now available, FOSSILS & BILL SHUTE, “The Florida Nocturne Poems” (KSE #300, poetry and sound sculpture)

FOSSILS  &  BILL SHUTE

“THE FLORIDA NOCTURNE POEMS”

KSE #300, poetry-and-music CDR album

original cover art by M. P. Landis

$8 US / $11.50 elsewhere        payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

please provide address/item ordered in a note with your paypal order….THANKS

includes readings of the complete Bill Shute poetry chapbooks  SHADES OF NIGHT DESCENDING; MONDO DAYTONA; PEACH COBBLER IN THE POKER ROOM; JUPITER IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR and FIVE new Florida-themed sound sculptures from FOSSILS…

In 2012, I composed and published FOUR poetry chapbooks, inspired by my two weeks in Central Florida that summer: SHADES OF NIGHT DESCENDING; MONDO DAYTONA; PEACH COBBLER IN THE POKER ROOM; and JUPITER IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR. Florida is a fascinating place (I’ll be returning to Florida, this time to the Panhandle, in May/June 2015), and the central part of the state is so full of rich particulars that it’s a natural for a poet or photographer. Those chapbooks got an excellent response, and I was very happy with them myself, so I arranged with Word Mechanics to do a book-length collection of the four chapbooks, running about 40 pages. I even commissioned an original painting from MP Landis for the book’s cover. For various reasons, that book did not happen, so after remembering that my spoken-word poetry albums sell better than their written cousins, I thought that perhaps KSE should create some kind of poetry-and-music album based on the FLORIDA NOCTURNE POEMS. And if you are looking for a musical unit that can do ANYTHING and create soundscapes of an infinite variety, then you will inevitably come to Hamilton, Ontario’s FOSSILS. David Payne and Daniel Farr of FOSSILS, inspired by the poems (and given the charge to keep it “swampy and sparse,” which they certainly did), created five diverse sound sculptures, dripping with Florida heat and humidity, which are alternating with newly recorded readings of the four multi-part poems, produced in Austin by Marcus Rubio.

THE FLORIDA NOCTURNE POEMS is the second Fossils and Bill Shute collab, and I hope it’s not the last. Listening to these poems THREE YEARS after writing them, I feel that I really did nail the struggle of confused, average people trying to find some fleeting empty joy in and to make some kind of sense out of the heart of the heart of Central Florida, “Mississippi with palm trees.” These are heavily-packed, detail-rich poems filled with chunky particulars, like the nuts in a Baby Ruth candy bar. Four different narrators tell four different stories, all pieces of the mosaic that is 21st Century life in the Southern US, under the reign of Governor Ultrasound. The combination of FOSSILS sound sculptures and these Florida poems creates a unique unclassifiable work. The music is sometimes abrasive and the poetry is sometimes absurd in a painful, pathetic way, but hey, SO IS LIFE. At eight dollars (eleven, outside the US), this is a heck of a lot cheaper than a trip to Florida, and you won’t have to deal with mosquitoes, as I did when I wrote these poems at various Central Florida dog tracks in 2012. Yes, this is a lo-fi product, but we are dealing with a world of people working at the minimum wage and living in cheap furnished rooms, so save the pretentious “art editions” for MFA-toting hipsters in berets.

The cover to this album sports an original painting from acclaimed Brooklyn-based artist M.P.Landis (visit him at http://www.mplandis.com/), originally commissioned for the book project that never happened. Mr. Landis graciously allowed us to use that same painting on the cover of this album, and ALL sale copies will be printed on fine quality cover stock that brings out the richness and the textures of the painting….I’d like to think that the contents of the album are also full of richness and deep textures, but you will be the judge of that.

FOSSILS and Marcus Rubio did a fantastic job on THE FLORIDA NOCTURNE POEMS, and we all hope you enjoy the finished product. One has to find new ways to “sell” poetry in today’s world–this is one of them….

