Blood & star dust

As noted, we share our recognition of a 2011 label of the year across two great decade-long curatorial efforts linked by this year's unmatched Lawrence English release, The Peregrine (below hear an exclusive stream of its Heavy Breath of Silence). Following a memorable exchange with English about Room40 just before Christmas, here is a companion interview with Experimedia guiding light Jeremy Bible - a diverting, challenging set of reflections as the label considers its future. 


That's a sad outcome after a particularly memorable year - & with fine releases from Celer, From The Mouth Of The Sun (Jasper TX & Aaron Martin) & Sean McCann soon to come. But the label has only "about 4 other commitments left in the pipe", according to Bible - who has "been quietly running several other imprints.... which we would like to give more attention to". 

If so, 2011 will end up the high water mark of the label's breadth, its richness & an aesthetic distinctive enough to be immediately recognisable - dense, languid, reflective - but not so rigid that it can't accommodate interesting exceptions too (Charles-Eric Charrier's & Lüüp's spacey post-jazz, for example). This was embodied in Experimedia's outstanding label sampler earlier this year & is captured too in a hand-crafted (sic) Spotify playlist of its 2011 releases (plus an older Bible...). 

Besides English's peregrinations, the year's highlights include Black Swan's wispily playful but more often saturnine 8 Movements (a movie score playing through a murky, gritty fog...); Jannick Schou's thundering, monolithic Act of Shimmering; Aaron Martin's richly textured Worried About The Fire, which summons unexpected intensities from its traditional palette; Keith Freund's sweetly bucolic Constant Comments (though its darker later pieces appeal more to these ears); & Charrier's alarmingly twangy but also richly 'post-everything' Silver. 


Plus, of course, the dense poetics of Piipttjilling's exceptional Wurdskrieme - one of LMYE's Festive 50 of 2010 releases that particularly mattered to us, but out so late in the year it counts as an honorary member of the label's 2011 rollcall...

EXPERIMEDIA.2011.LABEL.SAMPLER


Lawrence English - Heavy Breath of Silence (radio promo edit)


How has Experimedia developed this year (has this been your biggest year for new releases)? Have you done anything different in 2011? Anything new you want to keep doing now it's started?
She became a monster and took on a life of her own.  She is now devouring me.  Yes, it has been the biggest year for new physical releases... quite a bit of vinyl, as I am sure you have noticed... which has always been the goal due to personal and early obsessions with the format... I started with vinyl 10 years ago (under a different name funded by student loans which we just finally paid off this year) but couldn't afford to sustain it financially despite the fact that it started off very well... as I wasn't in the right place.... poorer than poor... (from birth on up.... actually spent a couple periods of my childhood homeless.. I'm lucky I'm still alive)... then struggling to support myself through college... if I did have a vehicle it was a piece of junk.... getting screwed by roommates... floundering from shitty job to shitty job... from bowling alley to porn shop... in part due to unreliable transportation and proximity.  So when the distributor checks came in rent needed paying and I was left with nothing towards the next release, unfortunately.  Bad timing and over-enthusiasm/ambition, which has always been my curse.  Persistence is key... and the more we are pushed down the harder we push forward. This is a stream of consciousness with no regard to time.  What is time?... what is a year?... everything is evolving in a very organic manner... nothing is forced... I evolve with her and she evolves with me. In part I am simply along for the ride.  We want to do everything differently.


Celer - Bedded In Shallow Blades (Excerpt)


Is being a US label significant for Experimedia? How do you assess the state of US 'experimental' music currently?
No.  Borders have become an abstract concept. Irrelevant really from where we sit. I am not as concerned with 'scenes' as I am with community... and the community is global... it is too small and too wide spread not to be.  A global ecosystem.  Governmental borders only create challenges for us who prefer to deal in physical sound objects... passing something that I touched into the hands of another across to globe... customs... shipping costs.  We are living in what I refer to as a cultureless sub-culture culture.  So over saturated with sub-cultures that we have no culture.  What has become of culture?  Culture is rarely something we born into now... it is something we choose as individuals.  We search the internet and select a culture that fits the identity we want to create for ourselves.  Culture is becoming further fragmented and diluted as global communications technology progresses.  In the long run... if this is a good or bad thing... is yet unseen.  What will the global community look like decades from now?  For now... it is very awkward. Due to this it is difficult to comment on 'US experimental music'.  It's all so fragmented.


