STEIM on Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:23:57 +0200 (CEST)


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[Nettime-nl] [ STEIM ] STEIM Concert: MAWJA / RUE 24 - curated by Mazen Kerbaj


STEIM presents:

MAWJA
Michael Bullock (USA) / Mazen Kerbaj (LB) / Vic Rawlings (USA)

RUE 24
Jean Pallandre (Fr) / Christine Sehnaoui (LB) / Sharif Sehnaoui (LB)


Date: Friday, August 10 Venue: STEIM, Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam Time: 20.30 hrs. Entrance: 5 euros Reservations and more information: knock@steim.nl or 020-6228690 Curated by Mazen Kerbaj


MAWJA Michael Bullock (USA) | contrabass & feedback Mazen Kerbaj (LB) | trumpet Vic Rawlings (USA) | cello & surface electronics

Liner notes from the MAWJA CD âStudio Oneâ (Al Maslakh Recordings â 2007)

This album struck me like a big wave, a wave that makes you lose your consciousness and equilibrium for several minutes, leaving you wondering what just happened to you during this elusive lapse of time. Probably this is exactly the purpose of this trio, where as their music draws rust from your very skin, suburban rust, from those big suburbs where the individual melts, and all individuality is melted by the heavy burden that eats all. The sound ate the self, ate the collective, ate time, and invaded space.
I wasnât expecting such a radical treatment of sound. The music here goes out of time, depriving it of its value despite the usual ties that link time and music as an art form. What we hear is rather a strong binding with space, using it as a compositional tool. This music does not move, but it wanders like blocks of colours or shapes in the empty.
The reunion of Bullock, Rawlings and Kerbaj for this recording leaves no possibilities for any future; it is a meeting of the here and now, like the musical result that is released with this recording. The Present time is simultaneously constructed and deconstructed, making the ânow qualityâ predominant on the atmosphere of this record. The unified sound of the trio fills the air like a short-wave radio signal, carrying its usual load of small marginal details; a sound that resembles music or walks by it without remorse, not stopping at any station along the way.
Three musicians, both friends and enemies, yet above all partners of this same game, where there are no rules for improvising; one erases the other, without regret, for the sake of unity in sound.
Raed Yassin - Beirut, March 2007



Liner notes from the MAWJA CD âLive Oneâ (Chloà Recordings â 2007)


Mary Staubitz emailed me asking, "do you and Vic want to play with this guy from Lebanon?" Mary was booking a series of noise shows at the Midway Cafà in Jamaica Plain, MA, and had been contacted, apparently out of the blue, by "this trumpet player from Beirut." She wanted to help him out but wasn't sure what to do, since none of us in Boston really knew anything about him. Vic and I have had a duo established since 2000, so I knew at least I wouldn't be totally out to sea with this new guy. I agreed and so did Vic: we would meet Mazen for the first time at the gig.
We did just that. I walked into the Midway the night of the gig and saw a tall Middle Eastern man standing in the middle. The Midway is a very rowdy, noisy joint even when the music is not playing, so conversation was limited to pleasantries, and 30 minutes later the three of us were on "stage" (actually the middle of the floor in front of the tiny stage, the only place we could fit two large string instruments, two amps, and Mazen's table crowded with trumpet preparations). Then something happened - music came tumbling out. Immediately, and for the entire set, we were in that state of mind that most groups work for months or years to achieve; the music played itself. Harsh, mild, tense, limber, awkward in the best ways, and above all, effortless. After it was over we knew we had to play again, soon, and often.
We set about booking a tour for the next time Mazen could come to the US. This disc, along with âStudio Oneâ on Al Maslakh, is the products of that intensely creative week.
Michael Bullock - Troy, June 2007



RUE 24 Jean Pallandre (Fr) | phonography Christine Sehnaoui (LB) | alto sax Sharif Sehnaoui (LB) | guitar

Jean Pallandre spent two weeks in Lebanon in July 2004 touring and capturing phonographies from the various soundscapes of the country (phonography is the sound equivalent of photography, as the capturing of sound elements through microphones put in relation with a specific sound environment). For Christine and Sharif Sehnaoui, who have been with Pallandre throughout these two weeks, improvising with these soundscapes is a very singular experience since they have both witnessed their genesis and enjoy a strong emotional bond to them.

The trio's music thus finds its originality in this raw material collected in another time and place, brought back to our ears at every concert in a collective free improvised gesture. No ethnological, touristic or documental intention here: rather a poetical interlude, a fleeting trip, an association of distance and proximity, mixture of presence and absence, ambiguity of relation to time and space. Divergent sensible and intimate experiences, shared in a space of common creation and common listening, at the crossroads between instrumental sound materials and field recordings.


ï This concert series is partly funded by Gemeente Amsterdam.

More information on concerts: http://www.steim.org/steim/activity.php

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STEIM (studio for electro instrumental music) (studio voor elektro instrumentale muziek)

Achtergracht 19
1017 WL Amsterdam
Nederland

tel 00 31 (0) 20 6228690
fax 00 31 (0) 20 6264262
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