| Henry Kaiser & Ray Russell |
| The Celestial Squid |
Henry Kaiser & Ray Russell — The Celestial Squid 
Location: USA
Album release: February 3, 2015
Record Label: Cuneiform Records
Duration: 79:43 min
Tracks:
1. guKTen LIMPo. 9:07
2. In Another Life. 9:12
3. The Celestial Squid. 12:44
4. The Enumeration. 13:33
5. Victims. 8:50
6. Disinterested Bystander. 10:44
7. Construction #14. 15:33
Personnel:
♦→ Henry Kaiser (guitar)
♦→ Ray Russell (guitar)
♦→ Steve Adams (saxophones)
♦→ Aram Shelton (saxophones)
♦→ Joshua Allen (tenor saxophone)
♦→ Phillip Greenlief (saxophones)
♦→ Michael Manring (bass guitar)
♦→ Damon Smith (contrabass)
♦→ Weasel Walter (drums)
♦→ William Winant (drums)
•• Ray Russell, the UK session guitarist who’s worked on James Bond film scores and too many other soundtrack projects and sideman recordings to count, gets back in touch with his noise–rock side. With the endlessly inventive Bay Area guitar hero Henry Kaiser at his side, this Transatlantic summit meeting of plectral titans was convened in the making of The Celestial Squid, due out February 3, 2015 on Cuneiform Records.
•• The advance stream “GuKTen LIMPo” signifies all the fireworks that longtime followers of either guitarist might expect. On a skipping beat, the two jump into the mosh pit and very soon afterwards is the unexpected appearance of saxophones that weave in and out of the distortion–filled groove. A clamorous tenor sax and rubbery bass crash the improv party, but Kaiser and Russell make the room while asserting themselves with abandon.
•• It’s another example of the distance Kaiser is willing to go to find a foil with which to knock around ideas on the fly, much in line with his quest to capture underwater photography in the frigid waters off Antarctica. An adventurous spirit that knows no bounds.
•• In fact, Kaiser is set to release no less than three other long players the same week as The Celestial Squid on other labels, two of them also duo projects. Around this time, New Yorkers will be treated to a rare appearance of Kaiser in their town, thanks to a residency at The Stone February 3 — 8. See below for the dates and the special guests with whom he will be performing. HENRY KAISER
Born: September 19, 1952, Oakland, California, United States
Instruments and effects:
≡ Kaiser "has amassed an immense collection of guitars, amplifiers, and effect pedals" to achieve "sonic diversity". A favorite of his is a Klein electric with Alembic pickups (his favorites), which he uses when traveling. He owns a Dumble. He has been looping since at least 1984 (It's a Wonderful Life), initially with an MXR digital delay, and later with Lexicon equipment — he sets modulation rates to "either heart or breathing rate, because those are natural healing rhythm rates". He often uses two delays to provide three different voices. He is also an avid user of a large number of effects pedals, especially fuzzes.
≡ Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California–based musician is one of the most extensively recorded as well, having appeared on more than 250 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks. A restless collaborator who constantly seeks the most diverse and personally challenging contexts for his music, Mr. Kaiser not only produces and contributes to a staggering number of recorded projects, he performs frequently throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan, with several regular groupings as well as solo guitar concerts and concerts of freely improvised music with a host of diverse instrumentalists. Mr. Kaiser was, perhaps, the first recording artist to employ digital looping, on his 1978 albums ALOHA and OUTSIDE PLEASURE.
≡ Recorded Live at Fantasy Studios, in Berkeley, California, in April 2014.
"Guitar summits don't ascend higher than when legendary British free–jazz pioneer and longtime session ace Ray Russell meets the brilliant California avant–improv overachiever and Antarctic diver Henry Kaiser in the realm of The Celestial Squid. With more than countless session and soundtrack performances to his credit, including the early James Bond film scores, Russell is returning to his bone–rattling, noise–rocking roots for the first time since the very early 70s. You'll be shaken and stirred as Kaiser, Russell and eight super friends deliver a no–holds–barred, free–range sonic cage match.
≡ Russell created some of the early '70s' most outrageously outside music, releasing hallmark works of guitar shock–and–awe. Russell's "stabbing, singing notes and psychotic runs up the fretboard have nothing to do with scalular architecture," wrote All Music's Thom Jurek, "but rather with viscera and tonal exploration." Russell anticipated the wildest and most intrepid vibrations of Terje Rypdal, Dave Fuzinski, Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino, Tisziji Mu — oz and their boundary–dissolving ilk. Russell is hardly a niche performer, though. Untold millions of music and film fans have actually, if unknowingly, already enjoyed Russell's riffs Đ at least if they saw any of the James Bond films that John Barry scored, beginning with Dr. No in 1962.
≡ For over 40 years, Russell would not make such exploratory music until West Coast guitar experimentalist Henry Kaiser called him out of the blue and asked if he would be interested in co–leading an ensemble in the style of his '71 masterpiece, Live at the ICA: June 11th 1971. Russell was surprised and delighted by the offer, and readily accepted. Why had he waited so long to once again explore the free–jazz spaceways you might well wonder? Simple Đ no one had asked him to do so!
