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Rinse FM Podcast - Artwork - 2nd September 2016

Jean-Luc Guionnet & Daichi Yoshikawa - Intervivos
Format: LP / DIGITAL
Cat.No: EE002
Mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M
Release Date: 09 February 2018

Empty Editions is pleased to present Jean–Luc Guionnet and Daichi Yoshikawa’s collaborative debut, Intervivos, to be released February 9th, 2018. Recorded during a week-long residency at Hong Kong’s Empty Gallery, Intervivos (Latin for “between the living”), refers to the vital and unexpected acoustic synergy that developed between Guionnet’s extended alto saxophone techniques and Yoshikawa’s feedback systems during these sessions.

Although Guionnet and Yoshikawa both come from prolific backgrounds in free jazz and electroacoustic improvisation -- Guionnet plays in The Ames Room with Will Guthrie and Clayton Thomas and Yoshikawa studied with AMM’s Eddie Prevost -- Intervivos sees them developing an approach to improvising which seeks to escape the increasingly narrow stylistic confines of these musical provinces. The album is characterized by a brutal foregrounding of process and material lacking from the experimental music of so many of their contemporaries. Rather than seeking refinement or resolution through existing structures, Guionnet and Yoshikawa prioritize a sort of collaborative musical searching in which the aural entanglement, layering and folding of their scorched intonations creates an emergent musical form -- a non-linear music which sounds both ancient and futuristic. 

Corruscating alto saxophone riffs appear suddenly, before disintegrating amidst slabs of feedback and flurries of metallic percussion. Other times, Yoshikawa and Guionnet conjure shifting clouds of sustained tones from the timbral meshing of their instruments - yielding a sound somewhere between the dense textures of Iancu Dumitrescu and the floating harmonics of Gagaku. Far from improvisation as we know it, this album instead gestures towards a speculative “electronic” music created through the ritualistic misuse of acoustic instruments. 

Intervivos is a fierce, undecorated triumph in the ruinous expression of instruments -- exalted in both its turbulence, and in its extreme testing of improvisational reality. Put summarily by Seymour Wright in the album’s liner notes: “You don’t need me to tell you how it sounds, or how to listen [...] this record begins when you play it.” 

The release is mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M, featuring artwork by Jean-Luc Guionnet and liner notes by saxophonist Seymour Wright. The LP is produced in an edition of 500 on 180 gram vinyl in a letterpress on Foldkraft paper sleeve.

Intervivos

Empty Editions is a Berlin-based publishing platform initiated by the Empty Gallery, Hong Kong. Empty Editions releases vinyl records, artist books, multiples, and other ephemera with a special focus on the intersection between visual and sonic arts. We are restless explorers of the fertile territory where the vernacular meets the avant-garde. Forthcoming releases from Empty Editions include music by Jean-Luc Guionnet, Daichi Yoshikawa and a documentary on Karou Abe by Modern Music's founder, Hideo Ikeezumi.

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