save the date…
SUNDAY 28 JULY 2013
3 p.m.
AMAZING BOOKS
929 Liberty Ave.
PITTSBURGH, PA
B I L L S H U T E & J I M D. D E U C H A R S
joint poetry reading
KENDRA STEINER EDITIONS INVADES PITTSBURGH!!!
we’ll be reading from old and new favorites at an exciting new bookstore
….
L-R Brad Kohler, Bill Shute, Jim D. Deuchars (Pittsburgh, May 2011)
THE MANY MOODS OF VENISON WHIRLED (aka Lisa Cameron)
(KSE #243, cdr album)
$8 US postpaid/ $10 elsewhere
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com please include note indicating what items you are ordering
(a legendary figure in the Texas psychedelic/new-music scene, Lisa Cameron has been slaying Austin audiences for years with her Venison Whirled feedback-based performances, and after her much-acclaimed VW 3″ cdr XIBALBA for KSE, we’ve answered your demand and issued an all-new full-length Venison Whirled album that captures the magic(k) and the diversity of the Venison Whirled experience)
The great figures in the history of psychedelic music and culture were always pushing the boundaries and alienating people as they sought to find that ultimate chord where they and their music became one with the cosmos. Although Austin-based percussionist and multi-instrumentalist LISA CAMERON is well-respected in the noise and free-improv scenes, and although she’s played with everyone from Brave Combo (she was in the original late 70′s lineup) to Roky Erickson to Jandek to members of Faust and Guru Guru (and she’s opened for everyone from Psychic TV to different incarnations of Hawkwind and the bands growing out of the Hawkwind diaspora), and also been a member of seminal groups such as ST 37, Glass Eye, Three Day Stubble, etc., her conception of the whole noise-drone aesthetic is rooted in the extremes of the original psychedelic era, rooted in White Light White Heat (which she bought as a child in Winfield, Kansas, and which changed her life) and Happenings Ten Years Time Ago and Blue Cheer.
That’s what makes her Venison Whirled performances so different from the performances of those who come out of the academic side of the new music scene or who come to noise out of avant-metal or who come to it out of the world of electronics and sampling. Lisa’s Venison Whirled seems to exist at the dividing line of that moment when a Yardbirds or Velvets or Blue Cheer performance crosses over into blissful and out-of-control feedback–Lisa has learned to control that lightning in a bottle, to manipulate it, and to build an aesthetic around it, and that’s the core of the Venison Whirled experience. As a percussionist, she understands the essence of vibration, and as a deep spiritual thinker, she also understands the spiritual essence of holy vibration. Remember, she is a PERCUSSIONIST—yes, she also plays the guitar, but this is feedback growing out of percussion, not guitar amp feedback.
Each track here—-growing out of the root elements of fire, water, air, and earth—-is sculpted feedback and distortion that’s also packed with found sound, speech, percussion, and on the final track, the beautiful wordless vocals of Alma Lee Cameron (Lisa’s partner and also co-member of Devil Bat). You can peel these sound sculptures apart and find all kinds of organic life and rich textures and pockets of energy. Or you can just let go and float downstream on the molten lava river as Elmer Fudd announces the apocalypse…let Venison Whirled fiddle while Rome burns! It’s 100% higher-key, 100% Texas, and 100% mind-bending. And it’s a numbered, limited, DIY edition of 123 copies…..anyone who’s caught the Venison Whirled experience live in Austin knows that Lisa provides a PHYSICAL psychedelic experience from her music, and these tracks were recorded live and carefully mastered to retain the physicality and deep presence of the original performances, some of which I was lucky enough to attend in person…
THE MANY MOODS OF VENISON WHIRLED…get your copy now!
Lisa is an important part of the KSE family–she performed at all 3 of the KSE live events in 2011-2012, and when I assembled the band for the June 2012 Jandek performance in Austin, Lisa was the first person I suggested to the Representative From Corwood, and as anyone who attended that show remembers (and I was also present at the rehearsal, where Lisa provided for Jandek a foundation that the rest of the band built off of), Lisa’s playing was the sonic glue that kept the Jandek ensemble unified…She’s an amazing person and artist, and KSE is honored to have her as part of our artistic family…
Lisa playing with ST 37 at the KSE Psychedelic Disaster Whirl, fall 2011
Lisa playing with Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru), 1 January 2012
the Venison Whirled CDR “Hyrrs to Isis”
a Venison Whirled performance at Red 7, in Austin in 2011
Bill Shute and Lisa, at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, right before the KSE 6th Anniversary Concert, April 2012
the 3″ mini-cdr XIBALBA was released by Kendra Steiner Editions in 2011
THE MANY MOODS OF VENISON WHIRLED (KSE #243)
CDR’s of experimental music presently available from KSE:
$8 US / $10 elsewhere, payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com
KSE #243 (CDR), VENISON WHIRLED (aka Lisa Cameron), “The Many Moods of Venison Whirled”
KSE #254 (cdr), DJIN AQUARIAN (of Ya Ho Wha 13)/SIR PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE & THE EVERAFTER, Live in San Francisco 10/2011
KSE #233 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH / CARL STONE / SAMM BENNETT / KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI, “The Expats “
KSE #239, (CDR) FOSSILS, “Bells and Gulls”
KSE #251, (CDR) FORBES GRAHAM, “Return: The Journey”
KSE #247 (CDR), MARCUS RUBIO & BILL SHUTE, “Only The Imprint Of An Echo Remains”
KSE #237 (CDR), MICHAEL BARRETT (Belltonesuicide) & MIKE GRIFFIN (Parashi), “Birtual Seme-Alabak”
KSE #235 (CDR), BOOK OF SHADOWS, “Chimaera”
KSE #228 (CDR), UNMOOR, “Night Driver”
KSE #211 (CDR), METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go“
KSE #207 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH & CARL STONE, “Gift Fig”
KSE #206 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio “
KSE #238 (CDR), DANIEL HIPOLITO/EVA KELLY/BILL SHUTE, “Fascination”
KSE #222 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE, “Sopranino Solo, “ cover art by MP Landis.
KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”
KSE #226 (CDR), DEREK ROGERS, “Born Into Systems”
Thanks for your support of independent non-aligned DIY arts organizations that circumvent the established “underground” hierarchy and connect person-to-person…
KSE APRIL-MAY 2013 New and Recent music releases on CDR
KENDRA STEINER EDITIONS New and Recent Experimental-Music Releases on CDR
hand-assembled, hand-cut, hand-numbered…imperfect and unique DIY editions
$8 postpaid in the US, $10 postpaid elsewhere
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com
please include note w/ paypal order indicating which items you want
————————————————————————————————————–
KSE #243 (CDR), VENISON WHIRLED (aka Lisa Cameron, CDR), “The Many Moods of Venison Whirled” (a legendary figure in the Texas psychedelic/new-music scene, Lisa Cameron has been slaying Austin audiences with her Venison Whirled feedback-based performances, and after her much-acclaimed VW 3″ cdr for KSE, we’ve answered your demand and issued an all-new full-length Venison Whirled album that captures the magic and the diversity of the Venison Whirled experience)
KSE #254 (cdr), DJIN AQUARIAN (of Ya Ho Wha 13)/SIR PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE & THE EVERAFTER, Live in San Francisco 10/2011—-an incredible document that could have been released on Skydog back in the day—two higher-key-psych masters meet in San Francisco and YOU are there
KSE #233 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH / CARL STONE / SAMM BENNETT / KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI, “The Expats, “ recorded live at Superdeluxe, Tokyo, 2010
KSE #239, (CDR) FOSSILS, “Bells and Gulls”
KSE #251, (CDR) FORBES GRAHAM, “Return: The Journey” (stunning new album from the Boston trumpeter-composer)
KSE #247 (CDR), MARCUS RUBIO & BILL SHUTE, “Only The Imprint Of An Echo Remains” (poetry and electronic music album, recorded in San Antonio, TX)
KSE #237 (CDR), MICHAEL BARRETT & MIKE GRIFFIN, “Birtual Seme-Alabak” (the long awaited PARASHI/BELLTONESUICIDE duo album!)
KSE #238 (CDR), DANIEL HIPOLITO/EVA KELLY/BILL SHUTE, “Fascination”
KSE #235 (CDR), BOOK OF SHADOWS, “Chimaera”
KSE #228 (CDR), UNMOOR, “Night Driver”
KSE #211 (CDR), METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go“
KSE #207 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH & CARL STONE, “Gift Fig”
KSE #206 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio “
KSE #222 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE, “Sopranino Solo, “ cover art by MP Landis.
KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”
coming soon: new albums from Alfred 23 Harth, Sprills of Ore (Eva Kelly), Tom Crean, and many more…
FORBES GRAHAM
“Return: The Journey” (KSE #251, cdr album)
$8 US/ $10 elsewhere, postpaid
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com please include note indicating what items you are ordering
the new album from the acclaimed Boston trumpeter-composer
Although I had seen his name in print before, Boston-based trumpeter-composer Forbes Graham’s music first entered my world with the stunning 2010 album ESSENCES, a series of duets with percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, seven tracks recorded in 2008, each inspired by a particular scent, or “essence.’ Graham’s jaw-dropping mastery of extended techniques, his repertoire of textures, his rich conception of sound-in-space….I was blown away, and the album was high on my best of the year list for 2010. I sent that list to Mr. Graham, and as I wanted to hear more of his work and to share that work far and wide, I invited him to record a new album for CDR release on Kendra Steiner Editions…..he graciously accepted, and the result is RETURN: THE JOURNEY (KSE #251)
RETURN: THE JOURNEY is an almost-hour-long excursion through different terrains in each of the eight tracks. As the album begins, we’re taken into some anonymous space with distant coughs and creaks and footsteps and speech just beyond our reach, but that pulls us into the space, making it quite specific, and while this is happening abstract smears of heartbeat-funk electronics and crinkling percussion provide the listener with a sense of the life force present in whatever space we inhabit. Track two brings Forbes’ trumpet into the scene, darting and querying and engaging in a dance with the electronics (all sounds by Mr. Graham, by the way), and each track after that takes us into another new territory in sound. There is deep African soil mixed into snippets of contemporary intellectual-speak and sci-fi travels into into the cosmos…in some ways, this is the perfect updating of those areas investigated by Sun Ra and Don Cherry in the previous century. And Graham’s trumpet is a traveler on this journey, along with the listener. You’ll hear echoes of players as diverse as cornetist/trumpeter Tricky Sam Nanton, of the early Ellington years, to the pure-sound explorations through extended techniques of trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff. However, it’s fair to say that the album highlights Graham the composer and painter-in-sound, as opposed to being an instrumental blowout.
A writer is never supposed to say that “this album seems longer than it is,” but this one DOES in the sense that you lose all sense of time. It may clock in at around an hour, but the depth of the material and the breadth of the journey are such that I could have just spent an afternoon with the album. Near the album’s close, on the track “Walkthrough: National Portrait Gallery” we are once again knee-deep in site-specific environmental sound, as if we are “touching down” again on the ground before taking off again on the final track with “Black Starships Executing Spacefold Operations.”
Forbes Graham has delivered us a fascinating album that really cannot be put comfortably into any genre. The man’s compositional skill sits alongside his instrumental skills and spontaneity, and the found-materials of contemporary life, which act as a kind of seasoning and thickener in this 21st Century gumbo. And there’s always that hint of abstract funk in the background, almost like a trace element in a homeopathic mixture–more of an echo than a physical presence.
