- fragmented media - incite/ - axiomatic integration - audiounit - Hörbar -
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GradCom - cuts + edits -
available for free download now!
I´m really happy to be able to announce the release of the GradCom mp3- release cuts + edits, featuring 10 GradCom tracks, with guest appearances of Rhodri Davis, Koutaru Fukui, Gregory Büttner and Jason Engling!
Tracklisting:
01. Nijmegen, Extrapool; Mar 11th 2005 - single xylophone tone
02. Chicago, DeadTech; Jun 28th 2004 - w/ Koutaro Fukui/electric guitar
03. Berlin, Stralau68; Dec 24th 2005 - autoharp
04. Hamburg, Hörbar@Fundbuerau; Jun 8th 2005 - w/ Gregory Büttner/sine generator
05. Brussels, Mediaruimte; Mar 15th 2005 - electric drill
06. Hamburg, Skam; Oct 14th 2004 - handclap
07. Edinburgh, Gianttank@Subway; Jul 5th 2005 - soft drink can
08. Brighton, TotallyBored@Fringe Bar; Jul 20th 2005 - acoustic guitar
09. Studio June06 - based on a 6th Octave C Flat Harp note played by Rhodri Davies and recorded by Joe Leach at Cowshed Studio, London May06
10. Detroit, Detroit Art Space; Jun30th 2004 - grand piano (voice: Jason Engling)
(Download by right-clicking on the trackname and saving to your hard-drive)
After about 45 shows since June04 it feels like an appropriate step to take a glance back.
This album features 9 condensed/cut/edited versions of live concerts performed since June 2004 and one studio piece based on the kind contribution of Rhodri Davies.
The basic idea: take a sound source found in the venue, sample and manipulate it live in the computer hasn´t changed a lot in the meantime. The same applies to collaborations (Gregory Büttner and Koutaru Fukui featured here). Nothing prepared before the gig. Jason Engling´s "talking about sound" on the Detroit Art Space recording is a rare example of a soundcheck residual sticking to the actual performance.
The variety of sound sources/instruments is much wider than featured on this abum: a Sitar, a Whiskey glass with ice, a bottle cooler, a plastic water bottle, a self-built "spring box", a Kalimba, sounds of trains passing over the venue, a cookie can, ballons, a flapping 12" vinyl, an unattentive audience chatting.
Most tracks were recorded live into the computer, which made those recordings a perfect basis for editing and post-processing, which was needed here and there to straighten the arrangements and help overcome some defficiencies.
This is why cuts+edits is not a documentation but rather a live-remix album.
The sound quality is not perfect on all trracks, but hey...
From a different angle, this CD wants to be seen as a big THANK YOU! to all the fantastic people Kera and me met all over the place on our tours since 2003!
Kera, I love you!
André Aspelmeier, Hamburg February 2008
Please feel free to copy, share and link this music which is published under a Creative Commons-license in February 2008
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11.08.2007
{open}, Long Beach, CA
Our first gig in a BookStore ever, very nice and intimate, great people there. incite/, a.i.
GradCom played the dance set again, mainly for practical reasons this time.
Picture - Recording
09.08.2007
Steve Allen Theater, Los Angeles, CA
The Steve Allen Theater is a great place of free-thinking-commedy and discourse, we felt very much at home there.
The night was opened up by Hans Fjellestad on analogue synths and video, a.i. and incite/ also played, GradCom used a piano.
Pictures - Recording
04.08.2007
Il Corral, Los Angeles, CA
After a couple of days in the Yosemite Park and on the California coast down from Monterey, we made our first jump into LA on August 4th, performing at the Il Corral, joined by axiomatic integration, incite/ and Illusion of Safety again as well as Casey James and the Stayout Kid and BlipVert.
Since this was supposed to be a "glitch-hop dance party" featuring a "no shoes dance floor" (which turned out to be a used carpet gaffa-taped to the floor) GradCom provided beats, again, which unfortunately didn´t get recorded.
Pictures
28.07.2007
RX Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Rather than accepting a short-notice cancellation, we managed to make it a great gig for a small but really good crowd!
GradCom did the dance-set again, axiomatic integration, incite/ joined in with Dan Burke/ Illusion of Safety´s first SF gig in years.
Recording
24.07.2007
Three Pieces, San Francisco, CA
Three Pieces is a diverse living-room-art and music series in the Tenderloin district by Roddy Schrock , whom we met on his 2005 Germany Tour at the Hoerbar in Hamburg. Again, no incite/ but axiomatic integration and some interesting art-action: Zoe Kosher (SF) and dutch STOP, one of those fake-official "stichtings" making fun of lokal dutch politics.
