Cincinnati
(DroneDisco - fig.95) CD $13.50 (Out-of-stock)
Previous full-length documents by the cooperative of composer/improvisers John Wiese (Sissy Spacek) and C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core) have been culled from live performance situations, and one could cite Cincinnati as the duo's first studio album. Recorded face-to-face in late 2007 at Ashworth Tap Room in Cincinnati OH, it reveals unexpected developments and strategies of this ongoing partnership. Familiar machineries were primed, but an increasingly alien attitude was fed through and processed into churning and bewildering shapes. The results of these sessions were cataloged and surgically isolated into specimens by Yeh; a little editing employed to carve the forms somewhat presentable, but no "studio trickery" to mask the organic nature. A monumentally intimate body touched by indeterminate intuition, instant composition, and interior logic.
In the Blink of an Eye b/w Condo Stress
(Destijl - IND087) 7-inch $6.00 (Out-of-stock)
COMING SOON. In addition to Songs 2002 (What The... Records 2009), the only Yeh effort that is electronics music, furniture music, modernistic music, and music with experimental new vision.
Live In Nottingham
(What The ... - WHAT004) LP $25.00
Live collaboration by Wiese (to be played by Sasha Cohen in the upcoming film Noise Movie) and Yeh, in front of their best gear with loudspeakers and a room full of wanting Brits. Rude blast noises, deep-brain droning, twisting tape press record, vocals that are just torn-apart and strung up in electronic torture chambers. Recorded direct from the board for maximum clarity, detail and quality. Limited edition of 330 with insert and red silkscreened covers.
TONY CONRAD / MICHAEL F. DUCH / C. SPENCER YEH
Musculus Trapezius
(Pica Disk - PICA013) CD $14.00
An epic performance captured pristine, unfurling its massive limbs patiently and cannily over the course of seventy-plus minutes. Conrad mingles among trusted wood-and-steel sidekicks, engaged in both age-old conversations and inspired new inquisitions; Yeh bookends his passive/aggressive behavior on violin with spare piano incantations; Duchs acts as a ghostly anchor, casting formidable binding and deft velocity. Drones flow freely, but these reliable horizons fracture into surprising detours, tearing apart the instruments, the players involved, and the expectations of the music itself. From the abstract of the article "EMG Trapezius Muscle Activity Pattern in String Players:: Part I—Is There Variability in the Playing Technique?" authored by Anncristine Fjellman-Wiklund, Helena Grip, Jan Stefan Karlsson, and Gunnevi Sundelin, first published in the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (Volume 33, Issue 4, April 2004): "Work-related neck and shoulder disorders are a great problem for string musicians; a playing technique with more relaxed muscles and a greater variation in the muscle activity pattern, i.e., with shorter sequences at a varied number of amplitude levels... might prevent pain." Oops.
New York / Atlanta
(Helicopter - H49) CD $10.65
Two of the best sets from a 2007 tour by this developing audio partnership. On these direct-from-the-soundboard recordings, steel string binds knobs, vocal cries machine code, fuzz and foil avalanche, fireworks and drought. Epic movements in their entirety, with minimal editing and post-meddling.
JUSTIN LIEBERMAN / C. SPENCER YEH
Object Lessons
(What The ... - WHAT008) LP picture disc $25.50 (Out-of-stock)
Beginning with a shared love of sound poetry, psychedelic rock, Japanese scum noise, Japanese psychedelic rock, Object Lessons' itinerary embodies more present-time sensibilities: Lieberman's sculptural and multimedia work The Corrector's Custom Pre-Fab House (itself inspired by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown's 1972 examination of “the decorated shed,” Learning From Las Vegas), which includes a character inspired by Nobusuke Tagomi, from Philip K. Dicks The Man in the High Castle. Created in the style of a Katamari video game, the program features texts on each object taking various forms such as objective accounts, plagiarized product descriptions, aesthetic meditations, poetry, short fiction, satire, and prose; these texts were then transformed into this a collaboration between Lieberman and Burning Star Core's C. Spencer Yeh. The result is one part Bruce Haack, another part Charlie Gocher -- a head-on collision you don't see every day. Full-color gatefold jacket. Limited edition.
Tiny Red Tables b/w Big American Hole
(Helicopter - H48) 7-inch $7.50
Handheld tape recordings of source material and stage clips that Wiese (Sissy Spacek, Bastard Noise) and Yeh (Burning Star Core) used during the Free Noise tour sets -- the first unofficial Free Noise document, in fact. Very low-fi, but sounds great. An astounding twenty-six minutes total, no joke. Edition of 150.