Listeners who appreciate modern composition, field recordings, free-improv, and audio collage will find RETURN: THE JOURNEY a fascinating trip, one that they will return to often. Forbes Graham is working in his own unique territory here—I can’t think of anyone who combines elements the way he does. It will be exciting to hear the new directions he’ll venture into on his next album…and the one after that…
I usually don’t quote the artist’s verbatim statements on the music unless s/he requests it, but Graham’s comments on this album are so clear that they can only be weakened by paraphrase, so I’m going to quote in full his take on the album: “Returning is the process of traveling to a destination that represents sincerity, humility, and quiet dignity. Therefore, my task is to produce music and sound that as honestly represents my feelings and thoughts as possible. The travel is that exploration through different fields, ideas, and genres within the framework of some sort of overarching idea. Whatever I do, in my own way, I try to keep it funky, which is probably most notable on a track like “We Got It”. But the whole album drips with a feeling of sci-fi future funk. It never can hurt to be funky, and sometimes we need the release and escape of imagining fantastical other worlds.”
Forbes Graham is a trumpet player, composer, and electronic musician based in Boston. He has performed and or recorded across North America and Europe with David Gross, Rakalam Bob Moses, Joe Morris, Luther Gray, Jim Hobbs, Raqib Hassan, Syd Smart, Birgit Ulher, Leonel Kaplan, Jack Wright, Tatsuya Nakatani, Daniel Levin, Ras Moshe, Laurence Cook, Jacob William, Cooper-Moore, Darius Jones, Sabir Mateen, Pandelis Karayorgis, Kevin Frenette and many more wonderful artists.
——————————————————————————————————–
Selected FG discography
Interdimensional Science Research Orchestra – Suns of Ra
Forbes Graham – I Won’t Stop
Weasel Walter/Paul Flaherty/Greg Kelley/Forbes Graham – End of the Trail
Weasel Walter/Marc Edwards Group – Blood of the Earth
Tatsuya Nakatani & Forbes Graham – Essences
Construction Party – Instruments of Change
while ordering Forbes Graham’s new album, why not pick up more independent, original, and spellbinding experimental music that you cannot get elsewhere:
KSE #243 (CDR), VENISON WHIRLED (Lisa Cameron), “The Many Moods of Venison Whirled”
KSE #255 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE / LISA CAMERON / LEE DOCKERY, Live at the KSE 6th Anniversary Concert
KSE #239 (CDR), FOSSILS, “Bells and Gulls,”
KSE #254 (CDR), D J I N A Q U A R I A N , SIR PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE & THE HEREAFTER
KSE #235 (CDR), BOOK OF SHADOWS, “Chimaera”
KSE #206 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio “
KSE #222 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE, “Sopranino Solo, “ cover art by MP Landis.
KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”
KSE #247 (CDR), MARCUS RUBIO & BILL SHUTE, “Only The Imprint Of An Echo Remains” (poetry and electronic music album, recorded in San Antonio, TX)
KSE #211 (CDR), METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go“
KSE #237 (CDR), MICHAEL BARRETT & MIKE GRIFFIN, ““Birtual Seme-Alabak” (aka Belltonesuicide and Parashi)
KSE #228 (CDR), UNMOOR, “Night Driver”
KSE #226 (CDR), DEREK ROGERS, “Born Into Systems”
KSE #208 (CDR), ANTHONY GUERRA & BILL SHUTE, “subtraction” (limited USA re-press of CD originally issued on Black Petal Records, Australia)
KSE #214 (CDR), SABRINA SIEGEL,”Bottlecaps”
KSE #238 (CDR), DANIEL HIPOLITO/EVA KELLY/BILL SHUTE, “Fascination”
ALL LIMITED HAND-ASSEMBLED, HAND-NUMBERED HOMEMADE DIY EDITIONS WITH VARYING COVER STOCKS AND INKS, MADE IN TEXAS
$8 each US postpaid/$10 elsewhere for first CDR, $8 each after the first…
payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com please include a note listing which items you are ordering…
COMING SOON:
APRIL-MAY 2013…SPRILLS OF ORE (Eva Kelly)
JUNE-JULY 2013…ALFRED 23 HARTH, Micro-Saxo-Phone: 4
………………..