GradCom used a quarter dollar coin in a metal bowl.
Pictures - Recording - Video
20.07.2007
Branx, Portland, OR
The Branx is a nice small club in an industrial area of Portland, right beneath the Rotture. This night was a bit ill-fated due to the promoter´s lack of time to either promote the gig nor to show up himself...
The soundguy, the barkeeper and the promoter´s girlfirend were really nice though.
GradCom played the dance set. Always interesting how different live sets based on the identical sounds can get...
Recording
19.07.2007
Oscillate, Seattle, WA
The Oscillate is a Thursdays audiovisual series held at the Baltic Room, Seattle by Greg Skidmore and Scott James (the first to DJ this night, the latter performing AV as Iller Aint). Due to the whole night being a bit more danceable (more incite/, less improv), GradCom played a "dance-set" which will eventually pop up here and there on this tour. This set was first created and playd on our Switzerland tour in October 2006 in Fribourg.
Pictures - Recording
14.07.2007
BLIM, Vancouver, BC
Arriving in Seattle, we spent a day at the beautiful Lake Washington, met up with Dan Burke, saw (despite this being an iappropriate term, considering the blindfolds) a Francisco Lopz concert backed up by Matt Schoemaker, set up by the great non-sequitor people.
Arriving in Vancouver, we played our first gig on the tour solos only at the BLIM, which is a very nice multipurpose art-space, organised by Yuriko Iga. GradCom was joined by axiomatic integration, Colin Hendry and a local psychelelic guitar player under the disguise of Shokk.
GradCom´s instrument was a simple casio keyboard, building up slowly to a drone as much as a casio can drone...
Picture - Recording
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26.10.2006
R3S3T, Bern
In the R3S3T Studio, Mich gave me an autoharp to play with which was great. Less great was my old Powerbooks´ problem with the new soundcard which inexpectedly caused a cpu-usage of 100% and greater (!), basically killing my set (it didn´t crash, though, I just had a weird time doing nothing and observing that spinning beachball of death...)
Pictures - Recording
24.10.2006
Fri-Son, Fribourg
The Fri-Son runs a weekly Tuesdays Night event based on electronic grooves, so GradCom again supported incite/ playing that "big beat" stuff, again with vocals!
Pictures - Recording
23.10.2006
Oblò Cinema, Lausanne
The Oblò Cinema is a fantastic small cinema just like the Hoerbar in Hamburg.
I played with an electric drill again, like at the Media Ruimte in Brussels in March05.
Pictures - Recording
20.10.2006
Sonic, Lyon
Our first gig in France ever,on a boat. Great audience. I played a prepared, rhythmic set of big beats, noisy grooves and vocals. Supported incite/ pretty well.
Pictures - Recording
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06.08.2006
Auxilec, Leicester, UK
Nice gig in a pub´s function room set up by Steve Auxilec.
Pictures
29.07.2006
B-22, Hamburg
GradCom played as a part of the fragmented media label showcase at the new B-22 in the Bernstorffstraße, also featuring axiomatic integration, incite/ and DJ baze.djunkiii.
Instrument of choice: a PET water bottle.
Recording - Pictures
16.03.2006
Groove, Tarragona, ES
at the end of our fantastic Iberia-tour GradCom played one show ath the Groove Bar in Tarragona, using a metal Whiskey-Bottle-Box as the instrument. Kera was the kameragirl this time. The recording unluckily failed and the pictures were not really helpful, either...
24.12.2005
Stralau68 Berlin
joined by Jeff Gburek, Cri du Coeur, axiomatic integration and incite/
I opened Jürg Bariletti´s regular X-mas improv event "nicht stille nacht" with a athmospheric improvisation on an "Autoharp", one of the many instrumental pearls and absurdities found in this truly musical place. (Those days, Jürg had 4 Grand Pianos in his place, which were featuring en masse in a concert a few weeks later) .
Recording - Pictures
07.10.2005
A4 Bratislava, SK
The A4 is a great performance space in the center of Bratislava. We joined the stage with Phragments and GradCom played on a Piano another time, this time even darker than before. Nicely enhanced by the screened interiour of the piano.
Recording - Pictures
03.10.2005
Raum 35, Vienna
Raum 35 used to be the IFTAF, we played improvised sessions with Bernadette Reiter, Ernst Reitermeier, Jörg Piringer, FM Zombiemaus and GradCom used a window pane-glass and a waterglass.
