new solo percussion album from JOHN BELL, “Cambridge Surprise Minor and other peals” (KSE #377)

JOHN  BELL

“Cambridge Surprise Minor and other peals” (KSE #377), cdr album

compositions for percussion, recorded in South Korea, New Zealand, and Laos

John Bell: vibraharp, glockenspiel, shell casings, gongs, scrap metal, bells,    piano frame, khong vong

$8 postpaid in the USA  (see below for foreign pricing and ordering instructions)

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Vibist, percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer JOHN BELL is probably best-known outside of his home bases of South Korea and New Zealand for his collaborative work, both in concert and in the studio, with ALFRED 23 HARTH, including the much-acclaimed CAMELLIA album for KSE (#318, still available) and the forthcoming CAMPANULA, on the Moloko Plus label from Germany.

After working with Mr. Bell on CAMELLIA, KSE invited him to create a solo album, to further introduce him and his fascinating work to North American listeners. CAMBRIDGE SURPRISE MINOR AND OTHER PEALS is that album, and like Dane Rousay’s recent ANATOMIZE, it is an album of compositions for solo percussion. Along with the human voice, percussion would have to be the “instrument” with the deepest roots in antiquity and in the widest variety of world cultures. Percussion music can be created from the materials at hand, and that’s what John Bell does here on his new KSE album. While vibes, glockenspiel, and gongs are used, so are scrap metal and abandoned shell casings, as well as a piano frame and the ancient “khong vong” gong circles. These 13 sound paintings-in-percussion, suspended on the canvas of silence, resonate in many many ways….and I would suggest that in listening to this album (and I’ve played it dozens of times since getting the master) you try setting individual tracks on “repeat” to get deeper into them and also setting your player on “random” so you can hear the pieces juxtaposed in different combinations. It is a rich and complex yet deep and elemental series of pieces, an album I can’t imagine getting old. I asked John Bell for some comments on the album, and here is his reply (by the way, this lay-person mistakenly thought that the word “peal” referred simply to the ringing of a bell, the generic sound generated from a bell….how wrong I was….it is far more than that, and I would suggest you click on this definition of PEAL from Wikipedia before proceeding further here       ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peal ):

 

‘About 15 years ago I felt compelled to visit the peal of bells at St Matthews in the city Auckland (the second largest peal in New Zealand). I was lucky enough to be invited to their rehearsal on a Tuesday night, and even though I didn’t mention my family name, they invited me to enlist in the group of trainee bellringers. Despite the impressive sound I declined the invitation. I must have to blame my mother’s side of the family because, at that time I was somewhat repulsed by any slavish discipline such as precise rope pulling. 15 years ago I would never have contemplated spending even the one and a half days it took to record the title track of this album (a full length version of a common English peal). Bill Shute did me a huge favour when he asked me to record a solo album for KSE. Bill gave me nearly five months to send him the material.

 In the last twenty years I ve performed and recorded plenty of frenetic chime smashing, clappers flying around, and more recently lots of bowing and scraping in some free jazz ensemble or similar. So for this first solo album, I decided to explore the bell-ringing side of things,  limited myself to struck metal, only a tiny bit of bowing some metal on one track (  If once I was a bell ). There was also plenty of time to layer tracks and consider panning and mixing ideas.

 Bells are multi-faceted symbols and salient in many cultures. I have been living in South Korea for more than four years , and sadly there are no church bells anywhere near my house. Like most people in Korea, I live in a valley, nowhere near any of the large impressive temple bells, so have only heard one live once! The compensation for this is the prevalence of beautiful gongs in Korean traditional music. I was also lucky enough to be allowed to spend some time recording on  a set of khong vong at the national school of music and dance in Laos last year.

Thanks to Rod Cooper of Melbourne for showing me the simple idea of polystyrene as a reasonator box.

I hope everyone enjoys this album’

John Bell 30 July 2017

KSE is proud to present our second album of composition for percussion for Summer 2017 (the first one was by San Antonio percussionist and composer Dane Rousay), JOHN BELL’s CAMBRIDGE SURPRISE MINOR AND OTHER PEALS (KSE #377)

Be sure to grab this exciting and satisfying CDR album ASAP….

