Antonin
Artaud: Bruitage, from “Pour en finir
avec le jugement de dieu” (1947) [1.32]
Diamanda Galàs: Panoptikòn from “Diamanda Galàs” (1984) [15.06]
Keiji Haino:
excerpt from “I Said This is the Son of Nihilism” (2004) [18.39]
Terre
Thaemliz Yer Ass is Grass from “Soil”
(1995) [8.22]
Vampillia feat. Attila Csihar: One (previously unreleased, 2012) [8.58]
Yosuke Yamashita Trio: Chiasma from “Chiasma” (1976) [7.15]
Carmelo Bene: excerpt from “Bene! Quattro modi diversi di morire in versi.
Majakovskij-Blok-Esenin-Pasternak”, music by Vittorio Gelmetti (1974) [6.18]
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), post surrealist poet, theatre
writer, actor. The radio broadcast Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (‘To have done with the judgement of
god’, 1948) is his last work, a radio
broadcast thought as the full realization of his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, a theatre not overtaken by repetition and
delivered through action. Friend of André Bréton, fervent admirer of the Dalai
Lama, interested in Balinese Gamelan music and South America peyotl rituals,
Artaud used voice and noise to amplify the expressivity in order to get beyond
the boundaries of language and of the body, anticipating contemporary singing
(Demetrio Stratos, Joan La
Barbara, Diamanda Galàs), performance art (Chris Burden, Gina
Pane, Marina Abramovic) and the use of ethnic percussions in post-serial
contemporary and electronic music (Iannis Xenakis, Terre Thaemlitz). “When we speak the word "life," it
must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface
of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.” (Antonin
Artaud)
Born in San Diego, California,
in 1955, but of Greek origins, Diamanda
Galàs is a singer, pianist, videoartist. Choosing to focus through
contemporary experimental music in subjects as AIDS (The Masque of the Red Death,
Plague
Mass, Vena Cava), forced institutionalization (Insekta), the Armenian,
Assyrian and Greek genocide (Defixiones: Will and Testament), she
began her career, while developing her unique vocal style, working on the
concept of ‘katharsis’ from ancient Greek tragedy, creating a sound environment
with her voice and microphones system. Diamanda Galàs started her career as an
improviser, with NY-based musicians David Murray and Butch Morris, then left the
world of improvised music after collaborations with ‘downtown’ and European
artists as John Zorn, Henry Kaiser, Andrea Centazzo and Peter Kowald. She
debuted in 1977 as a contemporary music singer in Vinko Globokar Un Jour Comme un Autre and since 1989 started
working also on cycles of songs taken from Western music repertoire - Edith
Piaf, Roy Acuff, Ornette Coleman, Johnny Cash, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Her
latest works are the movie Schrei 27,
in collaboration with Italian videoartist Davide Pepe and
focused on political use of torture, and the sound installation Aquarium,
where with Vladislav Shabalin she
denounces the environmental disasters on the Gulf of Mexico.
Keiji Haino (Chiba, Japan, 1952) started developing his
artistic vision through theatre, inspired by Antonin Artaud, shifting to music
after hearing The Doors’ When the music’s
over. His first band was the psychedelic rock combo Lost Aaraaf, with multi-instrumentalist Magical Power Mako and
composer Toru Takemitsu. In 1978 Haino formed the experimental duo Fushitsusha, featuring different
musicians to accompany him through records and live performances. Collaborating
with avant-garde artists as Derek Bailey, Faust, Peter Brotzmann, Loren
Connors, Charles Gayle, Merzbow, John Zorn, Pansonic, Stephen O’Malley and Oren
Ambarchi, and expressing himself mostly with guitar and voice but sometimes also
with hurdy gurdy, ethnic instruments or live electronics, Haino cites troubadour
music, Marlene Dietrich, Iannis Xenakis and Blind Lemon Jefferson as
influences. Having tried with the band Aihyio
to give his personal, Japanese translation of the blues – ‘covering’ The
Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Ronettes – Keiji Haino performances can be
described as cathartic, but also intimate – as the ‘vol. 2’ of 2004 Black Blues, made
entirely on voice and acoustic guitar, fully can testify.