A great deal of modest genius is outspoken by a vast ocean of pompous mediocrity, pretension, and unwarranted elitism.  Everyone seems to think they are better than the next person.  Letting the smallest amount of approval go to their heads resulting in an avalanche of attitude and over-saturation. More time is spent by too many pandering to the press and seeking approval than spending the time creating anything truly thoughtful and original.... countless black round sound objects spewing single weekend recorded thoughtless synth meddlings.... wasteful and environmentally irresponsible.  Western media supported by technology has created a culture of attention hungry children... and we all buy into it without thinking about it... nearly uncontrollably... the progression and availability of technology and the influence of the media further enables these deep-seeded habits.  Those with the money get to the technology first and exploit us all before we even have a chance.... and even through acts of rejection and rebellion to these overpowering influences we are altering the curves of time and culture. The past half-decade we have witnessed pop punk dweeds jamming green day covers in their grandma's garage drop their guitars for synthesizers and become embraced by the mainstream-indie press.... who in turn assign new and daft hype stoking classifications.... so the future is unpredictable.  What underground movements will the current mainstream trends influence twenty years from now? Images of modern technology meet J Geils Band nostalgia covering a nearly unlistenable album of mediocre rubbish seems to excite the press... so things could go either way at this point.  We are teetering.  Idiocrity or enlightenment? There are few borders left when it comes to these issues.


Do you see yourself & the other Experimedia artists as working in any kind of tradition? Is there a Experimedia sound or typical artist? 
We are all related by blood and star dust.  There is no sound.  We follow what genuinely moves us over the course of time.  


From The Mouth Of The Sun - Like Shadows In An Empty Cathedral


Any Experimedia artists you believe merit more attention than they've had so far? Is there one Experimedia release you're particularly proud of?
All of them of course.  Exactly the reason they are released by Experimedia.  For the most part you will notice that our releases do not follow trends.  We follow our heart.. our taste... our ears... strictly... by releasing artists who have never had a release before... or who have been abandoned by other labels for more hype friendly artists. We could just as well run a label which sold out titles over night.. running a distro, we have a bird's-eye view of what is "popular"... but we refuse to allow that knowledge to influence the path of the label.. as we know that these statistics are irrelevant to what is truly relevant and important.


How do you see Experimedia developing in the future? Any new artists you can mention &/or forthcoming new releases from established Experimedia artists? 
The future of Experimedia as a label is undecided.  Regardless it is due for a nap ... we aren't looking to ride on any momentum... and its almost become too big... fanatics camping on our lawn, harassing our family, and other such absurdities.  Besides that we have been quietly running several other imprints.... which we would like to give more attention to. Experimedia does have about 4 other commitments left in the pipe.


Best thing anyone's said/written about Experimedia's music? Worst?
1.  We have been told "Experimedia has change the way I see the world". 2. No one has ever said anything negative to our face... and if they did it would be irrelevant.  


Jannick Schou - Then Filling Your Pockets With Stones


How challenging a time is this for labels? Are you tempted to go digital-only? Or the opposite?
Very challenging...  but this depends on intentions and expectations.   Unless you're a wealthy trust fund baby and can afford a massive marketing budget on top of manufacturing cost right out of the door your in for some frustration.  Its all undecided really.  We are blindly in love with the physical format... grasping on for nostalgia's sake... although we know it is environmentally irresponsible.  We are amidst the last deep breath of the physical format... enjoy it while it lasts.  The next couple of decades will certainly see the near-extinction of physical media ... except in very elite and wealthy circles.... unless we further develop environmentally-friendly energy sources.  Time, technology, the media, and most importantly energy sources will determine the future.

NB: images by Jeremy Bible. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Tradition & reinvention

Striking that one of the musicians of the past 15 years whose work is most likely to endure for another 15 & beyond, Vladislav Delay, also feels a deep need to make immediate, almost disposable sounds - & insists on the inter-connectedness of the two. We can't have the textured depths of Delay or his stunning new(ish) quartet without the gleaming pulse of Luomo.

With a new album imminent in this friskiest of his many restless guises & participations (Uusitalo, Sistol, Moritz von Oswald Trio, Conoco, Bright People, The Only Copy, Kinovida, AGF/Delay, I hired a contract killer, The Dolls...), Sasu Ripatti talked to LMYE recently about tradition & reinvention.

"i push myself quite hard with what i'm working on and after that i feel quite empty and need to recharge myself by doing something quite different.

i also have quite an urge and interest to various types of music and i enjoy having it all. one at a time though."

