumonia. Nine days later, on the 23rd December, following the memorial service to their friend, Pukwana, Dyani, McGregor, and Moholo-Moholo gathered in a rehearsal room in London and set out to play. Fittingly, no discussion took place before or during the session. The music was left to say it all.  

The resulting double LP coalesced into four long-form movements that occupy a side each, collectively unleashing an onslaught of free jazz fire, fluidly covering a remarkable range of moods and tactical approaches across it’s length. For anyone encountering the Blue Notes for the first time, the album must have felt like being blindsided by a brick, adding a profound sense of credence to Moholo-Moholo’s belief that free improvisation was intrinsically linked to the Pan-African temperament. In the band’s hands, the idiom sounds like nothing else and exactly as it should. 

A frenzied funeral dirge, a cry, and catharsis, the record rises and falls between playful and joyous movements of deconstructed song, rhythmic and vocal tribalism, and churning, instrumental free expression. It indicates not only a possible future for musical expression - as all truly avant-garde music does - but also the very roots of music itself, illuminating, through abstraction, the far-flung, ancient roots currently carried by the New Orleans “first line” march to the grave. It is a decidedly African vision of free jazz, coalescing as a collective expression of celebration and loss on a cold London day. It is a masterpiece unfolding in real time - out on a limb and laden with risk - created by four of the most talented voices the idiom has known.  

---

DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax, whistle, percussion, vocals

CHRIS McGREGOR / piano, percussion

LOUIS MOHOLO / drums, percussion, vocals

JOHNNY DYANI / bass, bell, vocals and most of the words

ROKURE005 - Blue Notes For Mongezi "First Movement"

Sonisk Blodbad - Aspik
Forest Management - Atrium Thinking
Anna Wall - Missing Moments
Arad Acid - Recca Void
Eustress & MOS FET - Inside
Felidae - Kettle
Eamon Harkin - Ambient Feelings
Vcam - bass_conduit
Civilistjävel! - Järnnätter B3
Yaka - Slow Reaction
Lucy Liyou - You are every memory
BFTT - Apple TV
Ekin Fil - Being Held (Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Rework)
iabhainn - Departure Point
TIBSLC - Hypertranslucent05
Skee Mask - Farm
Pontiac Streator - i want something part II w/perila
Ishmael Cormack - soft synth patch telecaster moss green zen bell vocals cow bell pinecone

music for mosses & lichens

Hazy to Mary

skating 0.1 10 bpm take 1 52425

reall 2 17 bpm take 1 102225

Premiered on the 1st December, CNSMDP
Conducted by Simon Proust

Analogies, for 16 musicians | 2017 • S. Proust (dir.)

As you can imagine we are under huge pressure at the moment and are working flat out to ensure Cafe OTO survives this. The impact of this situation is extremely acute for small venues like ours and we need all the support we can get to pull through. Please donate what you can, if you can. Thank you. 

Cafe OTO opened in April 2008 with the aim of providing a home for creative new music that exists outside of the mainstream. It comprises one large cafe/performance space open during the day serving food and drink with an evening programme of live music almost seven nights a week. 

OTOROKU is part of OTOProjects - a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) that has been set up to manage the programme at Café Oto. Any profits from OTOROKU are put back into supporting what we do and will help us to continue programming the best musicians and performers from all over the world.

www.cafeoto.co.uk

Mike Weis - In Low Light (Music For The Winter Solstice) - 05 Number 5

cafeOTO