  |
|
|
 |
|
CD |
| 4.201 Ft
|
|
| 1. | May...It...Please...Heaven
|
| 2. | One...Should...Let...One's...Fingernails...Grow
|
| 3. | The...Wind...Groans
|
| 4. | O...Stern...Mathematics
|
| 5. | The...Palace...of...Pleasures
|
| 6. | Here...Comes...the...Madwoman
|
| 7. | I...Am...Filthy
|
| 8. | Flights...of...Starlings
|
| 9. | He...Contemplates...the...Moon
|
| 10. | A...Sewing-Machine...and...an...Umbrella
|
Avant-Garde
Structured Improvisation
Free Improvisation
Recorded: Apr 15, 2002
Maldoror is Erik Friedlander's first solo recording, ten improvisations inspired by the surrealist poems of Lautreamont and recorded at Berlin's Teldex Studios.
Heung-Heung "Chippy" Chin - Design, Illustrations
Michael Montes - Producer
THE RECORDING SESSION
In a darkened recording studio in old East Berlin, in a seance-like atmosphere, a time-traveling collaboration took place between the lawless black humor of the 19th-century poet Isidore Ducasse and the daring and sensitivity of the 21st century cellist Erik Friedlander. Producer Michael Montes, an audience of one, had carefully selected excerpts from Ducasse's Maldoror which he believed would be particularly good for inciting musical inspiration. In the course of one hour the excerpts were placed in front of Erik one at a time. He responded to each excerpt with what you hear on this recording. The music is beautiful, mystical, intense -- a journey into music's darkest heart.
THE WRITER
Andre Breton wrote that the Comte de Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror is "the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential." Little is known about its pseudonymous author aside from his real name, Isidore Ducasse, his birth in Uruguay in 1846, and his early death in Paris in 1870. Lautreamont's writings bewildered his contemporaries but the Surrealists modeled their efforts after his menacing visions of angels, gravediggers, hermaphrodites, pederasts, lunatics and strange children. Maldoror includes the full text of the poems that inspired Erik's improvisations, laid out in an elegant
package by designer Heung-Heung Chin.
PRESS
Pitchfork.com by Jascha Hoffman: The formula is simple: put a piece of Ducasse's text in front of the cellist in the studio, along with a few notes, and let him compose music to match it on the spot. It panned out, more or less, not because Maldoror was conceived as a series of songs, but because Erik Friedlander can do things with a cello that should have a reasonable listener fearing for her life. Rostropovich one second and Rottweiler the next, Friedlander is a credible threat, working over the poet's perverse logic with power tools.
LastPlaneToJakarta.com by John Darnielle (aka The Mountain Goats): It's dynamite...as high-minded as it sounds, yes, but there's nothing wrong with being high-minded when you've actually got the chops.
AllMusic.com by Thom Jurek: Those familiar with Friedlander as a player will no doubt recognize his deep, earthly tone on his instrument... His approach is avant-garde to be sure, but far from atonal... For all its intensity, it is nearly shockingly accessible, even with its far-flung and dramatic sense of dynamics. This is an album created to be listened to as one work, the individual selections all contribute to a haunting, hunted whole...this is a brilliantly conceived and executed recording, alluringly musical, and decadently humorous in places. As Friedlander's latest chapter, it is also his finest.
KCRW commentary by Celia Hirschman: One man and his electric cello on an outdoor stage, in the middle of sonic mayhem...stopped traffic with his single, solitary bow.
The Wire (United Kingdom): "Free improvisation in my eyes is not free," [Friedlander] declares. "It's about immediately creating a frame within which one tries to work. ... One of the things I hear when I listen back is patience, a really great thing that I don't often have in improvising. I could just allow an idea to develop on its own without trying to force it."
Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada) by Carl Wilson: When I reach Erik Friedlander, he's rollerblading through the streets of New York, and asks me to wait as he passes through a tunnel. It's the first time I've interviewed an internationally acclaimed musician in mid-skate. But for a jazz player on the outer rim of expression, and an unlikely instrument, "cellist on rollerblades" is as good a
DustedMagazine.com: Maldoror is the first solo recording by cellist Erik Friedlander, a New York improviser who's worked with John Zorn, Ellery Eskelin and Laurie Anderson, among others. It's filled with weighty pauses and languid sustains, and its harmonic and melodic content has more to do with classical music than jazz.
JazzReview.com: An album of stark beauty and haunting poignancy...Maldoror is, quite simply, an important recording of solo improvised pieces, regardless of the instrument; but all the more compelling because it shows a side to the cello that has not been seen before.
DustedMagazine.com: Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists determined by our favorite artists.
Erik Friedlander's Top 10:
1. Natalia Ginzburg: Cinque Romanzi Brevi e altri racconti (BOOK) Moving, funny stories of Italian life circa 1950. In Mio Marito a young woman describes her life with a an older man, a cold doctor who takes a lover who subsequently dies during childbirth -- heartbreaking and plain spoken La Ginzburg captures the nuance and the emotion of these complicated situations without becoming maudlin.