Get your copy NOW….EDITION OF 125 COPIES

$8 US / $11.50 elsewhere        payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

please provide address/item ordered in a note with your paypal order….THANKS

and while you are ordering THE FLORIDA NOCTURNE POEMS, don’t fail to grab some of our other CDR releases, new creations of contemporary experimental music from a number of contemporary masters….DEREK ROGERS, STEVE FLATO, FOSSILS, MATT KREFTING, MARCUS RUBIO, BRENT FARISS, etc. Here’s what we have available presently:

NEW FOR 2015: STEVE FLATO, “Exhaust System”

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #294, FOSSILS, “For Brian Ruryk” (a joint release with Middle James Co., KSE has only 22 copies of this)

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #292, DEREK ROGERS, “Depth/Detail of Processing”

KSE #275 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH, “China Collection”

all CDR’s are  $8 US postpaid                       $11.50 outside of US postpaid

ALL ARE AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

paypal funds to      django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

and also please include a note with your order stating your mailing name/address and what albums you are ordering….Paypal does not always provide that….MANY THANKS for your ongoing support….

David Payne and Daniel Farr of FOSSILS

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Marcus Rubio recording the Bill Shute poetry tracks in Austin

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note: covers from the original 2012 poetry chapbooks (all long out-of-print)

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and here’s the cover of the FLORIDA NOCTURNE POEMS book that didn’t happen….but if it did happen, we probably would not have done this album, so in hindsight, I’m glad things turned out the way they did….this album takes the poems and expands them into new dimensions….

now available, STEVE FLATO, Exhaust System (KSE #307)

STEVE FLATO

Exhaust System (KSE #307, CDR album)

A process piece in just intonation for three clarinets, oboe, bassoon, cello, bass, and sine waves.

mastered by A. F. Jones, Laminal Audio (http://laminalaudio.com), cover art by Nicholas Szczepanik

$8 US / $11.50 elsewhere        payment via paypal to   django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

please provide address/item ordered in a note with your paypal order….THANKS

KSE believes in contemporary composers and contemporary composition…hence our albums by Nick Hennies, Brent Fariss, Marcus Rubio, Forbes Graham, and others….and we try to bring composers with exciting new creations into the fold and feature their work, giving them an international platform for release of new pieces in hard-copy CDR form. We are introducing two composers new to the KSE family in 2015 (the second, Denton, TX-based JEN HILL, will be featured in Fall 2015), and the first of these is San Diego-based composer and multi-instrumentalist STEVE FLATO. Having performed and recorded with such friends as DEREK ROGERS and VANESSA ROSSETTO, Steve was familiar to me, and when I heard his major new piece in just intonation EXHAUST SYSTEM, I immediately inquired about an album release on KSE. Long-form process pieces in poetry, film, the visual arts, and music have always fascinated me, and EXHAUST SYSTEM is the kind of work you can put on and then immerse yourself in its world and FEEL its construction and its internal logic from the inside out (and the rich and crystal-clear mastering of Alan Jones, who also did our recent Derek Rogers album, helps a lot to bring a sense of depth and immediacy to the listening experience). I remember back in the day listening to the LaMonte Young album on Shandar at various volumes and settings, in different parts of the room, on headphones and without headphones, etc., and speaking of Shandar, also doing that with Terry Riley’s PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES. (I’m also reminded of the cascading/alternating/slipping/incantatory repetitions in Gertrude Stein’s THE MAKING OF AMERICANS.) This is that  kind of album….a transcendent listening experience and a fascinatingly constructed piece. Let’s let the composer explain:

EXHAUST SYSTEM  is a process piece based on Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting In A Room” for 3 clarinets, oboe, bassoon, sine waves, bass, and cello. It is in the system of tuning called just intonation, a microtonal tuning that uses pure ratios to achieve very pure sonorities. Basically, it is like “I Am Sitting In A Room” in that the source sounds (microtonally tuned instruments playing swells of long notes instead of spoken voice in this case) are processed by being sent into a room over and over again. I’m sure you are familiar with this piece, so you know how Lucier’s piece works linearly. He starts from point A (dry) and goes to point B (processed reverb). In Exhaust System, each instrument is on its own timeline. The process, instead of linearly like Lucier, works backwards, from the middle, going 2x speed, half speed, etc and through different permutations. This creates a counterpoint between the instruments texturally and harmonically. Additionally, all the “swelling” notes played by the instruments was done so through a Reaktor script that randomized when these swelling events would happen. The effect is a shimmering, pulsating wave of sonorities that moves and changes so slowly that you can’t quite perceive any differentiation.