Terre Thaemlitz is an award winning multi-media producer,
writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ and owner of the Comatonse
Recordings record label. Her work combines a critical look at identity politics
- including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race - with an
ongoing analysis of the socio-economics of commercial media production. He has
released over 15 solo albums, as well as numerous 12-inch singles and video
works. Her writings on music and culture have been published internationally in
a number of books, academic journals and magazines. As a speaker and educator
on issues of non-essentialist Transgenderism and Queerness, Thaemlitz has
lectured and participated in panel discussions throughout Europe and Japan. He
currently resides in Kawasaki,
Japan.
Vampillia is a ‘brutal orchestra’ coming from Osaka, the same city that
saw Boredoms arise in the 1990s. Composed by 11 elements – electric guitar,
drums, three singers, three violinists, piano and a Dj – the band during its
performances alternates classical/acoustic instrumentals with grindcore bursts.
In 2011 Vampillia released the albums Rule The World/Deathtiny Land (Code
666) and Alchemic Heart (Important Records), the last featuring Japanese
avant noiser Merzbow and American vocal experimentalist Jarboe. Devoted to a
music both lyrical, intimate and expressive, they are currently collaborating
with Hungarian black metal vocalist Attila
Csihar, singer for Mayhem, Tormentor, Current 93, Jarboe and recently
Stephen O’Malley’s Sunn O))). Csihar last projects are Void Ov Voices, opening
act for Ulver, Lustmord, Ruin and Diamanda Galàs, and Burial Chamber Trio with
Greg Anderson of Sunn O))) and avant guitarist Oren Ambarchi. The piece
featured on the podcast, and titled One, was sent to me last February
when I was still in London,
and is released here for the first time publicly through a new mix. The album,
one of the five Vampillia is going to release this year, will be called Some
Nightmares Take You Aurora Rainbow Darkness.
Yosuke Yamashita (Tokyo,
1926) is a Japanese pianist, composer, essayist, and writer. Praised by critics
for his unique piano style, and a pioneer in Japanese free jazz and avant-garde
music, in 1969 he formed Yosuke Yamashita Trio, whose music is featured in the
final scenes of Koji Wakamatsu’s masterpiece The Ecstasy of the Angels (1972), dedicated to Japanese terrorism,
struggle for revolution, power, and political repression. Also a soundtrack
composer as for Atsushi Yamatoya’s Inflatable
Sex Doll of the Wasteland (1967) and Shoei Imamura’s Dr. Akagi - awarded in 1999 Mainichi Film Concours as ‘Best Film
Score’, in the 1980’s with bassist Cecil
Mc Bee and drummer Pheeroan AkLaaff formed the New York Trio, often hosting
saxophonist Joe Lovano. While also
famous for a performance in which he played a burning piano dressed with an
asbestos suit, Yosuke Yamashita has been a visiting professor of music at
Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, Nagoya University of Arts, and Kunitachi
College of Music.
Carmelo Bene (1937-2002) was an Italian actor, writer,
movie director. He debuted in 1959 with a Caligola that was very appreciated
by Albert Camus himself. Close friend and also a collaborator of the French philosopher
Gilles Deleuze and deep connoisseur of the work of Pierre Klossowski, an
intellectual at the border of official French culture but a pupil of Rainer
Maria Rilke and of André Gide, Carmelo Bene was influenced by Nietzsche and
structuralism, by the paintings of Francis Bacon and by James Joyce's Ulysses; in 1960 - and again until the
5th edition in 1980 - he took the poems of Vladimir Majakovskij, the Russian
revolutionary poet, as the starting point to his studies on voice, on voiding
words of the dialectics between signifying/signifier, and on using the voice
itself as a full orchestra. Helped for the music initially by post-serialist
composer Sylvano Bussotti, Bene's quest for a theatre that goes beyond the
flattening of the voice as mere extention of the written language in 'Majakovskij'
passes through the stretching of the dynamics and possibilities of the
voice, emphasizing gestures and phonetic elements.
To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com
