Erstwhile Records is an independent record label devoted to free improvisation, particularly the electroacoustic variety. An independent record label (or indie record label) is a Record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the Major record labels Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the taste or inclination of the musician(s involved in many cases the musicians make Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999, and his knowledgeable (but highly opinionated) personality and tastes are closely identified with the label. See also 1999 in music (UK Musical groups established in 1999 Record
Characteristic label artists include guitarist Keith Rowe, percussionist Günter Müller, guitarist/turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, home made electronics group Voice Crack, Jason Lescalleet, guitarist/laptop composer Fennesz, guitarist Burkhard Stangl and synthesizer player Thomas Lehn. Keith Rowe (born March 16, 1940 in Plymouth, England) is an English Free improvisation Guitarist and painter. Günter Müller is a German sound artist that originally performed as a Percussionist and Drummer active primarily in Free improvisation. is a Japanese Composer and Multi-instrumentalist. He first came to international prominence in the 1980s as the leader of the Noise rock group Voice Crack was a Swiss electronic Free improvisation group Formed in the late 1972 by Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang Voice Crack were initially a Christian Fennesz (born December 25, 1962) is an Austrian Electronic musician often credited on albums simply as Fennesz. Thomas Lehn (born 1958 is a German -born Piano and Synthesizer player active in Free improvisation and Contemporary music.
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Label History
The first few Erstwhile releases were something of a mixed set in terms of the music, ranging from the melancholy avant-blues of Loren Connors to the rather traditional free jazz of VHF. Loren MazzaCane Connors (born October 21, 1949) is an American Experimental musician who has recorded and performed under several different
With Tom and Gerry, an epic double-disc duet between Lehn and drummer Gerry Hemingway, however, Erstwhile gradually shifted. Gerry Hemingway (b New Haven, Connecticut, 1955 is an American Jazz composer and percussionist Perhaps even more important was the fifth Erstwhile release, World Turned Upside Down, featuring a trio of guitarists Keith Rowe, Taku Sugimoto and percussionist Günter Müller. Keith Rowe (born March 16, 1940 in Plymouth, England) is an English Free improvisation Guitarist and painter. Taku Sugimoto is a Japanese Guitarist He initially gained attention in the late 1990s for his restrained melodic playing unusual in the world of Free improvisation Günter Müller is a German sound artist that originally performed as a Percussionist and Drummer active primarily in Free improvisation. Rowe and Müller would both become fixtures of the label, and are a generation older than many of their younger collaborators.
Subsequent Erstwhile releases have largely focussed on a style of improvisation which could be called "post-AMM": slow-moving, often rather quiet, making non-standard use of computers and electronics (such as Sachiko M's "empty sampler" or Toshimaru Nakamura's "no-input mixing board"). AMM are an important British Free improvisation group founded in London, England in 1965 Sachiko Matsubara, who usually records as Sachiko M, is a Japanese Musician, but she considers herself to be a "non-musician" Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician active in Free improvisation and Japanese onkyo. Such unorthodox electronics are often paired with acoustic instruments, which are themselves often defamiliarizing by use of amplification and extended techniques (trumpeters Matt Davis and Axel Dörner, for instance, sometimes blow their instruments through the valves rather than the mouthpiece). Extended techniques are performance techniques used in Music to describe unconventional unorthodox or "improper" techniques of Singing, or of Matt Davis ( 1976 - August 10, 2003) was most notably the lead vocalist and guitarist for the post-hardcore outfit Ten Grand.
Sometimes the music can be conventionally beautiful, with almost-orthodox moments of melody and rhythm: releases like guitarist Martin Siewert and drummer Martin Brandlmayr's Too Beautiful to Burn or laptop artist Christof Kurzmann and guitarist Burkhard Stangl's Schnee could well appeal to adventurous pop music or "post rock" enthusiasts. Martin Brandlmayr is an Austrian percussionist, Drummer, Composer and electronic artist Post-rock is a genre of Alternative rock characterized by the use of Musical instruments commonly associated with Rock music, but using Rhythms At other times Erstwhile's albums can be demanding even for veteran listeners to avant-garde music: Good Morning, Good Night, for instance, by Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M and Toshimaru Nakamura, is 100 minutes of extremely high-pitched sine waves, blips, crackles and snatches of vinyl record static.
The label's output is often controversial even among longstanding fans of free jazz and free improvisation, partly because some recent releases feature significant editing and overdubbing (both were often looked down upon by earlier experimental musicians who thought that such recording studio antics somehow betrayed the ideal of live improvised music), and also because much of the music released on Erstwhile has left behind most resemblances to earlier generations of free jazz and free improvisation. For the Ornette Coleman album after which this genre was named see Free Jazz A Collective Improvisation. Regardless, the aesthetic has slowly found its own audience, though as yet there is not even an agreed-upon name for the genre ("laminal music," "granular music," "reductionism," "the new London silence," "Onkyo," "Berlin minimalism," are a few of the terms that have cropped up; though "eai"--"electroacoustic improv" seems to be winning out at present, perhaps for reasons of brevity. Jyutping: on1 kiu4) ( is a Japanese consumer Electronics manufacturer specializing in Home cinema and Audio equipment
The music itself is part of an instantly recognizable, coherent packaging and aesthetic. Much of this is the responsibility of designer Friederike Paetzold, whose elegant packaging designs often entirely forgo details like artist's names, instrumentation and album titles in favour of striking minimalist images (often artworks by guitarist Keith Rowe, who is also a painter). Keith Rowe (born March 16, 1940 in Plymouth, England) is an English Free improvisation Guitarist and painter. Critic John Eyles writes, "Just as such labels as Blue Note, ECM, and Incus have captured and defined the zeitgeist at various points in the past, Erstwhile is now doing so. ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music is a Record label founded in Munich, Germany in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. Incus Records is an artist owned Record label, founded by Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters specialising in the dissemination Zeitgeist ( pronounced) is a German language expression literally translated Zeit time; Geist spirit, meaning "the Like them, it has its own distinctive roster of players, its own sound and a distinctive visual style . . . No need to see the label to know it’s on Erstwhile. "[1]
Unusually, Erstwhile's releases have been issued without UPC codes. The Universal Product Code ( UPC) is a barcode symbology (ie a specific type of Barcode) that is widely used in the United States and
Associated festivals
Abbey has also organized the Amplify Festival, an annual series of live free improvisation concerts; a boxed set of recording from the 2002 event was released as AMPLIFY02: Balance; more recently, the results of the 2004 event have been emerging as separate releases under the subsidiary labelname ErstLive, notably a continuous four-hour concert by Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura and Keith Rowe (Erstlive 005). See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. In September 2005 Abbey/Erstwhile put on another music festival in New York, this time in coordination with Tim Barnes' label Quakebasket, called ErstQuake.
Perhaps most useful survey of the label's aesthetic and history up to 2002 remains Dan Warburton's review of AMPLIFY02: Balance. [2]
See also
External links
This is a list of notable Record labels Due to the large number of entries the list has been divided by the first character of the label's name See alsoDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic