MonadsA. Electronics (18.32)B. Voice (17.59)C. Percussion (17.59)D. Environment (18.00)

Composed January 2014 to April 2016in Zürich.

Mastering, liner notes and LP artworkJason Kahn.

Many thanks to Stadt Zürich Kultur /Popkredit for making this recordpossible.

Editions 005http://jasonkahn.net/editions

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In the field of philosophy monads areoften referred to as the elementaryparticles which combine to create asubstance. In the context of thisdouble LP, the title refers to theconstituent facets of my musicalactivity: namely, percussion,electronics, environmental recordingand voice. What ties these differentpursuits together is my particularapproach to composition. No matterwhat sound material I work with, theoutcome – at least to my ears –reflects a certain compositionalmethodology and approach to workingwith sound in general. I thought itwould be interesting to place thesefour sound groups together as distinctcompositions, not only as a means offocusing on the compositionalsimilarities but as a challenge tomyself.

Often during the composition of thesepieces, I found myself in the positionwhere mixing one of these four soundgroups with another would’ve providedan easier solution than just, forexample, sticking with only one soundsource. Of course, at times anyacoustic sound source could beconstrued as electronically producedand vice versa. But perhaps it was justthe idea of taking something explicitlyelectronic and adding it to an acoustic

source that became attractive – andfrom which I wanted to distance myself.

By now, though, after composing foryears with different sound sources it’sbecome clear to me that no matterwhat sounds I work with, the end resultwill always reflect my ideas aboutcomposition, will always sounds likeme. Monads is therefore a kind ofdiscourse in this realization andconfirms what I’ve known all along.These four pieces are less about theirsound sources than the compositionalstrategies tying them together. Anysounds could be at play here. The realmaterial being used is how thesesounds are worked with, combinedand formed into an overarching sonicstructure and dialog.

Electronics takes as its sound sourceanything I could electronically producesound with in my studio. This includeda Doepfer analog synthesizer I’vebeen working with since 2001, a mixer,different feedback systems, contactmicrophones, electromagnetic fieldinductors, radios and computer. Ingeneral, these different set­ups reflectmy performance practice, using, forexample, synthesizer patches I'veregularly given concerts with over theyears. Working with these patches, aswell as others developed specificallyfor this composition, I gatheredtogether the material for Electronics, inmost cases recording from oneloudspeaker with one microphone.

Other than minor equalization, I didn’tre­work any of the recorded sourcematerial during the compositionalprocess. As will all the pieces onMonads, the actual composing tookplace on computer, a process ofassemblage where I usually knew howI wanted a piece to start, but beyondthis the next step was often unknownto me. Generally speaking, eachsection of a composition determinedwhat the next decision would entail.

Composing for the medium of a vinyltwelve­inch record restricts the lengthof the composition, which I supposecould be seen as a limiting parameter.

I’ve also composed for CD manytimes, allowing a duration of seventy­two minutes, but I can’t say this wasany easier than working within theapproximately eighteen­minute rangeof a 33­1/3 RPM LP. In any case, thisis what I had to work with and Iadjusted the compositions to theseparameters accordingly.

Other issues to keep in mind whencomposing for LP is the overallfrequency response of the vinylmedium and the placement of bassfrequencies in the mix. In many cases,what is possible for a digital mediumlike CD is not going to work for vinyl,perhaps even sending the needleskidding across the LP or poppinghopelessly from groove to groove inthe vinyl. I prefer the warmer sound ofvinyl to digital media and therefore amhappy to work within these addedconstraints.

A great inspiration for me has alwaysbeen the the production aesthetics ofFolkways records. These were knownfor – and often roundly criticized for –their flat frequency range. Acharacteristic which at the time theserecords were being made referred tothe overall sound of the recordings asbeing unenhanced, with, for example,no frequencies being boosted in orderto make the recordings sound fuller ormore powerful.

In today’s world of ultra­truncatedsound waves, compressed and limitedto produce a sense of constantspectacular loudness and presence,trying to go for a more natural soundwith a wide dynamic range is akin toworking in mono, which would be thenext logical choice for me. But we’llleave that for another set of liner notesand accompanying LP.

