What I Heard This Morning: C. Spencer Yeh/Okkyung Lee/Lasse Marhaug
From the three or so minutes' worth of sample you can glean from the preview of Wake Up Awesome, which is an experimental and improvisational collaboration between artists C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core, cellist Okkyung Lee and Lasse Marhaug of Jazzkammer, you know you're in for a challenge. Splicing together segments from tracks "Throw Down the Fishcake" and "Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream," you're treated to free jazz percussion and frantically bowed strings, eruptions of static and an introductory piano melody cut off just before a voice begins to sing.
Check out the sample below. If you're intrigued, please read the info on the release below, which was provided by Enabler PR.
C. SPENCER YEH/OKKYUNG LEE/LASSE MARHAUG DETAIL WAKE UP AWESOME OUT 11/12 VIA SOFTWARE
LISTEN TO AN EXCERPT FROM THE ALBUM HERE
Wake Up Awesome, by C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core), Okkyung Lee, and Lasse Marhaug (Jazzkamer), is the second chapter of SSTUDIOS (Software Studios Series). SSTUDIOS is a new venture in the Software Recording Co.'s expanding catalog that invites artists in the field of electronic music to create collaborative works of quality and vision.
Inspired by the historical intersections of live performance and studio post-production, Wake Up Awesome is a modern kind of fusion in technique as well as genre. At its core are three artists highly experienced with both instant and labored composition. Together, they found the studio generated improvisations were iteratively developed by each on their own.
Passages of real-time improvisation duck and swerve into electro-concrete tangles of samples, edits and juxtaposition – all you'd want out of a world of mechanical possibility. If it sounds intentional on the record, it was. If Yeh and Marhaug's more electronic affinities in their respective practices place them as the "producers," then Lee's cello often leads the drive as a sort of soloist.
The resulting conversation is genuinely both serious and iconoclastic. All three artists have a history of dialogue, but this is the first time they've hung out for the record -- we're very happy that they did.
Wake Up Awesome is available via the Software Recording Co. on November 12, 2013 in limited vinyl edition as well as CD and digital formats.
ABOUT SSTUDIOS:
The SSTUDIOS (Software Studios Series) invites artists in the field of electronic music to create collaborative works of quality and vision.
The definition of what makes music "electronic" is transmutable. SSTUDIOS artists in turn have expanded the definition and responsibilities of the modern "electronic" musician to naturally embrace mixed practices including composition, improvisation, aleatory / extended technique, curation, self-publishing, and a fundamental approach to music beyond euphonic sound.
Recognizing these heterogeneous strategies, SSTUDIOS facilitates an adaptive milieu for realization of a singular statement. The process originates in the studio at Mexican Summer in Brooklyn, New York. These initial sessions are the nucleus of the series, the artists recording in an intimate, scalable environment while engaged in dialogue with the series' curators and collaborators.
Since the 'live signal' has only been part of the story with electronic music, SSTUDIOS places balanced emphasis on post-production, encouraging artists to see the studio recordings as just that – raw material from which they can proceed any way they see fit. This workflow creates a sense of diversity in the results, while also retaining the mark of their origin – the SSTUDIOS.
TOUR DATES
LASSE MARHAUG
Sep 28 @ GAS festival, Gothenburg, Sweden
Sep 29 @ LAK festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
Oct 17 @ Earthbound at Artistry Cafe, Sinagpore
Oct 19 @ Yangon, Myanmar
Oct 23 @ Siem Reap, Cambodia
Oct 24 @ Battambang, Cambodia
Oct 25 @ Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Oct 26 @ Bangkok, Thailand
OKKYUNG LEE
Sept 19 @ The Stone, NYC, w/ Evan Parker & Peter Evans
Sept 27 @ Miller Theater, NYC, John Zorn at 60: Game Pieces
Sept 29 @ Silent Barn, Brooklyn NY, w/ C. Spencer Yeh
Sept 30 @ Roulette, Brooklyn NY, w/ Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Septet
Oct 3 @ ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn NY, w/ Michelle Boulé
Oct 9 @ TBA, Seoul Korea, w/ Phil Minton
C. SPENCER YEH
Sept 29 @ Silent Barn, Brooklyn NY, w/ Okkyung Lee
Oct 6 @ 61 Local, Brooklyn NY
Oct 24 @ ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn NY, w/ Jen Rosenblit
Oct 30 @ A Benefit for Triple Canopy, Grand Harmony, NYC
Nov 3 @ Performa 13, NYC, w/ Stine Janvin Motland
C. SPENCER YEH/OKKYUNG LEE/LASSE MARHAUG
WAKE UP AWESOME
(SOFTWARE RECORDING CO.) NOV 12, 2013
1. Wake Up Awesome
2. Hairslide
3. The Mermen of Poetry
4. Ophelia Gimme Shelter
5. The Mermaids of Extended Technique
6. Magic Seagull Lamp
7. Mission: Lazy
8. Mission: Nothing
9. Throw Down the Fishcake
10. Neutrons Whatever
11. Serious Cat's Milk
12. Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream
13. Mission: Possible
14. RSVP Skunk
15. Tonight We Sleep Like Empty Hard Drives
SOFTWARE RECORDING CO.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
Check out the sample below. If you're intrigued, please read the info on the release below, which was provided by Enabler PR.
