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EWA7 is an industrial–inspired piece from "FLYING SPARKS AND HEAVY MACHINERY" (click to listen) Annie Gosfield's second CD on Tzadik's composer series. Also featured on the CD is a double quartet for strings and percussion, titled Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery. These ambitious works meld acoustic and electric music, inspired by Gosfield's recent residency in the factories of Nuremberg, Germany. Music meets machinery in EWA7, a concert–length work that incorporates sampled machine sounds, percussion played on industrial found metal, altered electric guitar, machine–inspired rhythms, ambient noise, and the recycled sounds of many factories. Originally composed for a site–specific performance in a factory called EWA7 in Nuremberg, Germany, the work is a journey through shifting industrial environments, and uses junk percussion, lush sonorities, odd drones, twangy guitars, and driving rhythms to suggest a cacophonous industrial din accompanied by the crashes and bangs of heavy machinery. From the delicate whir of motors to the big beat of a driving human machine, EWA7 is comprised of many different parts that feature a range of full ensemble, solo, and duo sections. EWA7 has been performed in an ancient factory during the Warsaw Autumn Festival, in a working factory in Nuremberg, in the Anchorage under the Brooklyn Bridge, at festivals including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Festival Musique International de Musique Actuel de Victoriaville, MaerzMusik, Tampere Jazz Happening, Ring Ring (Belgrade) and in theatres, clubs, and performance spaces in the U.S. and Europe. The performing ensemble has included Annie Gosfield on sampling keyboard, Chris Cutler, Ches Smith, William Winant and Jim Pugliese on drums and percussion, Roger Kleier on electric guitar, and Ikue Mori on electronics. In keeping with the spirit of this piece originally created for a site–specific performance, EWA7 is adapted for each venue, using a variety of factory metals, junk percussion, and materials found within the space (such as banisters and balconies), in order to create a work appropriate for the unique qualities of each space. It has been presented in trio, quartet, and quintet versions, in venues ranging from cavernous factories to theatres and galleries. Each musicians' input is invaluable in this piece that combines improvised interludes with composed solo and ensemble sections. EWA7 was originally developed during a six–week residency in the factories of Nuremberg, Germany, in a project sponsored by the Siemens Corporation to combine art and industry. The piece was recorded by Annie Gosfield (keyboard sampler); Ikue Mori (electronics); Roger Kleier (electric guitar); Jim Pugliese and Sim Cain (drums and percussion) on the Tzadik CD "Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery" (Tzadik TZ 7069). PRESS QUOTES FROM EWA7 "I find this a wonderful disc, beautifully
performed and produced. Perhaps more than any other composer of her generation
Gosfield has taken up the challenge of Edgard VarĖse, writing music which
addresses forthrightly the aesthetic challenge of mechanization, technology,
and science. She makes "noise" sound as though it was always meant for
the musical context in which she inserts it. And often, the result fun
to dance to! A winner." "With the electric-guitarist Roger Kleier and the percussionist Ches Smith, Ms. Gosfield closed with “EWA7”, an explosive extended work indebted to Varèse and Pink Floyd yet entirely her own in terms of originality and audacity." "An intense experience of rhythm, sound
color, and emotion." |
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"We get
a new work by Gosfield, whose explosions of factory sounds have to be
heard to be believed . . . All electric, all noisy, but all symphonic
and done by one of downtown's suavest musical thinkers."
"EWA7 is a machine–shop throwdown
that could reduce angst–ridden 'industrial' poseurs to
sobbing heaps." |
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