Unnoted Sessions

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.

Yesterday we had our first performance outside of the now familiar walls of the studio. As part of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie DOGtime four.ten.five.eleven new.art.education project at Kunsthuis Syb we are going to do several performances of which yesterday’s was the first.

‘Kunsthuis Syb is an artists run initiative offering promising young artists a locale for the development, exhibition and discussion of their work. In Kunsthuis Syb’s historic building located in Beetsterzwaag Friesland alcoves and peeling walls create a turbulent environment in which the work on exhibit must stand.’ With such an expectancy we were eager to see how the change of environment would reflect on the musical dialogs.

In order to extend the scale of musical possibilities IC brought along his hard-drive recorder full of samples used in various Inspector Casino’s Detective Shows broadcasted via Radio Rietveld. This turned out to be an interesting addition and used in all three performances of that evening, filling the ‘alcoves and peeling walls’ with layers of noise and randomness, fueling the present historic energy.

During the first jam in which we were still looking to combine all these new elements, the place filled up with more and more people, including the local police force oddly enough. From out of this new atmosphere A voice spontaneously stepped forward during jam 032. As if he had done this a hundred times before with us, he started creating all kinds of interesting vocal experiments into ‘The thing’, joining in on musical dialogs and following private thoughts. This was his first, but whatever ‘The Thing’ is, he sure needs to follow it. Also not unnoted should be the participation of string Meal in this jam, creating complex rhythmic layers of percussion with his cookery equipment.

These spontaneous participants crossing the boundary between creator, spectator and participant, are something to be investigated more.