2. Shania Twain: UP! (Mercury, CD) Another pop confection from Twain/Lang team that I can't stop listening to. Like the Jam/Lewis team, Lang knows how to pace a song and to keep your ears occupied.
3. I Cannibali Ennio Morricone: Galileo (CD) Gorgeous introspective sound track writing from E.M.
JazzReview: Carving a Unique Place As an active participant in the New York downtown scene, Erik Friedlander is carving a unique place for himself in improvised music. "What makes it unique," explains Friedlander, "is that in a very small geographic space, you have such an enormous number of really fine musicians. All share a set of skills which include a high level of playing ability and a shared understanding that when you go to perform with other people, you bring not only your ability to play, but your knowledge of all these other kinds of music that are available?and the desire to bring that kind of flexibility to the situation," he says. "Although there are lots of gradations and colours to it, the basic ethos is about this kind of flexibility and curiosity, it's amazing."
Given that this is his seventh recording under his own name, it's a bit surprising that Maldoror is cellist Erik Friedlander's first solo outing. Yet, given the drama, intensity, and dark sparkling beauty of the album, perhaps it took him this long to ramp up and go. As the title suggests, Maldoror is a series of ten improvisations based on poems in the collection Chants du Maldoror written by Isidore Ducasse as Comte de Lautremont (1846-1870), the preeminent influence on the Surrealists of the 20th century. In keeping with the spirit of surrealism, producer Michael Montes selected the ten pieces from the text, and then gave them to Friedlander, one at a time in the studio, with slight written direction. There were no second takes or overdubs. The session is released as recorded. Those familiar with Friedlander as a player will no doubt recognize his deep, earthly tone on his instrument. Well known as a player who brides and strides equally well between jazz, classical and vanguard music, Friedlander uses these exercises to create a timeless stroll though the "literariness" of music. His approach is avant-garde to be sure, but far from atonal. In fact, tonality and sonance are primary concerns here, allowing the nuance of language to come through the spaces and polytonal interactions with the written work. For all its intensity, it is nearly shockingly accessible, even with its far-flung and dramatic sense of dynamics. This is an album created to be listened to as one work, the individual selections all contribute to a haunting, hunted whole, and don't really exist well outside their framework as such. Nonetheless, this is a brilliantly conceived and executed recording, alluringly musical, and decadently humorous in places. As Friedlander's latest chapter, it is also his finest.
---Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Erik Friedlander
Active Decades: '90s and '00s
Genre: Avntg
Styles: Modern Creative, Chamber Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz
Cellist Erik Friedlander grew up exposed to R&B and jazz since his father photographed many album covers for Atlantic during the '50s and '60s. During his childhood and high school years, Friedlander was involved in chamber groups, his school orchestra, and a local rock band. He enrolled at Columbia University in 1978 to pursue a music degree, but it wasn't until a year later, upon hearing and speaking with bassist Harvie Swartz, that Friedlander decided to become a professional musician. Shortly thereafter, he joined Swartz's quintet, and the group released Underneath It All on Gramavision. His idea of what role a cello could play in jazz and modern music changed when he heard Hank Roberts in the string trio Arcado. Not too long after this, Friedlander began working with saxophonists John Zorn and Marty Ehrlich and trumpeter Dave Douglas. He performs on Douglas' 1993 release on Soul Note entitled Parallel Worlds. The next year, he formed his own group, Chimera, a quartet with clarinetists Chris Speed and Andrew D'Angelo and bassist Drew Gress; the group has two CDs out on Zorn's labels, Avant and Tzadik. Friedlander still performs classical music -- he has been principal cellist with Marin Alsop's Concordia, for instance -- but is focusing more on composition and improvisation; he's toured the U.S. and Europe with Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, John Zorn, and more. Friedlander has made appearances in the pop realm, too, having contributed parts to CDs by Maxwell and Dar Williams; he even performed on MTV with Courtney Love's Hole. In 1996, he formed the group Topaz -- originally to accompany a dance recital his wife choreographed -- which brought together Andy Laster and the rhythm section of brothers Satoshi and Stomu Takeishi; they recorded a self-titled album (which Siam released) the end of that year. Besides being busy with Topaz, the close of the '90s found Friedlander playing in a new quartet inspired by the work of Balthus, called the Game of Patience, with Ikue Mori; Skin followed in early 2000. In 2001 he released Gates of Paradise for Tzadik's Radical Jewish Culture series, followed by Quake in 2003, a collaboration with rhythmic Japanese siblings Stomu and Satoshi Takeishi. That same year, Friedlander released his first solo outing, the sparkling and literate Maldoror. 2006 saw the release of Prowl.
---Joslyn Layne, All Music Guide |
|
CD bolt, zenei DVD, SACD, BLU-RAY lemez vásárlás és rendelés - Klasszikus zenei CD-k és DVD-különlegességek |  | | Webdesign - Forfour Design |
|
|