C. SPENCER YEH/OKKYUNG LEE/LASSE MARHAUG DETAIL WAKE UP AWESOME OUT 11/12 VIA SOFTWARE
LISTEN TO AN EXCERPT FROM THE ALBUM HERE
Wake Up Awesome, by C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core), Okkyung Lee, and Lasse Marhaug (Jazzkamer), is the second chapter of SSTUDIOS (Software Studios Series). SSTUDIOS is a new venture in the Software Recording Co.'s expanding catalog that invites artists in the field of electronic music to create collaborative works of quality and vision.
Inspired by the historical intersections of live performance and studio post-production, Wake Up Awesome is a modern kind of fusion in technique as well as genre. At its core are three artists highly experienced with both instant and labored composition. Together, they found the studio generated improvisations were iteratively developed by each on their own.
Passages of real-time improvisation duck and swerve into electro-concrete tangles of samples, edits and juxtaposition – all you'd want out of a world of mechanical possibility. If it sounds intentional on the record, it was. If Yeh and Marhaug's more electronic affinities in their respective practices place them as the "producers," then Lee's cello often leads the drive as a sort of soloist.
The resulting conversation is genuinely both serious and iconoclastic. All three artists have a history of dialogue, but this is the first time they've hung out for the record -- we're very happy that they did.
Wake Up Awesome is available via the Software Recording Co. on November 12, 2013 in limited vinyl edition as well as CD and digital formats.
ABOUT SSTUDIOS:
The SSTUDIOS (Software Studios Series) invites artists in the field of electronic music to create collaborative works of quality and vision.
The definition of what makes music "electronic" is transmutable. SSTUDIOS artists in turn have expanded the definition and responsibilities of the modern "electronic" musician to naturally embrace mixed practices including composition, improvisation, aleatory / extended technique, curation, self-publishing, and a fundamental approach to music beyond euphonic sound.
Recognizing these heterogeneous strategies, SSTUDIOS facilitates an adaptive milieu for realization of a singular statement. The process originates in the studio at Mexican Summer in Brooklyn, New York. These initial sessions are the nucleus of the series, the artists recording in an intimate, scalable environment while engaged in dialogue with the series' curators and collaborators.
Since the 'live signal' has only been part of the story with electronic music, SSTUDIOS places balanced emphasis on post-production, encouraging artists to see the studio recordings as just that – raw material from which they can proceed any way they see fit. This workflow creates a sense of diversity in the results, while also retaining the mark of their origin – the SSTUDIOS.
TOUR DATES
LASSE MARHAUG
Sep 28 @ GAS festival, Gothenburg, Sweden
Sep 29 @ LAK festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
Oct 17 @ Earthbound at Artistry Cafe, Sinagpore
Oct 19 @ Yangon, Myanmar
Oct 23 @ Siem Reap, Cambodia
Oct 24 @ Battambang, Cambodia
Oct 25 @ Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Oct 26 @ Bangkok, Thailand
OKKYUNG LEE
Sept 19 @ The Stone, NYC, w/ Evan Parker & Peter Evans
Sept 27 @ Miller Theater, NYC, John Zorn at 60: Game Pieces
Sept 29 @ Silent Barn, Brooklyn NY, w/ C. Spencer Yeh
Sept 30 @ Roulette, Brooklyn NY, w/ Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Septet
Oct 3 @ ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn NY, w/ Michelle Boulé
Oct 9 @ TBA, Seoul Korea, w/ Phil Minton
C. SPENCER YEH
Sept 29 @ Silent Barn, Brooklyn NY, w/ Okkyung Lee
Oct 6 @ 61 Local, Brooklyn NY
Oct 24 @ ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn NY, w/ Jen Rosenblit
Oct 30 @ A Benefit for Triple Canopy, Grand Harmony, NYC
Nov 3 @ Performa 13, NYC, w/ Stine Janvin Motland
C. SPENCER YEH/OKKYUNG LEE/LASSE MARHAUG
WAKE UP AWESOME
(SOFTWARE RECORDING CO.) NOV 12, 2013
1. Wake Up Awesome
2. Hairslide
3. The Mermen of Poetry
4. Ophelia Gimme Shelter
5. The Mermaids of Extended Technique
6. Magic Seagull Lamp
7. Mission: Lazy
8. Mission: Nothing
9. Throw Down the Fishcake
10. Neutrons Whatever
11. Serious Cat's Milk
12. Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream
13. Mission: Possible
14. RSVP Skunk
15. Tonight We Sleep Like Empty Hard Drives
SOFTWARE RECORDING CO.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
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