8 min read 🤓
Fifty/Fifty
december 31, 2006.
... here's 5 performances and one recording session to end the year ...
[ quicknav -: trio.{dec. 7th} | diktat.{dec. 8th} | fifty/fifty.{dec. 9th} | vitrine.{dec. 10th} | more diktat.{dec. 15th} ]
If doing something twice in a row means it has become a tradition, then doing a concert on my birthday became a tradition.
Last year we did
the Vicky's
Mosquitos Special at the Rotonde de Choc.
This year Rinus van Alebeek
came over from Berlin, just after das
kleine Field Recording festival that he organized there late november,
and before traveling on to Bilbao for a performance on december 15th at
the Musica Ex Machina festival.
[ quicknav -: trio.{dec. 7th} | diktat.{dec. 8th} | fifty/fifty.{dec. 9th} | vitrine.{dec. 10th} | more diktat.{dec. 15th} ]
On the thursday evening of december 7th we played as a trio, together with
Philipe Simon on electric violin, at La Miroiterie, a small but
exciting squat-venue in Ménilmontant, run by Andy Bolus.
We were first of a four part bill.
Our dictaphones + violin set was short, fast, dense, furious. We took off rather
suddenly, and in less than no time were launched up to
_max density_ where we continued to flex'n'move for about fifteen minutes,
within the little 'headroom' that was left ... very adventurous ... I mainly
remember Philipe's bent back, who played his violin while being on his knees
before the loudspeaker behind me for the whole fifteen minutes, ending with
an islamic prayer emanating from our tsunami
of sounds :: "earth's very gravity balance was altered, and the north
pole shifted by an inch" ...
Come to think of it, I hardly even saw Philipe's violin that evening
... [ A microphone-onto-minidisc recording of the Simon-vanAlebeek-HarS
trio is included as the second half of this
soundblog edition's podcast 
...
]
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Other acts that seventh of december at la Miroiterie: ___ zaraz wam
zagram + TG ___ undo,
being Romuald Fogolin and Jean Philippe Saulou ___ blue sabbath black
fiji, being a girl and a boy and - mostly - guitars ...
On their myspace page
blue sabbath black fiji tells us that "they act with the guitarre.
it can be that the rythmus or the song is added the climate of these improvisations
is coldly with the disco music of disco music heat changes spherical spaces
until the weiredness polyrythmic mortal into metal of death comes rather
as well and makes cook the animal..." As this point I could hardly
tell you better. But I think Andy Bolus can. Andy's a real fine observer,
as I already had the pleasure finding out at some earlier occasion, roaming
with him and others through Belleville at night. "The way I see them,"
Andy said, "is more like they are two lovers, and I see that before
I even see the music ... They're always so in love, like, hugging each other,
you know, being very, sort of ... 'fuck everyone else' sort of
thing. Really sort of, it's like their universe, and they don't
need anyone else ... It does totally represent what they do when they play
live ... or the other way round, you know ... it's kinda like they are making
a big love ball out of guitar distortion and stuff ... you understand what
I mean? ..."
[ quicknav -: trio.{dec. 7th} | diktat.{dec. 8th} | fifty/fifty.{dec. 9th} | vitrine.{dec. 10th} | more diktat.{dec. 15th} ]
On friday december 8th we did a Diktat concert in Cannelle Tanc and Frédéric
Vincent's gallery Immanence,
near the Montparnasse tour, with undo doing a first part set.
undo were tighter, denser, more aggressive ... more coherent
than the day before at La Miroiterie ... I enjoyed what they did at Immanence.
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Between november 10th and december 16th Immanence hosted an exposition of work by the german photographers
Patrick Huber and Ute Lindner,
who Rinus had met in Berlin.
The gallery proved an interesting place to perform, and a great place for
the second Diktat concert (the first one had been eight months and a day
before, on
april 7th in project 101).
We decided to try and make use of the gallery's space, and each
of the four players set up and performed from one of the corners of the
high-ish rectangular exposition room.
Quadraphonic.
The Immanence audience, sitting down on the floor in the middle, this time
around had the best perspective. It was interesting to hear the performance
back in a stereo recording made from an audience spot, but of course
- as always, but even more so in this case - quite a bit of the 'depth' of
the sounding structure must have gotten lost [flattened] in projection ...
[ quicknav -: trio.{dec. 7th} | diktat.{dec. 8th} | fifty/fifty.{dec. 9th} | vitrine.{dec. 10th} | more diktat.{dec. 15th} ]
Saturday december 9th was my birthday. It was Rinus' birthday one week later,
december 16th. As of this month together we stand for a century's worth.