Voice collects many studio, live andinstallation recordings where my voicewas used. The live recordings go asfar back as my solo performance atthe 2014 CoCArt Festival in Torun,Poland. The installations Other Ghosts(2015), We'll Walk in the Rays of aBeautiful Sun (2016) and An Attempt

at Exhausting a Place in Hong Kong(After Perec) (2016) used my voicereading text I’d written especially foreach installation. These texts wereplayed back in the exhibition spaceover multiple loudspeakers. OtherGhosts went one step further, as therecordings I made with voice accruedover the one­week length of theexhibition, where I performed, wroteand recorded continuously. Thisyielded a very dense mesh of voiceand text.

What the live and installationrecordings provided in energy theysometimes lacked in detail, as manynuances were lost in the performanceor exhibition space where I recorded.Therefore, having the opportunity torecord my voice with close microphonetechniques in the studio opened up awhole other world of sounds which Inormally wouldn’t be able to hear in alive situation. Using very sensitive,low­noise microphones I was able towork on subtle, near­silent sounds,which I could then magnify to thesame level of sounds which wereoriginally recorded at a loud level(screaming!), thus inversing theirimplicit energy levels.

I also count as studio recordings goingto different locations and working withthe particular acoustics I find there. Iimprovise with these different spaces,playing with their resonance, theirharmonic properties and just theoverall feeling I get from being there.This was the modus operandi on mydouble LP Songline from 2015(Editions 004). Voice ends in thisfashion, with a recording I made in thenetwork of storage rooms beneath theapartment building where I live inZürich.

Near where the elevator opens intothe basement there, one enters a veryresonant room of bare concrete walls,floor and ceiling. Being close to myapartment, I could spend a lot of timehere making different recordings.One evening I ended up riffing onthe intervals from The Beach Boys

God Only Knows, and then laterchopping this up to produce astaggered, stumbling sensation fadingVoice off into the resonance of thisspace.

Percussion reflects the oldest aspectof my work. I started playing drums in1981, at first in punk bands, thenslowly moving into the field of moreexperimental rock and improvisedmusic. Early influences on me wereZ’ev, Ed Blackwell, Maureen Tucker,as well as traditional music fromGhana and Nigeria, which I cameinto contact with while studying atthe University of California LosAngeles with the great Ghanaianethnomusicologist and composerJ. H. Kwabeha Nketia.

Moving later to Berlin, I was fortunateenough to hear and watch up closemany excellent and innovativedrummers like Peter Hollinger, PaulLovens and Jacki Liebezeit, as well ashaving the opportunity of studying dafwith Farhan Sabbagh from Syria andtombak with Madjid Khaladj from Iran.I’m not sure if any of these influencesshine through on Percussion, I justmention them here by way of contextand inspiration.

The procedure for compostingPercussion followed that of the otherpieces on Monads, with the exceptionthat the source material didn’t includeany live recordings. In my studio Iworked with drum set and variousmetal objects I’ve found and managedto hold onto over the years. I recordedthe drum set as a whole instrumentand also its individual elements.Because I can’t play very loudly in mystudio, many of the recordings wereinitially played at a low volume butrecorded with close­position sensitivemicrophones, thus creating thepossibility of producing big soundsfrom small, even microsopic, sounds.

I also re­visited a percussion set­upwhich I’d schlepped around the worldon tour for many years. My originalinspiration for this was Max Neuhaus’seminal interpretation of John Cage’s

Fontana Mix, where Neuhaus usedcontact microphones and variouspercussion instruments to createfeedback. My version uses a kind ofbass­snare drum I designed and built,with a contact microphone taped to thebottom snare skin and a condensermicrophone mounted on the drumhoop above the top skin. Betweenthese two microphones and theamplification of their signals in theperformance space over a speaker I’mable to create feedback with the skinsof the drum, using one hand tomodulate the rate of feedback bymoving it closer and further away fromthe top vibrating drum skin.

