MASAOKA-CHEN-GRÜSEL-NAGAI, by Miya Masaoka, Audrey Chen, Hans Grüsel, Kenta Nagai

MASAOKA-CHEN-GRÜSEL-NAGAI

by Miya Masaoka, Audrey Chen, Hans Grüsel, Kenta Nagai

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	1.	Dialing 11:30
	2.	Fuse 10:22
	3.	Ligatures 15:27
	4.	Absence of Territory 15:05
	5.	Traces of Dust 04:21
	6.	Ligature (no. 2) 03:10
	7.	The Wretched 04:26
	8.	Rain Holed Roof 06:28

about

MASAOKA, CHEN, GRÜSEL, NAGAI: Self-titled: CD
RESIPISCENT RECORDS

Listening to what is essentially improvised music recorded the first time the four performers got together, one’s opinion of such will probably fall into one of two categories: 1) these people are friggin’ geniuses, 2) these people are friggin’ kooks. While this reviewer can appreciate the thought process behind the latter, he finds himself leaning a bit more towards the former. It’s no small feat to sit down with three other people and create something interesting to listen to, let alone pull it wholly out of thin air, and keep it consistently interesting for well over an hour. Utilizing traditional Japanese instruments, voices, a cello, and “electronics” they create soundscapes that vacillate between “music” and full-on aural assaults. It’s often within the context of a single piece—quiet, contemplative koto and/or cello passages coupled with electronic slurps, blurps, and blurts, scraping strings, and slide into avalanche of noise. This is decidedly not something to plop on the ol’ hi-fi during yer next barbecue—though that’s exactly what I’m a-gonna do, being the sadistic bastard I am—but definitely worth the trouble if you’re in the mood to experience, rather than merely consume, some music that resides well off the beaten path.

–jimmy (Resipiscent) July 6, 2010

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With Masaoka / Chen / Grusel / Nagai (RSPT036), I feel we’re back on the sort of scary and unknown territory this label knows like its own back yard. Four powerful and far-out improvising and composing players (Miya Masaoka, Audrey Chen, Hans Grüsel and Kenta Nagai) lock horns on a number of twisted, eerie performances recorded live in Baltimore at that High Zero festival, using koto, stringed instruments, voices and live electronics. Everything creeps slowly, spits and clocks along like gigantic reptiles with false limbs and forked tongues, spitting fire. Not every moment they play is packed with that degree of ghastly genius, but at their best this foursome capture all the danger and strangeness that you could expect from modern improvised music, reviving for me some of the sense of shock and vitality I used to feel at Derek Bailey’s Company Week. Hans Grüsel has made some noisy and very idiosyncratic records for this same label, but he reins in his indulgences for this outing and acts with considerable restraint. A record so steeped in its own exoticness that you can taste it at the back of your throat!
-ed pinsent (the sound projector) April 18, 2010

credits

released February 14, 2010

Cello, Voice [Vox] – Audrey Chen
Design [Art] , Layout – R. Sell / Loachfillet*
Electronics – Hans Grüsel*
Engineer [Recording] – Erich Steiger
Koto, Electronics – Miya Masaoka
Mixed By – Hans Grusel
Mixed By, Mastered By – Xopher Davidson
Shamisen, Voice [Vox], Flute [Hichiriki] – Kenta Nagai

Recorded Sept 11, 2009 during the 11th High Zero Festival.

license

about

AUDREY CHEN Berlin, Germany

discography

RUNT VIGOR

Sep 2018
In the Flesh

Aug 2018
MASAOKA-CHEN-GRÜSEL-NAGAI

Feb 2010
GLACIAL

Jan 2007
SILO

Mar 2006
LIMN

Apr 2005

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Contact AUDREY CHEN

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