To mark the occasion, on saturday evening there was a small private party
at my place. During the evening Rinus and I did a duo-dictaphonic set. It
was recorded (with microphone onto MD). Of this recording we will make 50
copies on C30 chrome cassette, which will be available as a special numbered
anniversary edition. Each cassette comes with its own walkman player (found
or bought second hand at a flea market, thrift store or garage sale), packed
in its own hand decorated cardboard box. They will be made, one by one.
I made the first one, and presented it to Rinus for his birthday. For information
on how to order and get yourself a hand-made 'fifty-fifty' duo-dictaphony
box, there's the
'fifty-fifty' page ...
(added september 29, 2022)
[ quicknav -: trio.{dec. 7th} | diktat.{dec. 8th} | fifty/fifty.{dec. 9th} | vitrine.{dec. 10th} | more diktat.{dec. 15th} ]
The
day after, sunday december 10th, saw us wearing the same clothes, acting
out pretty much the same gestures, but working with different sounds,
at La Vitrine (de l'École
Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Paris-Cergy). We had actually planned
another trio with Philipe Simon on violin, but as Philipe and his violin
did not arrive at la Vitrine in time for the set, that did not work out.
Not this time ... I do hope we'll be able to get together again, if only
for once to see Philipe play the instrument. I nevertheless greatly
enjoyed our
late afternoon duo-dictaphony at la Vitrine, the feeling of
which - the atmosphere - was very different from that of the 'fifty-fifty'
set of the night before. As there was a pregnant girl among the audience
we started with the volume relatively low, and it stayed so for much of
the thirty/forty minutes long set.
(This was one of those performances that must remain 'memory only', for
for some reason my MD recorder stopped the recording after less than 2 minutes.
I had a similar problem at Immanence, where the
recording halts five minutes before the set ends ... fortunately there was
a second recording - be it mp3 only - being made ... I suspect it to be
due to errors on the discs used, but not sure of that ...)
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At la Vitrine we were again - for the third time this week - 'sharing the
bill' with undo, who performed after us, with a guest - maybe two?
I just remember the guy seated to the left treating an awesome looking old
electric guitar ... their set was somewhat incoherent and rambling, but
did manage to grab me at times (even though Romuald said afterwards that
he had felt it to be totally shit ...)
The event was part of le grand chelem et le petit schmilblick,
an exposition bringing together four collectives: Atelier Cherry, Club Sandwich,
Persona non Grata and Vacancy.
I was happy getting to know Vacancy, and am particularly intrigued by their
project, of, for the duration of an evening, 'invading' and 'transforming'
apartments emptied by the former occupants, just before the next tenants
arrive ...
[ quicknav -: trio.{dec. 7th} | diktat.{dec. 8th} | fifty/fifty.{dec. 9th} | vitrine.{dec. 10th} | more diktat.{dec. 15th} ]
On december 12th Rinus moved on again, via Bordeaux to Bilbao, and hence
he had to miss the Diktat performance on friday december 15th. That was
at the Rotonde de Choc, in the Espace Jemmapes (Paris X), thus bringing
us on this 31st december back to the very spot where this
year's edition of the soundblog started on the 1st of january.
It was an occasion to bring into practice the idea of Diktat as an 'ensemble
of varying geometry', and I invited Jean-Jacques Duerinckx to come over
from Brussels to Paris with his sopranino sax, to join the Diktat
trio base - Bordé, Rébus, HarS - and complete it into a quartet.
And for this third Diktat concert to have two instrumentalists
meeting two dictaphonists.
We did the second part of the evening, after a double bass solo set by Matthieu
Immer.
The intimacy of the small 'chambre noire' proved a near perfect spot for
this Diktat.
"Three concerts, that makes a band," we concluded afterwards ... all much looking forward to continue the Diktat adventure
in the new year ...
Late
afternoon saturday december 16th, Jean-Jacques and I met up at Jean Bordé's
place, with Jean and saxophone player Bertrand
Gauguet. We played and recorded three sessions together ... saxophones,
bass, dictaphones ... There was a particularly fun moment towards the end
of our (long) third session, when our playing almost as if by magic was
taken over by the sounds 'breaking in' through the open window, of children
laughing and talking. You may hear it happen in the about fifteen minute
extract from the recording that is the the
first half of this soundblog edition's podcast
...
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On our way back from Jean's to catch the underground Jean-Jacques and I chanced upon fires and people out in the rue Emile Desvaux, where a street party was going on. We joined in, and were offered good wine, talk and laughs ... It was almost new year's eve ...
[ earlier related SB entry: events: paste four past here || links (for dutch readers): Rinus' parisian notes __ . 5 december __ . 6 december __ . 7 december __ . 11 december . __ :: Rinus in Bilbao __. (in de Afgrond) ]
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