iannis xenakis. search & destroy

the highlights of the film were te big X himself. esp:

scene of him at his desk typing nos into a calculator, writes something down, then types some more numbers then goes 'ugh' as if to say that the calculation couldn't be made! - hilarity (of course he prob types the wronged key in)

also revisiting his old school (awful chequered trousers, btw), at one point going to the old ruins where theater used to take place - goes up a few steps - starts citing shakespeare in dodgy eng accent, then asks 'that ws good no?'

loads of artskool hotties to gawp at tho hurrah

'loads of artskool hotties to gawp at tho hurrah'

damn!

grr i couldn't make it but the xenakis gig i went to last year had one of the mego ppl (russell haswell i think) re-mixing xenakis - i dunno, I've been to a concert of berio's electronic music and without visuals this kind of thing falls a tad flat but still grr i couldn't stay!

i dont think i'm in a position to judge to what extent legend had been remixed or rejigged etc wrt to an original, but there were visuals; basically a glowing ember rectangle of red light on the stage, slowly growing and contracting and being all intense like. i will charitably say YAWN it sort of focused the maelstrom of sound (ie. a tardis materialises in the rainforest for 45 mins) insofar as it occured to you that one man composed this alone.

(I read bw's essay over a year ago on esther leaslie's site wtf! its been around for ages...maybe ppl want to overrate, it might be felt that he ws wronged bcz he dared to tell LIKE IT IS! I can't even quite recall that much about his argt right now)

loads of artskool hotties to gawp at tho hurrah

Indeed, there seemed to be an amazing number of attractive women there, I must go to more concerts of avant garde classical music!

there's another thread where alext rather elegantly dismantles BW's entire 'reading' of Adorno in the space of a few short paras, superb

Thursday 24 November 2005 - 7.30pm
new noise / John Kenny

Programme:
Iannis Xenakis - Dmaathan
John Cage - Ryoanji
Pedro Gomez-Egana - New work (World premiere)
Tansy Davies - New work
Burgess / Fairclough / Kenny / Miller - New work (World premiere) John Kenny - Wild Stone
John Kenny - The Voice of the Carnyx
Emily Hall - Join
Dobrinka Tabakova - Frozen Rive Flows
Ian Willcock - For the Republic

Part of the BMIC's Cutting Edge series 2005. For more information please visit the BMIC website. Tickets cost £7 & £10 and are available on 020 7928 1902.
The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, London SE1 8ST

(near waterloo east - saw a wonderful concert last month w/ works by Finnissy, Barrett, Rzewski, Ian Pace and more)

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=yztoaNakKok&feature=related

'gmeeoorh' for organ (1974) is the shit.

I'll bet it is, but how to hear it? Has it ever been recorded?!!??!?! Groovin' on lots of solo Xenakis pieces lately. Love "Keren" for trombone, "Nomos Alpha", "Evyrali" et al.

And, apropos of nothing, my 10 favourite titles of Xenakis' pieces:

Waarg
Oophaa
Gmeeoorh
Kraanerg
Keqrops
Phlegra
Trookh
Terretektorh
Achorripsis
Theraps
Pithoprakta

Nitpick: should be Troorkh I think, for trombone + orkhestra?

Oh yeah, Troorkh, that's right

More Xenakis in "that" London, but didn't they do "Eonta" and "La légende d'Eer" the last time round?

"La légende d'Eer" once every six years is still too seldom. there should be a room where you can go to hear it in 8 channels every week

I saw the performance of "Oresteia" outdoors at CalArts last November and it was one to remember. they handed out hundreds of resonating coil noisemakers to the audience for the ending while the children's chorus ran through the audience shrieking the final 'chords'. maybe it was just the picnic & wine atmosphere but it all seemed to have a fun vibe even though it still sounded terrifying

shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar

hoping there isn't some trite ecumeno-mystical paratext trash accompanying this cuz for me it's just the sound of everything altogether

I love how it sounds the way the title would suggest it sounds.

that would be shaaAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaar to account for the exquistite portamento

Search:
Synaphaï
Antikhthon
Metastaesis
Aïs
Jonchaies
Evryali
Herma
Shaar

Destroy:
Kyania
Horos
Ioolkos

http://i.imgur.com/p2AR0.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn5F9m4Qf3w

xenakis died fifteen years ago today

Tempting new 5LP and CD box set of electroacoustic works now available. 14 copies of the vinyl left at the time of writing, don't sleep if you want one of these:

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/electroacoustic-works

^^^
I have been listening to that today. Persepolis (1972) and La Légende d’Eer (1978) on repeat.

Waiting for my copy of the 5CD to arrive from Germany.

Scored a nice clean copy of the GRM Works LP just the other day. I love the note for Bohor:

The author deliberately abstained from giving any descriptive information on his piece, letting the listener choose an imaginary route for himself

I'm getting so obsessed with this, I doubt I'll listen to much else for the next week.