TRACES
the assembled singers, shimmering
but set to a moderate heat,
layered on risers
and flanked by baffles,
wordlessly in – ton – ing
color and shade
and blend
and balance
but as humidity
they cannot be seen,
only felt
freshly blown sand
across recent footsteps
somewhere between
Artesia and Alamogordo
over an image sharp and deep
we place a sheet
of tracing paper
stubby, nail-bitten fingers
trying to hold
it in place
the other hand
taking a pencil and copying
the general line
not worrying
about detail
or precision
leaving it all
to texture
and accident
D O N ’ T L O O K B A C K
I
two lean sixty-watt bulbs
separate, unadorned by bases or covers
hang about a foot from the textured ceiling
(christened with the contents of exploded Coke cans
and rusty water
from unrepaired roof leaks)
of the Live Oak Washateria . the street outside
deserted
save for a few nightshift workers,
expired inspection stickers on their pea-soup
green used cars or
those driving home alone from the last call,
trying , slowly, to stay within those weaving
yellow stripes
three of the seven washers
sit, broken, half-full of dark water
sour-stinking, clouded, they’d be
attracting mosquitoes if any rain
had fallen in the last ten weeks
not enough light to tell
if the clothes are clean
as intended
a quick cigarette (while
sitting outside Marie’s Ethnic Hair Care
next door) fills me with
nicotine courage and animation
while my security-guard uniform and underwear
and socks and two towels
tumble halfway-dry .
leaning forward to read the headlines on
yesterday’s Express-News through
the caged front of the bottle-green
newspaper machine:
Bush vetoes child health insurance plan
*
Mayors along Texas-Mexico border protest
proposed border wall
the uniform must be kept clean
protecting someone else’s property
the lawns mowed
transients shooed away
hedges manicured
soda-straws and Doral filters removed
from the parking lot
back inside among the laundry, talk-radio
bangs the drum slowly and surely,
in heartbeat-like measure , preparing us
for the next overseas invasion and occupation
create enough of an internal storm,
and we’ll shoot out the mirror ,
blissfully unaware sinking into grotesquerie ,
while FoxNews tells us
we’re the fairest of them all
II
this San Antonio crockpot
three-quarters full :
a stew of whispers and gestures
of details and textures
of weeds and warehouses
of haircuts and hemmed jeans
of chlorine and ash
the pre-sunrise remnant, family–
heirs not of this rounded world,
smothering as it sands off our rough edges
into sameness.
No– heirs elevated into
the fullness of time
III
the furniture loosens
the body struggles
the mind’s wiring frays
arms and legs flailing away
against the river
rising to reclaim its own
the web unravels
into lines
of a curvature
so subtle
as to be
unnoticed
***
outside again
towels still not dry
***
arrangement alignment
spilled Budweiser
(beechwood, rice, and gravel)
echo of an echo of
a train’s horn,
falling tonal contours
east of town
moths scurrying in space,
feather-stepping in time,
artificial light distracting them
from night-blooming flowers
and pollination
bending headlights and muffled
car stereos as 4 a.m.
employees arrive at
Taqueria Jalisco #3
two doors down
clicking and droning of
air-conditioners cycling
on and off
from all directions
through the night
pure experience translated
from sensation
into words,
dubbed into English,
the line-readings
not matching the lip movements
or the gestures
or the facial expressions
another one in the sea of faces,
neither unjust nor courageous,
back for another round another shift
another walk on either side of the third rail
another danse macabre around the void
with a glorious pasted-on sh*t-eating grin
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