Recording - Pictures - Video
01.10.05
VEKKS, Vienna
Announced as an opening event to an exibition under the title "my completely normal shitty childhood", we flew to Vienna to play as incite/, axiomatic integration and GradCom and spent a week there.
I found a Floortom in a humid backroom.
Recording - Pictures - Video
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20.07.05
Brighton
Totally Bored@Fringe Bar
Our last gig of our UK tour was set up by Monster Bobby and Chris Cook whom we met in Edinburgh 2 weeks before.
The fringe Bar is a nice Café in the "poshy-hippie" centre of Brighton. Our audience of some 20 pax packed the small place completely and created a great and attentive athmosphere. We were supported by a local poet called "the reverend" and Mr. Monsterbobby himself on acoustic guitar and vocals. I could use Bobbies guitar for my gig.
Great night, just like the whole UK tour!
Recording - Pictures
18.07.05
Norwich
Slow Magazine@The Marquee
Another function room of a local pub, another great night. I used balloons to make my noise, just like I did on my very first release "Appi - Mahnfaktor Katharsis", a 7 inch EP from 1986. The way I touch the balloons (best seen on the video) has some funny sexual implications which were NOT intended but so what...
Recording - Pictures - Video
15.07.05
London
Klinker
Hugh Metcalfe´s North-London-Klinker hostes a farewell party the night which we were invited to join. The atmosphere was hilarious and I felt I had to spontaneously step back from using the piano again because there were too many people who´ve seen the Bonnington show on Monday and instead I used a cola-can like I did in Edinburgh.
Recording - Pictures
11.07.05
London
Bonnington Centre
Being pretty much a notorious place for improvised music the Bonnington Centre featured a Piano which I made use of for the third time after Detroit and the Vorwerkstift gig in Hamburg.
Recording - Picture
10.07.05
Manchester
alectro ecoustic
Daniel Weaver sets up a fantastic series of improvised music nights in the basement gallery of the incredible Oklahoma Café. Joined by axiomatic integration, Lee Patterson and others. I used a water PET plastic bottle.
Recording - Video - Pictures
08.07.05
Nottingham
Moogbar
The Moogbar is a nice bar with a great electronic tradition, a beautiful terrace and a great crowd. Some 40 people showed up and for incite/ it was one of the best nights on the tour. I used a 12inch record, flapping it in front of the Microphone, destroying it in the end. At the very beginning of the recording, you can hear the audience talk again. It took a while but I was able to capture everyone´s attention after a while.
Recording - Pictures - Video
06.07.05
Dundee
Droughty Neebours
Our first encounter with a pub´s "function room", this time downstairs. The video projection of what I´m doing works great even in pretty small places. I used a bottle cooler from the bar as my instrument.
Recording - Video - Pictures
05.07.05
Edinburgh
Gianttank@Subway Cowgate
Those days were crazy! Edinburgh in the midst of the G8-summit-craze! We spent two days off in "Europe´s most beautiful capital", got to see a fantastic small festival featuring CKDH, Bela Emerson, Stuart Flynt and Monsterbbby and Chris Cook/Same Actor, the latter two being our promoters for our Brighton gig two weeks to come.
After 2 exciting incite/ only gigs in Aberdeen an Glasgow supporting A Hawk And A Hacksaw, the Cowgate was the first night in our 2005 Summer-UK-tour where we played our solos. Opened up by Ali and Malcie (aka Usurper) who kinda played the quietest set we ever hardly heard, I used a Cola-can, crackling and glitchy.
Recording - Picture
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28.06.05
Hamburg
Hoerbar
Since 1995, the Hoerbar sets up a regular night at the B-Movie cinema in St.Pauli. Great projection facilities, a super.dry cinema-like acoustic and a quad sound system and a very special and ultra-attentive audience are perfect conditions for a GradCom set. I played an empty oil can this night, quadrophonic, and used the iSight camera to project the action on stage onto the screen. This is Kera´s idea and it´s adding an extra layer of intensity to GradCom´s sets. Musically it´s been a very pleasant night, the set was over 30 minutes long and I feel it to have worked pretty well,
Recording - Video - Picture
08.06.05
Hamburg
Fundbureau- Hoerbar in Exile Festival.
This fantastic night was set up by the Hoerbar due to having to emigrate for one night from the B-Movie into the Fundbureau, both in St.Pauli, just 3 days after the 9th edition of the annual Hoerbar-harbour-barkassa-trip.
