Zen Sounds 059: Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood
Zen Sounds 059: Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood
Two gorgeous musique concrète love songs; another downtempo excursion from Anthony Naples; a classical guitar tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto; and a piece on why jazz isn't cool anymore
Prologue
For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a large project for a major record company. It’s been getting intense as our team has an important deadline to meet this month, so forgive me I wasn’t able to do the usual in-depth research and longer write-up this week. Still, I wanted to at least share a few musical works I’ve lately been enjoying with you, also providing some notes and background.
Music
Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood – “Tête-à-tête” (Ergot, 2023)
New Zealand-born sound artist Annea Lockwood and her life partner of 46 years, the late American composer Ruth Anderson, met in 1973 through their mutual friend Pauline Oliveros.
Over the first nine months of their relationship, they spent much time on the telephone, as Lockwood had just moved from London to New York but Anderson temporarily lived in New Hampshire. Unknowingly to Lockwood, Anderson recorded these calls and used snippets of speech and laughter for her musique concrète work “Conversations” (1974) that nobody except the two got to hear until recently. Lockwood revisited it after Anderson’s death in 2019, adding field recordings to create her joyful mourning piece “For Ruth” (2020).
Both of these superb pieces have just been released for the first time on the album “Tête-à-tête”, together with Anderson’s last electronic drone piece called “Resolutions” (1984). I’ve been listening to this music repeatedly this week, mainly in the late evening hours, sometimes just before going to sleep.
While “Resolutions” doesn’t do that much for me, I truly enjoy “Conversations” and I’ve gone back to “For Ruth” even more. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an avant-garde composition that expresses the state of deep love und affection for another human being this well.
Anthony Naples – “orbs” (ANS/Incienso, 2023)
In the second issue of this newsletter, published in October 2021, I recommended Anthony Naples’ fourth album “Chameleon”, though I hadn’t been particularly interested in his more club-oriented earlier work.
During lockdown, the New York-based house producer broke free from his comfort zone, working on new music without the dancefloor in mind. Recording tunes on analog drums, bass, guitar and synthesizer, Naples brought together elements of 1990s shoegaze and trip-hop, 1980s ambient and post-punk, and 1970s Kosmische and Krautrock. It was the record of a record nerd.
His newest album “orbs”, released just yesterday, seems to be a direct continuation of that referential lineage. In between albums, Naples had released two EPs of new club music, but for his fifth full-length album, he dials back into the airy atmosphere of “Chameleon”, this time combining analog instrumentation and digital samples to a degree where a distinction between the two just isn’t possible.
The ten tracks seamlessly flow into one another, combining ambient soundscapes with dubby textures, slightly Balearic notions and sluggish beats. It’s the perfect album for these early summer days, chilled out but not at all boring, instead conveying an atmosphere of mindful awareness. I’ve only listened to it twice yet, but this might become a steady companion over the summer.
Jonathan Bockelmann / Ryuichi Sakamoto – “Opus” (Squama, 2023)
Back in February, I reviewed German classical guitarist Jonathan Bockelmann’s debut album “Childish Mind”, released on Munich-based experimental jazz imprint Squama. Label co-founder Martin Brugger had discovered Bockelmann through his innovative guitar transcriptions of Ryuichi Sakamoto pieces but had encouraged him to write his own songs for his first album.
After the passing of the Japanese ambient and contemporary classical master, they’ve now decided to record four of these transcriptions and release them as a stand-alone EP, “Sakamoto on Guitar”. The first tune “Opus” – originally included on Sakamoto’s mid-career solo piano album “BTTB (Back to the Basics)” (1999) – has been released with the pre-order.
I’ve been listening to it on headphones today, sitting in my garden and watching my dog play. It’s so gentle, peaceful and slightly melancholic – the very definition of the Japanese concept of mono no aware.
One more thing
Nicholas Payton – “On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore” (2011)
I recently spoke to Meshell Ndegeocello for an article I am writing for a German weekly newspaper, and she pointed me to this blog post by New Orleans musician Nicholas Payton. It’s a fierce and polemic dissection of a genre descriptor that more “eclectic” Black American musicians like Payton and Ndegeocello have good reasons to reject.
Not to say I don’t find the term jazz useful anymore – from the standpoint of a music journalist I think we still need it, as there’s a rich cultural history attached to it. Still, Payton’s article provides strong arguments about why contemporary Black American musicians shouldn’t accept it as a limitation of their craft. Essential reading.
Here’s an excerpt, but make sure to read the full piece on Payton’s site:
Jazz is a marketing ploy that serves an elite few.
The elite make all the money while they tell the true artists it’s cool to be broke.
Occupy Jazz!
(…)
Jazz is a brand.
Jazz ain’t music, it’s marketing, and bad marketing at that.
It has never been, nor will it ever be, music.
Here lies Jazz (1916–1959).
Too many musicians and not enough artists.
I believe music to be more of a medium than a brand.
Silence is music, too.
You can’t practice art.
In order for it to be true, one must live it.
Existence is not contingent upon thought.
It’s where you choose to put silence that makes sound music.
Sound and silence equals music.
Sometimes when I’m soloing, I don’t play shit.
I just move blocks of silence around.
The notes are an afterthought.
Silence is what makes music sexy.
Silence is cool.
Happy weekend!
© 2023 Stephan Kunze