In stock
LP
Ellen FULLMAN
“Music for the man who grew common in wisdom”
**2023 stock**
besom presse announces the release of Ellen Fullman’s Music for the Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom. Known prominently for her sculptural Long String Instrument (LSI), these musique concrete pieces showcase an underrecognized side of Fullman’s sound investigations. In two expansive works, Fullman voyages through the comic, the menacing and the blissful all while evoking the unique kinetic and timbral aesthetic for which she is widely praised. Composed between 1987-1989, while living in Austin, Texas, the music originally served as accompaniment to choreographer Deborah Hay's dance piece of the same name. The besom presse release presents the last two movements of the full composition.
In 1985, Hay, a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, commissioned Fullman to collaborate on a new work. Hay was deeply influenced by her experience as a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and to the way John Cage and Cunningham collaborated. As such, the only relationship planned between Fullman’s music and the choreography was timing. Inspired by Hay’s open-ended approach and encouraged to use a new set of musical implements, Fullman explained, “I found this way of working to be remarkably refreshing and respectful of my process. I felt free to delve into my attraction for absurdity, knowing that I would not be judged.” With a variety of acoustic sound sources, Music for the Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom finds Fullman exploring the possibilities of the Prophet sampler. Describing her experience of using this tool she explains: “I was fascinated by what could be done with the Prophet and worked in a way that could be seen as an outgrowth from the musique concrete approach that I had used with a reel-to-reel tape recorder in earlier years.”
One of the most interesting contextual aspects of Music for the Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom is the flux under which it was created. Recently relocated and using unfamiliar equipment after having dedicated so much of her time and energy to advancing her knowledge of the LSI, this record provides an ultra-rare snapshot of Fullman’s journey as a composer: a suspended moment wherein her earlier phase of sound collaging comes into direct contact with her sensibilities of movement and sound as refined by her work with the LSI.
The excursion rewards careful, repeated listening. Its musical events arrive spontaneously while striking a rare balance between the poetical and unaffected. While the work is time-stamped by its technology, it evades the quaintness that beleaguers so many novel releases from the past. On side A, titled Music for the Gardener, Fullman triggers an assortment of exquisitely recorded acoustic sounds from a variety of quotidian sources including bits of glass dropped on a concrete slab, the gentle clanking of suspended woodscraps, water swishing back and forth, and her own voice. The piece begins with the glass, arranged chromatically, which Fullman playfully improvises with by triggering individual notes from a series of chord shapes. The effervescent chime and bounce is punctuated with sudden cluster chords that explode like a six-pack against a brick wall. This gives way to the round and muted tones of the swinging timber—a generous sonic foil to the icy digital aliasing of the glass samples. Shifting focus again, we hear the hi-fi swishing of water in a tub reproduced in a dazzlingly wide stereo field made possible by microphones arranged at either end of the bath. Fullman’s sampled voice, played in a meditative modal melody, signifies a kind of coda anchored by the rhythmic pulsing of clanking wood.
Side B’s Music for the Aviator is rooted in Deborah’s directive: "We contain the mystery, but we don't know what it is." Like an alternative soundtrack to Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre, starter guns, percolating bubbles, cheering crowds, and a calliope organ conjure a lysergic day at the circus. More or less abrupt disturbances take place throughout. The circus is consumed by cetaceous blowhole sounds, which in turn fade into something vaguely like the Hindewhu whistle of Ba-Benzélé Pygmy music (think the intro to Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man). Eventually the piece settles into a satisfying rhythmic pulse of tuned breath sounds set in a cloud of woozy voice loops while a tightly packed spectrum of overtones springs forth.
The Man Who Grew Common In Wisdom was performed in August 2019 at the Tanz im August Festival, Berlin, in their RE-Perspective Deborah Hay, Works from 1968 to the Present. Eva Mohn of the Cullberg Ballet, Stockholm, was the soloist, and the work has become part of their repertoire. Music from the first movement of this piece, The Navigator (aka “Staggered Stasis”), was made available earlier this year by Superior Viaduct on a reissue of Fullman's 1987 self-released cassette, In The Sea.
25,00€
In stock
2 LP
Ellen FULLMAN
“In the sea”
Ellen Fullman began developing The Long String Instrument in her St. Paul, Minnesota studio in 1980 and moved to Brooklyn the following year. Inspired by composer and instrument builder Harry Partch, Fullman's large-scale work creates droning, organ-like overtones that are as unique in the world of sound as her vision of the instrument itself.
Along with her 1985 debut album – appropriately titled The Long String Instrument – Fullman's only output in the 1980s would be two self-released cassettes, In The Sea and Work For Four Players And 90 Strings, recorded in 1987 at an unfinished office tower in Austin, Texas. This double LP collection features music from both cassettes as well as a previously unreleased piece from 1988 at De Fabriek in Den Bosch, Holland.
Ethereal and exquisitely paced, these rare recordings capture minimalism's quiet radiance. Within a musical landscape that has seen the rise of contemporary drone practitioners like Ellen Arkbro and Kali Malone, Fullman is sure to find a legion of fans.
Superior Viaduct is honored to present this long overdue archival release that marks a particularly vibrant period of Fullman's pioneering and timeless work.