There were numerous sets that night:
GradCom performed using the sound of the trains rumbling over this venue all few minutes, even at night.
Kera performed as axiomatic integration together with Guy Saldanha (Bass Guitar), Guy also played with Gregory Buettner (Sine Wave Generator and effects), who played a set with GradCom. The night was closed by tbc (feedback mixer) and Guy Saldanha. Incestuous noises at it´s best!
Recording solo - Recording w Gregory Buettner- Picture
On May 29th we set up our third audiounit concert featuring Tetuzi Akiyama and Jeff Gburek, with whom we played a improv session before their featured sets.
12.05.05
Cologne
Club Camouflage
This gig was set up for incite/, a.i. and GradCom by DJ Baze Djunkiii and Dr.Walker.
Interesting experience to perform in a Dance-Club. The total lack of musical instruments led me to record and manipulate the sound of ice cubes in a whiskey glass, as this is a sound that is very typical for the location. Unfortunately the recording didn´t work. And it was very dark ;o)
16.04.05
Hamburg St-Pauli
Vorwerkstift Festival
Being one out of more than 30(!) live sets, GradCom featured on the frantic second Vorwerkstift Event, setup by Melike Blir and Mark Matthes. Each set was supposed to play 10 minutes, two stages, pretty spontaneous changes and a packed crowd which definetely went for the party aspect much more than for the mere musical one. You can hear people talking towards the end of the track.
Other sets included a.i., für diesen Abend, Das Institut, Jürgen Hall etc.
GradCom played a detuned piano, interesting to compare to the Detroit set from July04.
Recording - Picture - Video
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Benelux Tour March 2005
incite/ booked a six gig back-to-back tour for Holland/Belgium for March 05 and GradCom joined 4 of those 6 gigs and again used instruments/gadgets found on site, manipulating them in Ableton Live 4.
Here´s the gigs in reversed order:
15.03.05
Brussels
Media Ruimte
The Media Ruimte is an artspace focussed on 3-D anmiation art, set up by Els and Manuel of Lab_au. As an artspace there were no "musical instruments" available. Instead, Manuel provided me with an electric screwdriver, which turned out to be a very inspiring source.
incite/, a.i. and GradCom were joined by two local acts: kog_theorem and Halofaust.
Recording - Pictures
14.03.05
Maastricht
Intro In Situ
This gig was organized by Peter, Kim, Roel and the others of the SDIM, the Southern Dutch Industrial Movement in a public artspace.
Again, we played as incite/ a.i. and GradCom and again, there was no "real" musical instrument available (Artspace, know what I mean...). Kera found me a metal cookie box, which I used and liked pretty much.
Recording - Pictures
12.03.05
Amsterdam
OT 301
Due to a broken heating system, our gig was relocated within the Overtoom. Instead of playing in the main performance room on the ground level, we played in the cinema on the second level, former home of Marco Ciciliani´s Kraakgeluiden series of improvised music.
The cinema proved a great choice for incite/ and a.i.,
I used a Kalimba, which I was kindly given by Colin McLean, who was our host that night.
Recording - Video
11.03.
Nijmegen
Extrapool
For our starting gig for the benelux tour we played at the legendary Extrapool. Joyce and the rest of the Crew supported us perfectly, I played on a single note of a Xylophone. Great sound source, but I was a bit unconcentrated and generated on big feedback (not on the edited version) and the rest of the set was a bit pointless to my taste.
Recording - Pictures
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15.11.04 and 31.01.05 saw the first two audiounit nights.
Our guests were Nisikawa Bunsho and Tim Olive (Osaka) in November and Guy Saldhana in January.
Some excellent improvisations are available for download here and here.
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24.10.04
Hamburg St.Pauli
SKAM
Hostet and supported by Nicky Wiese we played another 2 persons / 3 acts night,
GradCom recorded the sound of the audience chatting in the breaks between the performances and used them as the basic sounds for the set, instead of torturing an innocent acoustical instrument.
This is about the only concert where I wished the audience to be a little bit less attentive, talking a little bit more to have my music blend a bit more with the chatting.
The dominant voice saying "heil oder kaputt" is Thomas Elitez who´s been operating the live cam, the beat was recorded during soundcheck, a hand clap.
Recording - Pictures - Video
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Athens 2004-08-28
After 4 years of musical evolution, GradCom is being relaunched.
There´s a new performance concept, a new website a new CD-R Series and lots of new music.
