new album from SAMUEL DUNSCOMBE and TIM OLIVE, “Zanshi” (KSE #371)

SAMUEL DUNSCOMBE & TIM OLIVE, “ZANSHI” (KSE #371, CDR album)

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

All sounds performed by Samuel Dunscombe and Tim Olive in Kobe, Japan (2015).

Recorded and mixed by Samuel Dunscombe

Mastered by Alan Jones (Laminal Audio)

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Artists’ statement on this album:

Zanshi: residue, vestigial traces, dregs.  Zanshi is what is left after the core of an object, sound, image, has been removed.  A faint impression, a decaying outline, perhaps in which the original is no longer clearly recognisable.  This album applies this process to a number of sound-generators: the clarinet, the guitar, radio, analogue tape, field recordings, and others.  Sounds and instruments are de-cored, hollowed out; the fragile remnants are amplified, examined from multiple angles, pushed and pulled.  You hear the faint outline of one afternoon in Kobe, Japan, 2015. (SD, TO)

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Thanks to Steve Flato for alerting me to the work of Samuel Dunscombe and Tim Olive. Little needs to be added to their statement above….except that the album is richly textured, and three-dimensional and crystalline in my mind’s eye, fully embodying the “de-cored….hollowed-out” technique of the sound sculpture heard on ZANSHI .

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The extreme alteration-through-subtraction used here (kind of a “homeopathy in sound,” if I may coin a phrase) is a technique I have always found fruitful. Growing up in the 1970’s, I was very influenced by 1960’s works such as Warhol’s silkscreens (and the ones which most distorted and redefined the original image were always the most satisfying to me) and the process of extreme subtraction and thus dislocation found in the 1962 poetry book “The Tennis Court Oath” by John Ashbery. I am also a silent film aficionado and over the years have watched a number of deteriorated prints of otherwise-lost films, some of which resembled the image found on the cover of this album.

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I’m also reminded of a fascinating exhibition at the Menil in Houston a few years ago, “Apparitions: Frottages and Rubbings from 1860 to Now,” which showed a wide variety of visual artists reveling in the “residue and vestigial traces” described by Dunscombe and Olive. Here is a link to a description of that exhibition:

 https://www.menil.org/exhibitions/234-apparitions-frottages-and-rubbings-from-1860-to-now

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And for another example of the kind of synchronicity in the arts that makes life worthwhile….While listening to ZANSHI in preparation for its release, I was re-reading the Gertrude Stein collection LAST OPERAS AND PLAYS. In the most extreme texts found in that collection, when Stein has subtracted the traditional elements of plot, character, dramatic structure, etc. from these “operas and plays”, what remains—-the words on the page—-are a kind of ZANSHI.

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The residue, the flotsam and jetsam—- decontextualized—- are now central, forcing us to recalibrate, to let go and venture outside of our comfort zones, and to find the beauty in that which has been discarded and weathered by the elements. Hints of now-illegible images on the sides of long-abandoned buildings from Rocky Mountain ghost-towns having become new and cryptic and fascinating “works”—-that is the essence of ZANSHI. And that’s what is behind the austere beauty of this new album, these two extended sound sculptures from Dunscombe and Olive.

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I rarely use headphones—-I’m an old-school listener who wants to hear my music through speakers—-but headphones add another level to one’s experience of ZANSHI. You are plunged into the world of what’s left when what was considered essential has been removed. ZANSHI.

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Get your copy of this unique and satisfying album now. It’s the last of our new music releases for Summer 2017 (there will be a spoken-word poetry album in a week or two, which is technically the last album in our Summer schedule), and then we’ll take a break for a month or so when we’ll come back with the fall/winter round of albums, beginning with another heavy-hitter from ALFRED 23 HARTH, “SHANGHAI QUARTET….ShangShan/Stone Age Music”.

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Visit Samuel Dunscombe and Tim Olive at

http://www.samueldunscombe.com/

https://timolive.org/

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

KSE #377, JOHN BELL, ‘Cambridge Surprise Minor and other peals’

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

KSE #373, DANE ROUSAY, “Anatomize” 

KSE #381, BILL SHUTE, “Bridge On The Bayou: Bill Shute Reads the Arnaudville Poems”…

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.