He's currently lying fallow for a while, having followed up working as Luomo by moving to the other end of his spectrum. Last week he completed his twelfth Delay album (at LMYE's count) - & his first for Raster-Noton.

Ripatti is fairly dismissive of the bulk of new releases ("most new music can handle few times of listening and it's done, all said there is to say in a quick one"). He mostly listens to older jazz or reggae/dub - "also hiphop a lot".

He touches too on the differing dynamics of his quartet & MvOT - "it's very much a group thing whereas MVOT is Moritz's thing to big extent". While he has no plans to spawn further groups or even take on the odd remix, regrettably, he's open to following his collaborators von Oswald & Loderbauer into ReComposed/Re: ECM reconstruction territory - labels please note!

Vladislav Delay - Ele

Do you see yourself as working in any kind of tradition (or traditions)?

not at all. i change my path quite constantly, my points of view changes, i get bored easily.

i might have background in jazz or percussion tradition but that all is long gone, and i certainly don't follow any tradition other than my own thing which i can't specify at all. or don't want to restrict it by analysis.

How would you characterise the ways in which your music has changed since you began recording?

i see it as a continuous path i'm on with peaks and valleys and whatnot.

main thing i'm happy about is that my music has changed during the years, otherwise i should not do it anymore; i really don't believe in repeating myself.

when i look at the changes i can see smaller and bigger cycles that do repeat but i think there's growth and progression in those cycles when they appear again and again.

i really do try to be conscious about what i do and try to pay attention to push things to new directions and not allowing myself to become comfortable with what or how i'm doing music.

Luomo - Good Stuff

How do you see your recording personas influencing each other? Which, if any, has the greatest influence on Luomo? Do you need Luomo in any way to be able to make VDQ or your other musics?

i do need one to make the other for sure.

the whole thing is that i push myself quite hard with what i'm working on and after that i feel quite empty and need to recharge myself by doing something quite different.

i also have quite an urge and interest to various types of music and i enjoy having it all. one at a time though.

How has the experience of playing in MvOT influenced what VDQ does (& how it does it), if at all?

influences are quite minor and subconscious because i play so different role in each group.

not meaning though that i'm a leader in VDQ except for managing and producing it.

when we make music live it's very much a group thing whereas MVOT is Moritz's thing to big extent although luckily i'm allowed lots of freedom in my part.

Moritz von Oswald Trio - Structure 1

Vladislav Delay Quartet - Salt Flat [re-up]

Do you expect to work in new groups in the future - either as leader or a player?

not thinking about it at least.

for sure as long as these two groups are active i won't expand more, it's really time consuming and sometimes exhausting to manage or run a group. two is definitely enough!

Do you make all of your solo music, including Luomo, in the same place & with the same tools?

same place, yes. mostly same tools as well but used in quite a different way.

Vladislav Delay - Raamat

Anyone you'd like to collaborate with? Or remix?

there are lots of interesting people i'd like to work with of course but it's too hard to make it happen when you are not commercially potential.

i don't have a wish list and i'm also happy to work with people i already work with.

remixing is something i don't want to be involved in much.

Can you see yourself making a Re: ECM or ReComposed? Whose music would you be interested in reshaping in a similar way (if anyone's)?

if someone offered me to work on some music i really like i'd love to do it.

ECM for sure if i could pick up the music. jazz, African, Jamaican, hiphop, i'd be happy with lots of stuff....

Who else do you listen to (for pleasure, for inspiration, for a change)? What are some of this year's crucial releases for you? What are some releases you couldn't/wouldn't be without?

i go for extreme range of music and have also periods where i stick to certain music for a long time. not so much any more but for example i listened only Frank Zappa for about two years when i was about 16-18. before that i only listened jazz from 50s and 60s. then was the dub period..

nowadays i mainly listen older jazz or reggae/dub for music pleasure.

i also entertain myself with hiphop a lot.

Kanye West's last album is the only one i really thought was a special one since a long while in any genre.

most new music can handle few times of listening and it's done, all said there is to say in a quick one.

Vladislav Delay - The First Quarter

Best thing anyone's said/written about your music? Worst?

i don't keep that info i guess as nothing comes to mind.

well, there was really stupid review of VDQ on the Wire which i thought was embarrasing for the magazine, pure ignorance and misunderstanding.

but i try to stay away from it all and just focus on doing what i think i should do.

What's next for you?

hm... i'm right now on vacation since yesterday when i finished new VladislavDelay album for Raster Noton release late this year.

i'm planning to spend some time in the studio next and reconfigure it and try out new things without aiming to finish anything.