Steve also did a recent interview with the Spanish website PREPARED GUITAR, where he explains his aesthetic and the nature of his work very well. Check it out here: http://preparedguitar.blogspot.com.es/2015/03/steve-flato-13-questions.html

This is an exciting and fascinating album from a man who’s making a name for himself in the contemporary music world, and it’s easy to see why with such a major release as EXHAUST SYSTEM. Be sure to get your copy NOW…I can’t imagine this piece ever getting old…! Ordering instructions above….and why not check out some of KSE’s other excellent releases of contemporary experimental music on CDR….look below on this page for brand-new releases from DEREK ROGERS and FOSSILS along with the remaining copies of late 2014 releases from MATT KREFTING, BRENT FARISS, ALFRED 23 HARTH, and others.

BIO: Steve Flato is a San Diego-based musician working primarily in and exploring areas between composition and improvisation. Using live sound manipulation, broken electronics, just intonation guitar, and mangled samples, he transforms and rearranges his own sound and the sound of his collaborators in live settings and on record.

Flato is concerned with process and chance, and the line between synthetic and natural sounds. He is particularly interested in impurity — taking processes and concepts and freely interchanging them without the process necessarily dictating form. His label, Abrash, is named after the impurities found in the accidental color bleeding that occurs in the process of creating rugs, noted by Morton Feldman.

His compositions are often sourced from improvisations, improvisations sourced from compositions, and he utilizes recurring and intuitive processes to transform his material. In addition to Abrash, he has appeared on labels such as Copy For Your Records, Kendra Steiner Editions and Lengua de Lava. Past collaborative work includes  Fyxzis (with Corey Larkin and Richard Kamerman) and Hwaet (with Vanessa Rossetto).

Visit Mr. Flato at  http://abrash.org/flato

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Other exciting experimental music CDR albums available from KSE:

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #294, FOSSILS, “For Brian Ruryk” (a joint release with Middle James Co., KSE has only 22 copies of this)

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #292, DEREK ROGERS, “Depth/Detail of Processing”

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #300 (CDR), FOSSILS & BILL SHUTE, “The Florida Nocturne Poems” (poetry and music album), cover art by MP Landis

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remaining copies of new releases from 2014:

KSE #275 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH, “China Collection”

$8 US postpaid                       $11.50 outside of US postpaid

ALL ARE AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

paypal funds to      django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

and also please include a note with your order stating your mailing name/address and what albums you are ordering….Paypal does not always provide that….MANY THANKS for your ongoing support….

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Steve’s other new album, SALON DE FLATO, available from the excellent COPY FOR YOUR RECORDS label, which has done releases from other KSE artists such as Massimo Magee and Marcus Rubio….an essential label! Here’s the ordering link for that album:  http://cfyre.co/rds/

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As always, thank you for your support of independent artists and independent arts collectives such as KSE….

poet MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH featured at Coalesce online lit magazine

San Francisco poet and longtime KSE author MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH is featured (with poems from previous KSE chapbooks) in the new issue of the online literary mag COALESCE. Mr. Heath is one of my favorite poets and was also a pioneer in the world of punk zinedom back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. He was also the first poet I approached about contributing to KSE’s anthology of poems in honor of Lou Reed: POLYMORPHOUS URBAN: POEMS FOR LOU REED. As a musician and a man steeped in the first and best wave of punk, a man in the trenches as it was happening, and a man whose knowledge of rock’n’roll history is second to none, his poetry (not surprisingly) has a wonderful sense of jaded streetwise lyricism and always has a rock and roll heart. We are proud to publish his work on an ongoing basis and KSE will be issuing a new collection of MLH poems in late 2015. Until then, enjoy this sampling of his wonderful and intoxicating work for free via Coalesce….here is the link:

http://www.coalescelitmag.com/poetry/michael-layne-heath

FOSSILS, “For Brian Ruryk” (KSE #294), 48-copy edition, co-release with Middle James Co., now available….

FOSSILS

“For Brian Ruryk”

KSE #294/MJC #440

a co-release of Kendra Steiner Editions and Middle James Co.