 

$8 postpaid in the USA  (see below for foreign pricing and ordering instructions)

NOTE: ALL CDR’s  ARE NOW PRICED @ $8.00, postpaid in the US.

OUTSIDE THE USA , one album is $18.00 postpaid, first two albums are $20.00 postpaid, then $8 each postpaid after that—sorry, but it now costs almost $14 US to send one CDR overseas….you save A LOT by buying more than one—in fact, the price on an order of two or more HAS GONE DOWN!

1 album= $18, 2 albums= $20, 3 albums= $28, etc. Thanks for your understanding of this. The Post Office now charges $14.50 to mail ONE cdr without a jewel box to Europe or Asia!

Payment is via paypal, using the e-mail address   django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com   . It might be helpful for you to also shoot me an e-mail telling me you’ve sent funds and what items you want…or if you prefer, tell me what books/cdr’s you want, and I’ll send you a paypal invoice.

FOREIGN KSE FRIENDS: we have a lot of great albums to use for your second album, costing only 2 dollars more (!!!) than one album, due to the exorbitant foreign postage rates, which are pretty much the same for one or for four or five cd’s. Take advantage of that and get John Bell’s previous album with ALFRED 23 HARTH “Camellia”, our new album of compositions for percussion from San Antonio’s DANE ROUSAY, the latest album by Ernesto Diaz-Infante “Manitas,” Alfred 23 Harth’s BERLIN ENSEMBLES, etc. See below:

OTHER CDR ALBUMS OF EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC (and more) PRESENTLY AVAILABLE FROM KSE:

KSE #371, SAMUEL DUNSCOMBE & TIM OLIVE, “Zanshi”

KSE #375, MASSIMO MAGEE & JAMES L. MALONE, “The Limits of the Possible”

KSE #373, DANE ROUSAY, “Anatomize” 

KSE #372, ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Manitas” solo classical guitar

KSE #369, A. F. JONES, “FOUR DOT THREE TO ONE”

KSE #362, FOSSILS & BILL SHUTE, “Florida Nocturne Revisited”….new interpretations of Shute’s Florida Nocturne Poems

KSE #370, “KSE 11th ANNIVERSARY ALBUM” featuring newly recorded, exclusive tracks from members of the KSE family and friends: JEN HILL, VANESSA ROSSETTO, ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, LISA CAMERON, BRIAN RURYK, FOSSILS, MORE EAZE, JOHN BELL, MASSIMO MAGEE, MATTHEW REVERT, STEVE FLATO

KSE #355 (CDR), MORE EAZE, “wOrk”

KSE #357 (CDR) SMOKEY EMERY / VENISON WHIRLED, “turning into”

KSE #363 (CDR) ALFRED 23 HARTH’s BERLIN ENSEMBLES

KSE #359 (CDR), TOM CREAN & MATT ROBIDOUX, “Blank Space”–cover art by Jennifer Baron

KSE #336 (CDR), ALFRED 23 HARTH, “Kepler 452b Edition”

KSE #351 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE, “Music In 3 Spaces”

KSE #350 (CDR) ANTHONY GUERRA / BILL SHUTE, “Subtraction” KSE  reissue of album originally released in 2011 on Black Petal Records, Australia 

KSE #335 (CDR album), REVEREND RAYMOND BRANCH, “Rainbow Gospel Hour…On The Air!”—a wonderful hour-long AM-radio broadcast, mastered from cassette, capturing the warmth and joy of Rev. Branch in both music (lots of it) and spoken message

KSE #333 (CDR album), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Tunnels” solo 12-string acoustic mantra guitar

KSE #318, ALFRED 23 HARTH & JOHN BELL, “Camellia”

Thanks for your support as we are in our 12th year of operation, dedicated to forward-thinking music and poetry. Our next summer release will be the album from Samuel Dunscombe and Tim Olive, in early-to-mid August….although you can order an advance copy NOW for immediate delivery. See you then….

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