new from ALFRED 23 HARTH, “Micro-Saxo-Phone: Edition IV” (KSE #257), available now!

ALFRED 23 HARTH

MICRO-SAXO-PHONE: EDITION IV

KSE #257     (cdr album)          hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 153 copies

$8 US / $11 elsewhere, postpaid

payment via paypal to  django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

please include a note w/ your paypal order listing what you are ordering

we also have two other ALFRED 23 HARTH albums still available:

KSE #233 (CDR), ALFRED 23  HARTH / CARL STONE / SAMM BENNETT / KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI, “The Expats, “ recorded live at Superdeluxe, Tokyo, 2010

and

KSE #207 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH & CARL STONE, “Gift Fig”

EXPATS and GIFT FIG are an extra $8 each, postpaid anywhere, if you are also ordering Micro-Saxo-Phone: Edition IV

MICRO-SAXO-PHONE: EDITION IV is the third volume to be released (MSP:I, the first set, was a series of early experiments not intended for release, the releases started with MSP:II) in this important series of albums dedicated to Alfred 23 Harth’s explorations of the solo possibilities of the EXTENDED saxophone (or other reed instrument).

MICRO-SAXO-PHONE: EDITION IV consists of 25 diverse tracks, each a rich and dense and multi-layered composition in itself. The tracks flow seamlessly from one territory into another, if you want to listen to the album straight through, but I’d also recommend you spend some time playing each track on “repeat” and listen closely to its construction, its textures, its poly-rhythms,  its juxtapositions. Each piece is endlessly fascinating, and once you start peeling the layers away of the onion, the album will take you on many unexpected journeys in sound. It’s like an exhibition of 25 exquisitely detailed miniature collages. I’m also reminded of the concept of banchan in the cuisine of Mr. Harth’s adopted home of Korea (which is similar to “Meze” in the Balkans or “Thali” in India or Nepal)–where a wide and diverse variety of small plates of food, differing in color and texture and spiciness and sweetness and saltiness, are set out on the table, providing an seemingly infinite series of combinations and juxtapositions and keeping the palate continuously awake with ever-changing taste experiences. That’s what MSP: IV is doing with sculptures in sound. Utilizing extended techniques, electronics, archival recordings, the metal and the reed and the saliva and the airflow related to the saxophone, but also including passages with the lyricism of a Ben Webster or the acerbic wit of a Steve Lacy. MSP: IV is a unique and rich and diverse creation. With over 40 years in the fore-front of the forward-thinking avant-garde international music scene, ALFRED 23 HARTH continues to delight and surprise…and most of all, to hold us spellbound with his complex and beautiful everything-including-the-kitchen-sink sound creations.

This is a masterful work that will still be fresh and innovative decades from now because, like most of Harth’s work, it exists outside time and outside the influences of the greater “alternative” music world. Get your copy NOW…$8 US, $11 elsewhere.

Alfred 23 Harth provided KSE with liner notes to his earlier release MICRO-SAXO-PHONE: EDITION III (now, unfortunately, out of print),, and he was kind enough to provide a set of comments on this new album, MSP:IV…

“msp4  again also stretches out in my musical history as a side effect. I remixed some of my very first electrified sax solos taken from my LP “Plan Eden”(1986, Creative Works Records/CWR), and also recalled some takes of msp1 (2007, which was never released) in a composed mix together with takes from my guitar solo CD “Vorgang” (2004, Laubhuette Productions). The solos on “Plan Eden” once had been a pure first documentation of my extended sax language, and I see them being very well refreshed in this msp context. The album “Vorgang” is all about an expedition into extended guitar language, and the amalgam of acoustic guitar sounds & air, saliva, needle springs & keys’ percussion takes of the sax leads here to another horizon. Another layer of history comes in by a short remix of a live recording of the “duo weltoffen” together with liquid sound/underwater music specialist Micky Remann from 1980 where I used bass sax besides other tools.And there is a two year old duo with Korea’s free music/trumpet maestro Choi Sun Bae and myself on the Korean traditional double reed wind instrument, taepyeongseo, which in it’s quarter tone aspects brings us back to contemporary music in a kind of fake folk manner. But the majority of this album is of left handed sax impros where simultaneously I used a Kaoss Padd (with my right hand), connected to the sax by contact mic. There are also dubbed miniatures which I regard as being more of compository enriched quality.”  —Alfred 23 Harth, September 2013

Multi-instrumentalist, improviser, composer and visual artist Alfred Harth was born near Frankfurt/Main in Germany. He first recorded at age twenty with the free music ensemble Just Music which was issued on ECM (1002). In the late ’70s, he became interested in punk music and in addition to a regularly-working duo with multi-instrumentalist Heiner Goebbels, he played in punkjazz / improvisation / modern composition combos like Cassiber, Duck and Cover, Gestalt et Jive, Vladimir Estragon and Imperial Hoot. Since 2001 living and working also in Seoul, South Korea, he has been involved with Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Ensembles, composer Carl Stone, and has formed the groups 7k Oaks (with Massimo Pupillo, Luca Venitucci, Fabrizio Spera) and Taste Tribes (with Günter Müller, Hans-Joachim Irmler), his own multi-media art and many more projects.

2013 has been a good year for Harth, as he earlier released an equally stunning album on the Hong Kong based “Re-Records” label, called “AS YVES DREW A LINE. ESTATE.” It’s pictured below, and below that picture is the link to the label’s website. They accept paypal, and you should order a copy…right AFTER you order MSP:IV from Kendra Steiner Editions.

http://www.re-records.com/discography/re-cd-008r/

A23H  at the LaubhuetteStudio Moonsun temple

in the LaubhuettStudio Moonsun garden

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photo by J-Woo Kim, taken at the Paju festival in June

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Remember, you can still get the last few copies of Harth’s previous 2 albums for Kendra Steiner Editions…GIFT FIG and THE EXPATS…see details above

OTHER EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC CDR’S  FROM KSE (only $8 each postpaid anywhere when ordered w/ Alfred 23 Harth’s MICRO-SAXO-PHONE: EDITIONS IV):

KSE #260 (CDR) TOM CREAN, “Wired Love” (solo guitar and banjo explorations)

KSE #255 (cdr) ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE/LISA CAMERON/LEE DOCKERY, “Live At the KSE 6th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT”

KSE #243 (CDR), VENISON WHIRLED (aka Lisa Cameron), “The Many Moods of Venison Whirled”

KSE #254 (cdr), DJIN AQUARIAN/SIR PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE & THE EVERAFTER, Live in San Francisco 10/2011

KSE #239, (CDR), FOSSILS, “Bells and Gulls”

KSE #240 (CDR), SPRILLS OF ORE (Eva Kelly), “Time Mirrors”

KSE #251, (CDR), FORBES GRAHAM, “Return: The Journey”

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”