Luomo - Plus (Exclusive Track Preview)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

"years that have yet to happen"

The sheer sensuality of Le Berger's textures, which the project's shepherd (sorry) summons despite "primitive means and scarce source material", & their languid, looped unfurling hardly prepare you for an elaborate metaphysical conceit.

But in a new interview, Sam Landry reveals the Tron-invoking concept behind his luxuriant recent Expeditions on the Grayscale & riffs on a host of other topics - tradition, genre, collaboration, other musical outlets & a rare physical release ahead ("something very cinematic, theatrical drone if you will").

Also featuring: Sam's 'generative' aScapist sideline, including a stripped-down edit of 2A - the self-described "aerial feel" of Clouds.

Oh, & a fine mix (Stephan Mathieu + Taylor Deupree - Largo > Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood & The Phantom Band > Le Berger - Gnascor Encore & Core à Corps > Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood & The Phantom Band > Roger Eno & Peter Hammill - Wise Men > Shakti - Mind Ecology > Chihei Hatakeyama - Voices II > Loscil - Nautilus)...

What's the concept behind Expeditions?

Let me start this one with a bit of a disclaimer: all this is done rather unassumingly and candidly, the last thing I would want is for the concepts surrounding an album to supersede the music. I personally think there's much more to imagination than meets the eye, but if you don't like the conceptual mumbo jumbo, ditch it.

It is a fair bet that most readers have seen Tron. (or you know, the new Tron...) Well, the Grayscale is similar to that - a world outside the world answering to its own rules and parameters, yet we have access to it.

It is a meeting or gathering place for creative minds. It is where duality vanishes, not because it is transcended or engulfed in unity, but because polarity ceases to exist. Everything in shades of gray to approximate your location on the gazeous - liquid spectrum. Always a blend of sea and air, no solid land.

It thrives on the very creativity of the minds involved, is nourished by it. The only pre-requisite to enter this arena is to shed your ego, even if just for a short while. You can wander long and wide, none of which will be recorded or traceable. But once you come into contact with the mind of another a coordinate is created and the events that take place can now be shared with the myriads of other worlds. As if the frontier between our world and the Grayscale became thinner upon that meeting.

The last few of those meetings to have been recorded are the following:

Don't go away J (#c2c2c2) - Surfing (oh so succinctly) with a tragic French poet.
Pam Pam some'n wild (#a0a0a0) - Sailing (with such balance) with a post-modern composer and a noiselifer.
Dust it begun (#dbdbdb) - Floating (oh so aimlessly) with the very creator of the Grayscale.
Bern deep'n'bub (#5c5c5c) - Sinking (oh so steadily) with an acclaimed film composer.

The coordinates are indeed in HTML color codes (a few asked...)
The name of the pieces give a (vague) indication as to who took part in the meeting.
And the timing of the pieces is a play upon unity and trinity, as well as the fact that I turn 33 on 11-11-11.

Et, comme on dit, voilà!

Le Berger - Dust it begun (#dbdbdb) [re-up]

Is there usually a concept behind your music?

Depending, for "Sounds of..." or "The Holiday Drones" there was no particular idea linking the pieces together. There can be a general theme (insomnia and charity respectively) and specific pieces can bring about a particular imagery for me which is usually quite self explanatory within the title. Think 0007 [Thanks to Bobby the Navigator] which is about seafaring or After The Bombings which deals with devastation. But I would not refer to those as conceptual works per se.

If we're speaking about other releases, then most definitely.

How do concepts help you make music?

They rarely do!

I don't set out to work around any particular preconceived notions or concepts. It's usually either amidst the work in process or after I have a few things that fit together that a pattern seems to emerge. There is a lot of trials and errors in my work, so sometimes before I choose to keep or discard certain things I can listen to a piece or a group of pieces for days on end. This way I can get into a state of immersion somewhat, and also gain a new perspective on the piece(s) away from the work. It's how I assess if that first enthusiastic impression I had while working with it really translates upon listening. That's usually when the music starts being evocative for me and images start to spark, and then it snowballs!

And then this type of material, compared to others like blues, folk, pop, etc., gravely lacks in narrative and then even compared to other instrumental genres it still has very few (if at all) events occurring in the length of a piece. Some artists chose to embrace this and go the abstract route (bless them). I simply opted a more impressionist way.

Do you see yourself as working in any kind of tradition?