The fundament of these changes is the new performance concept for the US tour 2004:
In every Venue, I use the sound of musical instruments or other objects found in the room, manipulating them in the computer. In case there is nothing to use, I created a simple metal box with springs, a velcro tape and a rubber string, miked with a C-Ducer Microphone, my Spring Box. This device was inspired by Eric Leonardson´s Springboard though that one is far more sophisticated.
During soundcheck, I usually sample some sounds to be used in the show, just to have a foundation for the improv part. Still, in none of the concerts I used any other sound source but the dedicated instrument or the Spring Box.
And another small but pretty important one to me: there is no added reverb fx on any of the tracks.
The new CD-R has a cover similar to the V1.x which consisted in two blue plastic sheets fixed with bolts and nuts, but it no longer is blue but clear. The bolts and nuts remain, the music is starting all over, from now on, the plot is about acoustic sources fed into laptop algorithms, plug ins, sampled, manipulated and morphed. Stuff like the one you can listen to on this website.
As in V1.x, each version differs from all the others by at least one piece of music, thus always featuring my recent "favorites"- compilation. And as usual, it´s not available anywhere. Or drop me a mail.
And the website, well, it´s this one.
Change remains the central mission statement, there´s many more new things to come, updates, additions, new concepts, new music.
Since not all things past are things to forget and ignore, the "old" version 1 site is still online, including all the tracks recorded between 2000 and June 2004.
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US Tour Summer 2004
On their second US Tour (after Summer 2003), incite/, a.i. and GradCom (i.e. Kera and me) played 14 Gigs starting in Chicago and ending in Easthampton, Ma.
9 of these gigs were played by all three acts most of them supported by local musicians playing a wide variety of styles and sounds.
GradCom set up a new performance concept for this tour:
In every Venue, I use the sound of musical instruments or other objects found in the room, manipulating them in the computer. In case there is nothing to use, I created a simple metal box with springs, a velcro tape and a rubber string, miked with a C-Ducer Microphone, my Spring Box.
During soundcheck, I usually sampled some sounds to be used in the show, just to have a foundation for the improv part. Still, in none of the concerts, I used any other sound source but the dedicated instrument or the Spring Box.
Here´s the gigs in reverse order:
21.07.04
Easthampton, Ma
Flywheel Art
I was looking forward to this gig for several reasons: first it was so great to see the Hnatiw Brothers Tim an Eric again. (We actually stayed in their basement studio, which made us "cellardwellers", too. A great honor!)
Secondly, I wanted to use the electric organ placed in the Flywheel´s foyer, because we sampled it last year and used the sound on an incite/ track, called "neop", the A-side of the first incite/ 7".
We played with several acts of the local Bitshift-scene, including Belltone Suicide and "People (Members of Humanity)" which were actually the Hnatiw Brothers, killing their guitars. Here´s a short clip showing Tim during soundcheck (filmed with a digital photo camera, 10MB), and here´s a part of their 10 minute performance. After completely killing the guitar, they came out again, in shorts and socks, screaming like madmen, wrapping themselves with tape, going insane!
The GradCom performance, using only the organ sounds elvolved from cautious touches to a roaring organ fury. For this versionI left the original rather unedited (straightend out a bit but unshortened) because it´s a nice improv evolution, again demonstrating well how unpredictable it can be.
Recording - Pictures
18.07.04
NYC, NY
Share
Playing at the share was great, because we played here last year as the first set of our tour, actually the fourth incite/ and the very first axiomatic integration set ever!
This year the setup was much more relaxed for us, with all the tour experience at hand. Keiko and Kanargh were hosts just as suppportive as Daniel and Geoff Matters were last year and it was a great night. Kid Kameleon, Aaron Halley, Clay Lacefield and many others showed up.
I played the Spring Box for the last time (It was left in Boston on the Date of our departure), hitting the Bassdrum-sound with my fingers on the bottom of the Spring Box, ending up in a surprisingly "industrial" set.
Recording - Pictures
15.07.04
Philadelphia, Pa
Millcreek Tavern
Set up by Ben Morgan, who used to live in Germany (Heidelberg) and was a member of the Band Bergheim34, this night was opened by "Fidget and friends", a group of improvised ambient music on Guitar, Synth, Laptop and Harp and closed by Dev79.
Since Ben also plays Sitar, I was given the unique opportunity to do a piece with an instrument that I never touched before in my life. Due to the state the instrument was in (untuned, some strings turned loose during the concert) and I definetely prooved untalented to master it, you don´t hear very much of the typical sitar sound spectrum in the recording, though. Could have been an electric guitar at most points.
