Unnoted Sessions

After more than a year of jam sessions we finally hit the 100 jams marker! In a chaotic session with all kinds of technical problems we stumbled over the magic marker in a rather uninspiring jam. The three preceding jams had very good potential, with strong vocals from Caroline Luik, but due to all kinds of statics the end result leaves a bit to be desired. In the end we were able to fix our problems, but somehow the juice run out…

The Urban Action festival was an interesting experience, jamming on top of huge containers with probably no one to be found below, when watching the artists at hand. The video shows a part from the 3 star-rated jam#092. Be sure to check out 5 star jam#093 from the same day. Thanks Caroline, Micha and HJ for joining us and Kim for filming & taking pictures.

We decided to record the latest studio session using a mobile phone. As it was hard to judge the correct camera angle, the result turned out to be far better than expected, showing the session as an almost surreal painting. The video shows the creation of jam#084 and #085 which afterwards are valued at 3 stars.

A monster project was it going to be, recording a live session with 4 different cameras, including a 16mm one, and integrating them afterwards via blue screen effects. The whole session almost stranded before we even started as the low E string of Luciano’s bass guitar broke, so he had to improvise with just 3 strings.

Fortunately the 4 stars-rated jam#071 did go rather well, even though the stress factor was sky high. Thanks Caroline for yet again strong vocals and thanks to the camera crews. This little movie is the result of pasting together all the movies that Sander Veenhof shot with his mobile phone. Unnoted Sessions is still dreaming of the real thing…

As part of the opening of the Stedelijk Museum CS RadioRietveld project Unnoted Sessions performed live and quiet on stage. People couldn’t hear the performance unless they used the headphones lying on stage that were connected to the sound installation. Check out jam#064 to hear what is being played in the video.

The third and final chapter of the Beetsterzwaag sessions was going to take place during the opening of the concluding exhibition of the DOGtime four.ten.five.eleven new.art.education project. It was a bit uneasy to perform for the last time between the various art works created by the group. Even they seemed to belong more to the space they were in then to themselves, archeological remains of past times, undermining our search for the here and now.

It was out of this state that jam 054 arose, moody landscapes of delay guitar and thick keys over heavy bass grooves; progressive rock depicting our ambiguous presence and that of the visitors. During the jam weird timing errors were noticeable, causing for frustrating resyncing problems while performing and in the recordings afterwards; something which later appeared to happen in almost all jams of that day.

After a short break in a Chinese restaurant instruments were exchanged, forgotten knowledge put back into practice and we went off for some over-the-top love song with a morbid side note. It seemed almost like a self-seductive prayer, with the same lyrics repeated endlessly and amplified by Lucky’s basic delay guitar and IC’s contrasting evolving bass grooves. Then at four fifth of the jam we broke out the love trance and arrived at the Japanese broadcast organization all in the blink of an eye; it can be that simple.

Having tasted this new kind of energy Hans continued his grooves on bass and Lucky on guitar with further exploration on the Asian community and its culinary heritage. It turned into an exciting experiment with Santhesizer pushing it even further into the unknown, as he had never played keys before; talented indeed.

The last jam that can’t remain unnoted is jam 060, a schizophrenic multilingual ballad with strong guitar parts that takes of in English on beauty and fragility and crashes in German with broken relationship. Along what lines does inspiration flow, Lucky? The schizophrenity is further enhanced by Lucky’s recurring out of scale bass note in the first quarter of the jam. The overall sound quality is a bit doggy unfortunately as the guitar track had to be recovered via the vocal mics.

Beetsterzwaag was a unique experience and showed many new directions for the project to investigate. To be continued.

Being back in the small village of Beetsterzwaag felt already like coming home again. It also meant that it had lost some of it’s uniqueness towards the sessions, though new morphing spectators/participants would surely be found.

After several jams with interesting moments it was not until we were on our own again that it became more than just mere notes played after another. In this with a reggae beat inspired jam 046, the search for the creative moment can clearly be heard as it continuously evolves towards its definition. Which mechanism drove it above noise level and why then and not earlier?

A similar process occurred in the following fusion between rock ballad and bossa. Searching solos are alternated with fresh rhythm guitar on the swinging grooves of the bass, simple yet effective, reminding of postcards with palm trees on sandy beaches and driving along the Riviera in open cars. It sure is ‘no Godard’, but what defines it?

Four jams further down the line we hit rock bottom and top at the same time while trying to aspire new vocal heights. Under the cerebral cords of grEen keys Lucky ventures into unstable lands, walked on with far more ambition than skills. Though barely able to stand in this reinvention of the rock ballad, he manages to bring the private close and up front via disarming openness, raw ‘With you’ directness and cleverly on the spot created lyrics. How much further should you go as an artist?

In the cover of the night, surrounded by the faded remains of the musical dialogs and watched by many artworks, Lucky did one more private jam. As it was made in the same spirit and under the same conditions we decided to include this endless dark new wave self-therapy within the project.

The next day at Beetsterzwaag was as inspiring as the day before. With just a few hours of sleep and the equipment ready to be used we couldn’t resist and did an early morning jam, jam 034. The simple electronically enhanced keys played by Lucky created an emotional mood to which IC started playing the bass over and Lucky questioning himself whether ‘it was he or somebody else’. Well…

The evening was filled with a party atmosphere, waiting to be ignited. Though trying to fight this initially, we quickly went all the way with the second jam, mixing up-tempo straight funk with avantgarde vocals and samples. Another spontaneous guest in the form of Magic keys joined in on the synthesizer. Though problematic during this jam, it felt very promising. Or in the words of A voice ‘Give me more’.

Too much party can kill the beast, or at least guitar strings, and with jam 038 we turned inwards, letting the walls mirror harsh decisions of the past, inventing strong evolving dialogs that reminded of the melodramas during the eighties.

With the follow-up jam a combination of both the extrovert and introvert was sought after, with IC (on bass for most part) and Magic keys creating complex alternating layers of pure funk. As a reaction to this and inspired by the participation of lovely E Sister, Lucky came up with the infamous one-liner: ‘Play with your magic fingers and take me now’. The jam reinvents itself after three quarters towards the introvert, asif we took what needed to be taken.

Just one more, a mental phrase often silently uttered, faking the illusion of control. Were we beyond it, losing ourselves in the process of creation, the work becoming the master over its inventor? The final jam in which everybody participated, became a united statement in oldest gospel traditions. There was no more ‘Self’ for that moment, just a ’singing away’, untll the ‘clock and the beat’ stopped.

We have tested flesh and we want more.