"I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member."- Groucho Marx

With that said, I don't have the vanity to think "here I am breaking grounds that no one ever threaded". I enjoy being a part of this long line of breeders we call humanity and can't deny being influenced by some of them. It's just this thing where it's hard to have the detachment to know where you belong as a creator in the midst of it all. Time will tell?

I think one of the marvelous liberties we have today is to mingle with so much content coming from different eras and currents, then how it incorporates into the work is often times more or less conscious in my opinion.

How has your music changed since you began?

Essentially, not at all! Guess I just know a little bit more what I'm doing, not sure if it's a curse or a blessing...

Do you consider your music 'drone'? If so, why drone? Is drone something you just recognize when you hear it or does it have specific ingredients?
Let me put it this way: I had no clue I was doing 'drone' music until people told me.

The making of music is the making of music. Labels and genres and nomenclatures and currents and so on are only sticker we apply on top of it to help discern which is which. In that sense, sure it's drone, it's whatever anyone wants to call it if it helps associating it with other creators that do something similar.

Though it's quite fascinating how much plurality and eccentricities can be found in something labeled thus.

Do you use anything besides a laptop to make your music?

I use a desktop actually. ;)

Best thing anyone's said/written about your music? Worst?

"i see my children playing...and i see my children watching their children playing...i feel the span of years that have yet to happen..."- Tom, a fellow dronist (aka Lattice) about 0003 [No thanks to you]

Worst probably was something like "ugh, annoying" or such. Not very exciting I'm afraid. Fingers crossed!

What's your goal with aScapist?

I never perceived the aScapist sideline as something 'to pursue'. Think of it like Eno's generative bits, not that I'm comparing talents here, not by a long shot. It's just something that I do with a similar intent or process, I put a few things together and set a few parameters in place to make them interact and then I let things go and happen in sequence. To put it simply, it's a creative process that is probably more interesting for the person involved in it than anyone else.

I share the end result of those 'experiments in generative music' in the hopes that some people might enjoy them, but since I'm not actually paying attention to the end result or trying to make it pleasant or beautiful, it becomes something that doesn't quite belong to me. Sort of 'happenstance' music that is a collateral damage of trials and essays if you will.

Besides aScapist, do you make any other non-Le Berger music?

I sure do. A lot of acoustic guitar, piano on hiatus for now (lacking a piano!), modular synths, etc. But a lot of these things, to be arranged, recorded and delivered or released properly require means that are not at my disposal at the moment. And some of those things I actually cannot wait to record and put out there, it's sometimes miles away from Le Berger type of material. Make it funky now!

Do you make music with anyone else or always solo? Anyone you'd like to collaborate with? Or remix?

I used to play in different outfits when I was younger, jam bands, jazz funk, prog rock, etc. and I still play with friends on rather seldom occasions but this is not something I'm actively pursuing at the moment. I do have a band-like project on the backburner but until it solidifies I'd rather not jinx it by blathering about it.

There are LOTS of artists out there who are awe inspiring nowadays, and a few I can already imagine collaborating with because we're like-minded and on friendly terms, plus I respect the work they do. But if you're looking for a scoop, nothing in the works at the present time.

No remixes.

Who else do you listen to (for pleasure, for inspiration, for a change)? What are some of this year's crucial releases for you? What are some releases you couldn't/wouldn't be without?

I listen to a lot of elses! (12 000 albums to choose from or so). So I'll just answer the last question, quelques incontournables: Loscil -Submers | Return to Forever - Light as a Feather | Guy Clark - Old #1 | The Herbaliser - Very mercenary | Gentle Giant - Octopus

I very much could go on, if you buy me a beer!

What's next for you after the physical release (& what can you say about that)?

Well, for the Le Berger project I have about 3 hrs worth of stuff on the shelves. Not all ready and done with, but close. So you can expect a somewhat steady flow of releases, both digitally and short runs of physical CD-Rs when I think the material calls for it.

For the next physical release there's actually been a change of plan. All for the better I think, what I initially wanted to get printed a netlabel has shown interest for, so it might find a home somewhere before the end of the year. Fear not, I have a few other tricks up my sleeve... so I chose another EP to print instead.

You can expect something very cinematic, theatrical drone if you will. It came about when I was doing these essays with blues as source material for drones. Something like a honky tonk piano in a decaying cathedral painting four different canvases on a main theme. Definitely not cheer up music, but incredibly evocative.

Le Berger - CLOUDS (a track from a track)

Le_Berger - In D(eed)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.