Still parts of the set sound really great to my ears and not only Charles Cohen seemed to have enjoyed the set.
Also noteworthy: the talking audience through the rotary speakers fx at the beginning.
Recording - Pictures
10.07.04
Washington, DC
911 Florida
Just across the street of the legendary Howard Theatre that used to feature all the famous Jazz from the 30s to the 60s and is now fenced and facing wreckage, Scott Verrastro and his friends Craig and Carolina and host small events of strange music in their living rooms. The performers play in one and the audience sits in the other, looking through a small door. A great place to play and be.
Here, many acoustical instruments were around, and their roommate allowed me to use his acoustic guitar, which is documented here. Today I think that there are so many more sounds to get out of an acoustic guitar, that I am even today looking forward to the next time I´m given one to play with. The version documented here is slightly shortened. Note the feedbacks picked up by the C-Ducer Mic at about 8 minutes playing time.
On this night we were joined by the local Laptop Duo Sc.All.
Scott Verrastro and his friend Craig wanted to do a Drums and Bassguitar Set but this was cancelled due to Craig suffering a serious tendosynovitis.
Recording - Pictures
08.07.04
Baltimore, MD
Mojo
Tho Mojo is basically a Rock-Club, featuring a loud Mono PA and- guess it- no acoustical instruments. So I played the Spring Box again.
At the very beginning you can hear people talking at the bar, picked up by the C-Ducer Microphone. The first 20 to 25 seconds give a good example of the non processed original sound of the Spring Box as picked up by the C-Ducer.
This recording contains some edits, it has been shortened from 12 to 9 minutes.
incite played a very well received set on a night that was opened by a DJ Set by Alex Strama, who has set up the entire night, and finished by Paul Joyce´s Heirs of Rockafella, very groovy Plunderphonic-type stuff. A hit!
Recording - Pictures
06.07.04.
Richmond, VA
Virginia Art Works
This gig was organised by Kelly and Ken from HarmStryker. They´re part of the 804 Noise collective, a group of people working on a noise music web all over the east coast, with a clear and distinct political attidude.
On the bill were "Birds in the Meadows" (Marty McCavitt on Electronics and Saxophone player Darius) who played a great Laptop/Sax improv, much better than I expected such a collaboration could be.
Feralcatscan (Wayne) performed a set of slowly swelling drones and feedbacks, controlled by a self-build USB controller on his arm.
For GradCom it was again another artspace and again no acoustic instruments in the place and an again the Spring Box, this time rather rythmic and groovy.
Recording - Pictures
03.07.04
Cincinnati, OH
The Mockbee
After an overwhelming two-day-stay at the BLD in Columbus, OH, where incite/ played on a bill with 8 other bands, including Turkey´s Serhat Köksal (2/5 BZ), Chris Roesing awaited us at the Mockbee for another 8 (?) band night, starting with a symposium on experimental music featuring most of the artists of the night. Iovae, Michael Fiday, Uncle Sam Lewis, is what?, roesingape.
Since the Mockbee is more of an industrial museum/artpsace than a club, I didn´t find any instrument suitable for the gig, so this became GradComs first use of the Spring Box, proving its qualities from the start.
There´s a cellphone interference sound right at the beginning, which is not created by the instrument but picked up by the system during soundcheck.
Recording - Pictures
30.06.04
Detroit, Mi
Detroit Art Space
The DAS is located in a pretty much rundown neighborhood (two mistakes: rundown doesn´t get it half way and it´s not exactly a neighborhood, since there are no neighbors) in walking distance to downtown Detroit (another mistake: you don´t walk at night in this part of of the city).
Scott Boatright sets up shows there and the place is amazing: high ceilings, one hugh room, a stage maybe 10 by 4 meters and a Grand Piano, completely out of tune.
I used this Grand for my set and I loved it!
Here again, the sounds are only the Piano manipulated in Ableton Live. The vocals heard towards the end is Jason Engling´s (Bubblegone) talking during the soundcheck/preparation, who played with Joe Bauer (verzerren) opening the night.
Recording - Pictures
28.06.04
Chicago, Il
DeadTech
At the DeadTech, Koutaro Fukui opened with a great electric guitar/laptop improv solo set.
GradCom played an improv duo together with Koutaro which developed in a completely different direction,
Rob Ray, who runs the DeadTech did a great Video (???) and Dan Burke showed up, saving our lives with two huge (and delicious!) Pizzas that did feed everyone after the sets.
Recording - Pictures