CDR album, edition of 44 copies (22 from KSE, 22 from MJC)

$8 US / $11.50 elsewhere   payment via paypal to   django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

please provide address/item ordered in a note with your paypal order….THANKS

The first of three short-run FOSSILS albums we’ll be co-releasing with Middle James Co. in 2015 (we did two of those in 2014, WOOLY BULLY and THE CARDIGAN HOUR, now out of print), each an edition of 48 copies, 24 of which will be available from MJC/Cardinal Records and 24 from KSE. Actually, this new one, FOR BRIAN RURYK (KSE #294) should  be in an edition of 5000 copies because it’s brilliant. Anyone reading this already knows what FOSSILS represents: the ultimate noise collagists, low in fidelity and high in imagination. Every album is an action painting in sound, sliced and diced and sauteed until the ingredients jump from the pan. However, as good as all their many albums are, this one really should command attention. Sometimes the humor in Fossils music and the wide-range of sounds they are capable on creating take away attention from the fact that Daniel Farr and David Payne are masters of the musically diabolical: I’d rate this album as an extension of the subversively disquieting sound and aesthetic of, say, Coum Transmissions or early Throbbing Gristle. People seem to forget the DIY/punk/Burroughs/Warhol/lo-fi/cut-up/primitive/outsider orientation of the early industrial music before it was even called “industrial.”  FOSSILS are the natural heirs of the most primal, street-level, Lo-Fi and REAL side of that tradition. AND they are proudly Canadian!  Every track is different, but each section of each one is always fascinating in its construction and abrasive and full of textures. This is music that makes me feel alive! Come alive and get your own copy……but act soon, only 24 available from KSE….

FOSSILS     “For Brian Ruryk”         KSE #294/MJC #440

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Other exciting experimental music CDR albums available from KSE:

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #292, DEREK ROGERS, “Depth/Detail of Processing”

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #300 (CDR), FOSSILS & BILL SHUTE, “The Florida Nocturne Poems” (poetry and music album), cover art by MP Landis

————————————————————————————————–

remaining copies of new releases from 2014:

KSE #275 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH, “China Collection”

$8 US postpaid                       $11.50 outside of US postpaid

ALL ARE AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

paypal funds to      django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

and also please include a note with your order stating your mailing name/address and what albums you are ordering….Paypal does not always provide that….MANY THANKS for your ongoing support….

coming soon in late March-April-May: new releases from STEVE FLATO, MARCUS M. RUBIO, and the Gift Fig duo of  ALFRED 23 HARTH & CARL STONE

new album from DEREK ROGERS, “Depth/Detail of Processing” (KSE #292)

KSE’s first new release of 2015

DEREK ROGERS

“Depth/Detail of Processing”

CDR album, KSE #292

$8 US / $11 elsewhere   payment via paypal to   django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

please provide address/item ordered in a note with your paypal order….THANKS

KSE’s first shot fired in 2015 is a potent one: a stunning new creation from Texas composer-musician DEREK ROGERS, “DEPTH/DETAIL OF PROCESSING” (KSE #292)…

In over 50+ albums, Rogers has proven to be beyond labels (noise? drone? electro-acoustic? electronic composition?) and he rarely repeats himself. He begins with the blank slate of silence, and with an almost-infinite number of sounds and textures at his disposal, on this album he creates six diverse sound-paintings, rich in textures of all sorts, dipping into everything from contact-mic scrape to decaying piano, from feedback to low-level fuzzy cushioning. Each piece is meticulously crafted yet full of separate sections and constant surprise. You may well forget how many tracks are on the album and just cut free your moorings and travel along with Derek Rogers, as I have.

Derek Rogers the composer really shines on this album, the title of which refers to both what society and culture do to US in terms of programming and processing (listening to Rogers’ music is a good way to stand up to that!) and also to the depth and detail of the range of sounds found on this album….and speaking of sound, the mastering by Alan Jones is so three-dimensional and alive that you don’t listen to this album…..you are in the middle of it and it happens around you…and inside you. Also, Derek’s internal rhythms here (they really come out on headphones) keep the pieces moving in ways you don’t even notice, but feel.