Using this feedback I'm able explorethe resonant frequencies of the spaceI’m playing in. I sometimes playcymbals on the top skin of the drum,adding their resonances to the mix orusing their movement to modulate therate of feedback. With this set­up,working with sound becomes akin tosculpting in a plastic medium, with theperformance space becoming theactual instrument I’m really workingwith. I hadn’t used this set­up forseveral years, so it was refreshing –and perhaps a bit nostalgic for me, I’llhave to admit – to re­visit andintegrate recordings made with thisvery particular and personal way ofextending the notion of percussion intothis composition.

Percussion starts with a layering of allthe source recordings I made for thispiece, sounding to my ears like anorchestra tuning up before thebeginning of a concert. At some pointsin the composition an entire drum setcomes to the fore, but for the most partI’m dissecting the drum set andfocusing on individual elements likecymbals, singular drums (floor tombass drum, etc) or specific techniques(press roll on the snare drum, softmallet roll on the floor tom, feedbackfrom the bass­snare, for example). Asin Voice, the inversion of soft for loudsounds plays an important role in thecontours of the piece.

Percussion ends with bowed cymbals

– something I almost never work with,but for which I wanted in this particularcomposition as a further nod toelectronic music, albeit in acousticform.

Environment is the last piece onMonads, and perhaps the compositionon this record closest to my heart. Ifind composing for environmentalrecordings the most challenging, as Ioften get completely side tracked bythe memories each recording wakes –especially when the recordings are ofmy family. I generally carry along asmall digital sound recorder with mewherever I go, sometimes also using apair of earbud microphones which Ican clip to the collar of my shirt. Inshort, I’m basically just recording allthe time – not everything, mind you,but I try to be ready should somethinginteresting catch my ears.

The recordings on Environment go asfar back as 2014. I had a lot ofmaterial to sift through for this piece!My family consists of five kids and mypartner, all of whom make appearancesat some point in Environment.

Since reading Henri Lefebvre’s books,I’ve not been able to keep him frommy thoughts when making theseenvironmental recordings. Lefebvre’sideas about the construction of socialspace find a direct correlation for meas I explore the world through sound.Environment is a kind of attempt atconstructing a social space in the formof a sound composition. What onehears are the elements of a socialspace I live through everyday: going tomy kids’ school, on vacation with themin France, moving day to day throughZürich, my home since 2000.

Along with Lefebvre I feel greatlyindebted to the ideas of Luc Ferrari,who took the notion of acousmatiquemusic beyond Pierre Schaeffer’ssound objects. For me, Ferrari usedhis compositions in what amounted toa social methodology, exploring thespaces of people’s lives through sonicoccurrences. Sounds are notnecessarily always just sounds, they

can mean something, carry a weight,often tell a story. I wanted to bring thisout in Environment. Perhaps this is thestory of my life, a snapshot of thespace I live through every day.

Listening back to Environment, whatsurprised me was the amount of actualmusic that found its way into thecomposition: my kids singing in schooland at home; a group of girls in a train;an Alphorn quartet; a Swiss folk musiccombo; recordings of Swiss traditionalmusic played over a PA system at afestival; some kind of saucy Latinmusic played near a beach on theCôte d’Azur; pre­recorded churchmusic droning on endlessly into thevoid; jazz from a car stereo strugglingits way to be heard over the wind andmotor. And so on…

I didn’t set out to record all this musicand indeed one of my guidingpremises has always been that anysound out there in the world can beconstrued as music. But in the end, Iactually recorded so much music perse! Of course, these musicalrecordings find themselves placed inthe composition next to or within manysounds more conventionallyunderstood as non­musical or as objetsonore. But I think the fact that theserecordings are so omnipresent inEnvironment reveals something aboutwhat my ears are attuned to as I movethrough the world.

Environment ends with a brassorchestra’s final notes dissolving intowhat I remember from this recordingas being a very warm summerafternoon, with the sun just starting toset behind some hills and the pungentsmell of geraniums wafting in the air.The small audience applauded and,like the last strains of music, graduallydispersed. I was there with my kidstoo. With the music over, we turnedaround and slowly made our wayback home.