29,00€
In stock
CD
Ellen FULLMAN
“Body music”
Body Music is music for Ellen Fullman’s unique Long String Instrument, an eighty-foot long instrument with approximately eighty strings. Fullman has been developing this instrument for longitudinally vibrating long strings over the past thirteen years. Having received a BFA in sculpture, her interest in music began with the resonance of materials used in making sculpture. When she started making the Long String Instrument, she saw it as "sculpture as music;" now she has come full circle in conceiving "music as sculpture." For the most part, the music in Body Music relies harmonically on the diatonic scale. Because of the prominence of overtone content, more complex harmony is suggested. Through her studies of extended harmony, Fullman has come to realize that harmony is "dimensional."
14,00€
Out of stock
CD
Ellen FULLMAN
“Through glass planes”
“Ellen Fullmans’s first proper full length for Important Records follows her collaborative work with Barn Owl (IMPREC277) and a split LP with Eleh (IMPREC318). She was also featured on The Harmonic Series: A Collection Of Work In Just Intonation (IMPREC272).
In 1981 Ellen Fullman began developing the “Long String Instrument,” an installation of dozens of wires fifty feet or more in length, tuned in Just Intonation and ‘bowed’ with rosin coated fingers. Fullman has developed a unique notation system to choreograph the performer’s movements, exploring sonic events that occur at specific nodal point locations along the string-length of the instrument. She has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument and has collaborated with such luminary figures as composer Pauline Oliveros, choreographer Deborah Hay, the Kronos Quartet, and Keiji Haino. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, commissions and residencies.
Through Glass Panes
In composing “Event Locations No. 2”, I set out to focus more strictly than I ever had on detail in the choreography of my notation. Through writing the piece I designed ways to add more specific information in the score. The tuning uses a set of pitches based in the key of A, in combination with Arnold Dreyblatt’s tuning system based on F. These two roots generate tones in common but also complex or “dissonant” tones. I wanted to find a way to incorporate more dissonance into my sound and intentionally worked with beating frequencies in this piece.
“Never Gets Out of Me”, a duet with cellist Theresa Wong, and “Flowers”, a trio recorded with Travis Weller and Henna Cho, are adaptations from Stratified Bands: Last Kind Words”, originally composed for the Kronos Quartet in the Other Minds Festival. The composition is based on Last Kind Words Blues, a haunting song by Geeshie Wiley recorded in 1930. An excerpt of the lyrics:
If I get killed, if I get killed, please don’t bury my soul, I’d pro’bly just leave me out, let the buzzards eat me whole.
The cello and violin writing for these pieces was influenced by my study of North Indian vocal music. My intention is that the sounds of all instruments mesh into an undulation like water flowing. Composed melodic phrases are based on fragments from the song lyrics in combination with impressions from the overtone melodies produced by the long string instrument. “Flowers” was recorded at Seaholm, a decommissioned electric power plant in Austin, Texas. A flock of sparrows that nest inside the cathedral-like cast-concrete space can be heard chirping on this recording.
“Through Glass Panes” is constructed around a sequence of rhythmic patterns played using the “box bow”. Homage to the harmonica, the box bow is a hand held hollow wooden box with a curved lower surface used to play my instrument percussively. Techniques based on hand drumming inform the articulations of the tool used to strike groupings of strings tuned to chords. Two box bow performers stand facing each other at a double-sided resonator to play hocketed parts providing a stable framework from which to measure spectral changes in the sustained texture.” label info
14,00€
Out of stock
CD
Ellen FULLMAN
“Staggered stasis”
Staggered Stasis (1989) was commissioned by the Deborah Hay Dance Company for part 1, "The Navigator" in Hay’s trilogy, "The Man Who Grew Common In Wisdom". Microtonal shifts in the coloring occur in a staggered fashion, traveling on an axis of Pythagorean intervals, (the circle of fifths). Chords created by stacking 3/2s, or fifths, are referred to as "suspended chords". There is a flatness in this drama, what I imagine it must be like in the middle of an ocean, continually moving yet appearing the same. The four part score was plotted on a timeline. Each track was recorded and performed by myself. An excerpt of Staggered Stasis was released on the Arial CD series.
"Duration" (1986) was composed as a 13-limit study for the Long String Instrument, in the key of C. The fundamental tone is continually sounded, under chords constructed with pitches from the overtone series. The intention of the piece was to listen to the variations within each chord, as it is sounded continually while the performer walked the length of the instrument. As the performer’s position changes, one clearly hears a cascade of overtones. "Duration" was never previously released.
The original recordings were made direct to a PCM digital processor using a vintage AKG C24 stereo tube condenser microphone placed about 15 feet from the resonators.
"Duration" (1986) was composed as a 13-limit study for the Long String Instrument, in the key of C. The fundamental tone is continually sounded, under chords constructed with pitches from the overtone series. The intention of the piece was to listen to the variations within each chord, as it is sounded continually while the performer walked the length of the instrument. As the performer’s position changes, one clearly hears a cascade of overtones. "Duration" was never previously released.
The original recordings were made direct to a PCM digital processor using a vintage AKG C24 stereo tube condenser microphone placed about 15 feet from the resonators.
14,00€