NORMAN WESTBERG & JACEK MAZURKIEWICZ, First Man in the Moon - LP
Release date - March 12th 2021
Catalogue nr. - HG2101
Format - Vinyl / digital
Hallow Ground
Vinyl / digital, catalogue nr. HG2101

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
What Is Good For The Goose (09:35)
That Was Then (08:29)
First Man In The Moon (06:45)
Falsely Accused (06:33)
Oxnard (05:47)

Credits:
Recorded at Studio Diamentowy Pies
Damian Pielka, engineering
Piotr Mazurek, engineering assistance
Jacek Mazurkiewicz, mix
Lawrence English, mastering
John Fell, photographs
Greenpointless, design

///
An unlikely meeting of two like-minded spirits, »First Man in the Moon« sees the former Swans guitarist and Hallow Ground regular Norman Westberg and the prolific double bass player Jacek Mazurkiewicz collaborate for five evocative tracks. The pair finds common ground beyond the boundaries of atmospheric drone, abstract jazz and experimental music and blurs the lines between the acoustic and the electronic. 

The two first met when the composer Mazurkiewicz supported Swans with his solo project 3FoNIA on their 2014 European tour. »I really enjoyed his approach,« says Westberg about the Polish musician’s blending of the acoustic qualities of his instrument with electronically generated sounds. A decision to collaborate was made and when the US-American musician returned to Eastern Europe to support Michael Gira on his solo tour in late 2019, Mazurkiewicz reached out to him with the idea of booking some studio time before Gira’s two concerts in Warsaw. »Recording was very fun and easy,« remembers Westberg. »It was just two people enjoying hearing and reacting to what the other is doing.«

»First Man in the Moon« is not however a plain document of these improvised sessions, but also shaped by Mazurkiewicz’s approach as a composer. Once the recordings were finished, he selected and edited the recorded material, refining the peculiar dialogue between the guitarist’s meditative drones and bright chords and his own rhythmic yet subtle approach to playing the double bass, sometimes plucking the strings and occasionally using his bow to underscore Westberg’s fleeting melodies, but also using the instrument in unconventional ways to generate sound. 

A feeling of weightlessness prevails throughout the aptly-titled »First Man in the Moon.« Even at their most abstract however, these five improvisations-turned-compositions remain tangible, lively, and joyfully explorative. It is a record that you wouldn’t expect from either of these musicians, but the logical result of two idiosyncratic minds sharing not only space and time, but also their respective visions with each other.

NORMAN WESTBERG & JACEK MAZURKIEWICZ - What Is Good For The Goose (HG2101)

HALLOW GROUND 
is a platform for Music and Art that leads to Visions.

It was established in Lucerne/Switzerland by a group of individualists, idealists and first of all artists. We act as publishers, hosts and performers.

www.hallowground.com

No one has been unaffected by what's going on

A musical narrative visible to the minds eye.

LOADING..Floating towards Pluto, Beyond the Clones uses retro space toy sounds which lands near cassette loopers / tapped dark Ambient, experimental analogue, 8Bit, Minimal Glitch, Drone, a big believer in old recording formats and using them to promote the soul of the toy/80s hardware sound, so over coming some crazy tactics to get there, orbiting that with computer coded madness by passing on tape loopers.

Check us out on XLR8R, NTS Alien jams show, BBC 6 Music with a remix of Calm of zero.
Intergalactic FM.


Ambient, glitch, modular EP ' Moon Bird' and 'OrganOid ' now, 
including the Soviet space mission inspired game app and 'Noise (Live) ' Out soon.

XLR8R Quoted: 

Beyond the Clones, a producer living in Frankfurt, is a believer in old recording formats and using them to promote the soul of the ’80s hardware sound. Included on his latest EP Moon Bird, including a rework of Frédérique Bruyas’ “La Création,” on which he morphs the original into a slow-moving piece of experimental ambient, complete with textures and infected melancholic keys.