Texas should be proud of Derek Rogers as he has brought his Lone Star-steeped brand of noise-drone-contemporary composition to the far corners of the underground music world, and it’s hard to think of anyone else who combines the quality and quantity of DR while not falling into a formula or becoming pretentious. He’s recorded for most of the small labels that matter in the noise/drone/free-improv world—-Patient Sounds, Bridgetown, Tape Drift, Jehu & Chinaman, No Kings, 905, Hooker Vision, Anathema Sound, Bathetic, Hermitage, Ghetto Naturalist Series, Scotch Tapes, Cloud Valley, Middle James Co., House of Alchemy, Deep Tapes, Dream Root, Kimberly Dawn, Hobo Cult, Greenup Industries, etc. When I travel, I often bring an old Walkman and a stack of DR cassettes along, and no matter what label or period the album is, it’s always fresh and always mind-blowing. Derek’s eclectic yet matter-of-fact, no hype, no-BS approach to his work keeps the focus always on the work, and like a Warhol or a Steve Lacy or a Woody Allen, he continues to work constantly, finding new problems to work out, new landscapes to create and explore, new artistic questions to grapple with.

But what matters most to you, the listener, is that Derek’s new album for KSE, DEPTH/DETAIL OF PROCESSING (KSE #292), is a collection of six exciting and surprising and blistering and shimmering electronic sound paintings from a contemporary master. It’s a stunning listen. It might well be the one DEREK ROGERS album I would choose among the stack sitting near my stereo to give to someone unfamiliar with his work….ANYONE would become a fan after this one!

Grab your copy now! Ordering details above….

Note: this album is dedicated to and inspired by the late Evan Chronister, long-time DFW underground music champion and friend and supporter of Derek (best known to me for his Static Encounters blog). This scene we are all part of survives and thrives because of people like Evan who give of their time and passion and talent, give and give and give, and never ask for anything in return but the joy in knowing they helped turn on others to something that’s great and that they are passionate about. The Dallas Observer ran a nice tribute to Evan, and you can read it here: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2014/10/evan_chronister_memorial.php

The track “Matilda & Richmond” deals directly with EC’s passing and uses field recordings from the period immediately following his death in order to ground the piece as close to EC’s experience as is possible. Surely, he would have appreciated keeping the circle unbroken….

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Other exciting experimental music CDR albums available from KSE:

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #294, FOSSILS, “For Brian Ruryk” (a joint release with Middle James Co., KSE has only 24 copies of this)

NEW FOR 2015: KSE #300 (CDR), FOSSILS & BILL SHUTE, “The Florida Nocturne Poems” (poetry and music album), cover art by MP Landis

————————————————————————————————–

remaining copies of new releases from 2014:

KSE #284 (CDR), BRENT FARISS, “Folk Song For 27 Oboes”

KSE # 291 (CDR), MARCUS M. RUBIO, “Cities Sinking Down”

KSE #266 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Recitals”

KSE #289 (CDR), A. J. KAUFMANN, ‘Stoned Gypsy Wanderer,” cover art by Justin Jackley

KSE #288 (CDR, spoken-word poetry), BILL SHUTE, “Worried Men and Wooden Soldiers: Bill Shute reads selected 2013-2014 poems,”  produced by Marcus Rubio

KSE #275 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH, “China Collection”

$8 US postpaid                       $11 outside of US postpaid

ALL ARE AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

paypal funds to      django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

and also please include a note with your order stating your mailing name/address and what albums you are ordering….Paypal does not always provide that….MANY THANKS for your ongoing support….

coming soon in late March-April-May: new releases from STEVE FLATO, MARCUS M. RUBIO, and the Gift Fig duo of  ALFRED 23 HARTH & CARL STONE

DEREK AND BILL, Hideout, Austin, 2011

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Alfred 23 Harth / John Bell, Camellia Tour, February 2015

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Kendra Steiner Editions is also proud to announce that we will be releasing a SECOND album from the duo of ALFRED 23 HARTH and CARL STONE (their previous GIFT FIG duo album on KSE was widely acclaimed and enjoyed), “Stellenbosch,” recorded live in South Africa during their 2014 tour. Coming in late April 2015.

Mr. Harth’s present KSE release is CHINA COLLECTION…