≡ So on April 12, 2014, Henry Kaiser and Ray Russell Đ along with drummers Weasel Walter and William Winant, bassists Michael Manring (electric) and Damon Smith (acoustic), and saxophonists Steve Adams, Joshua Allen, Phillip Greenlief, and Aram Shelton Đ entered Berkeley, California’s Fantasy Studios for a day–long session that resulted in The Celestial Squid, a nearly eighty–minute embryonic journey through the deepest waters and most cosmic heights of improvised music. Except for melodic heads and compositional structures, everything on The Celestial Squid is improvised, down to some astonishing extemporaneous horn arrangements. While The Celestial Squid echoes the raw energy and youthful bravado of Russell’s earliest achievements, this music synergizes the combined power and imagination of all ten of these musical masters into a force to be reckoned with." — Cuneiform Records
13 Questions: http://preparedguitar.blogspot.com.es/2014/06/henry-kaiser-13-questions.html
BLOG: http://thehenrykaisercollection.blogspot.com/
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| Henry Kaiser & Ray Russell |
| The Celestial Squid |
Album release: February 3, 2015
Record Label: Cuneiform Records
Duration: 79:43 min
Tracks:
1. guKTen LIMPo. 9:07
2. In Another Life. 9:12
3. The Celestial Squid. 12:44
4. The Enumeration. 13:33
5. Victims. 8:50
6. Disinterested Bystander. 10:44
7. Construction #14. 15:33
Personnel:
♦→ Henry Kaiser (guitar)
♦→ Ray Russell (guitar)
♦→ Steve Adams (saxophones)
♦→ Aram Shelton (saxophones)
♦→ Joshua Allen (tenor saxophone)
♦→ Phillip Greenlief (saxophones)
♦→ Michael Manring (bass guitar)
♦→ Damon Smith (contrabass)
♦→ Weasel Walter (drums)
♦→ William Winant (drums)
•• Ray Russell, the UK session guitarist who’s worked on James Bond film scores and too many other soundtrack projects and sideman recordings to count, gets back in touch with his noise–rock side. With the endlessly inventive Bay Area guitar hero Henry Kaiser at his side, this Transatlantic summit meeting of plectral titans was convened in the making of The Celestial Squid, due out February 3, 2015 on Cuneiform Records.
•• The advance stream “GuKTen LIMPo” signifies all the fireworks that longtime followers of either guitarist might expect. On a skipping beat, the two jump into the mosh pit and very soon afterwards is the unexpected appearance of saxophones that weave in and out of the distortion–filled groove. A clamorous tenor sax and rubbery bass crash the improv party, but Kaiser and Russell make the room while asserting themselves with abandon.
•• It’s another example of the distance Kaiser is willing to go to find a foil with which to knock around ideas on the fly, much in line with his quest to capture underwater photography in the frigid waters off Antarctica. An adventurous spirit that knows no bounds.
•• In fact, Kaiser is set to release no less than three other long players the same week as The Celestial Squid on other labels, two of them also duo projects. Around this time, New Yorkers will be treated to a rare appearance of Kaiser in their town, thanks to a residency at The Stone February 3 — 8. See below for the dates and the special guests with whom he will be performing. HENRY KAISER
Born: September 19, 1952, Oakland, California, United States
Instruments and effects:
≡ Kaiser "has amassed an immense collection of guitars, amplifiers, and effect pedals" to achieve "sonic diversity". A favorite of his is a Klein electric with Alembic pickups (his favorites), which he uses when traveling. He owns a Dumble. He has been looping since at least 1984 (It's a Wonderful Life), initially with an MXR digital delay, and later with Lexicon equipment — he sets modulation rates to "either heart or breathing rate, because those are natural healing rhythm rates". He often uses two delays to provide three different voices. He is also an avid user of a large number of effects pedals, especially fuzzes.
≡ Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California–based musician is one of the most extensively recorded as well, having appeared on more than 250 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks. A restless collaborator who constantly seeks the most diverse and personally challenging contexts for his music, Mr. Kaiser not only produces and contributes to a staggering number of recorded projects, he performs frequently throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan, with several regular groupings as well as solo guitar concerts and concerts of freely improvised music with a host of diverse instrumentalists. Mr. Kaiser was, perhaps, the first recording artist to employ digital looping, on his 1978 albums ALOHA and OUTSIDE PLEASURE.
≡ Recorded Live at Fantasy Studios, in Berkeley, California, in April 2014.
"Guitar summits don't ascend higher than when legendary British free–jazz pioneer and longtime session ace Ray Russell meets the brilliant California avant–improv overachiever and Antarctic diver Henry Kaiser in the realm of The Celestial Squid. With more than countless session and soundtrack performances to his credit, including the early James Bond film scores, Russell is returning to his bone–rattling, noise–rocking roots for the first time since the very early 70s. You'll be shaken and stirred as Kaiser, Russell and eight super friends deliver a no–holds–barred, free–range sonic cage match.
≡ Russell created some of the early '70s' most outrageously outside music, releasing hallmark works of guitar shock–and–awe. Russell's "stabbing, singing notes and psychotic runs up the fretboard have nothing to do with scalular architecture," wrote All Music's Thom Jurek, "but rather with viscera and tonal exploration." Russell anticipated the wildest and most intrepid vibrations of Terje Rypdal, Dave Fuzinski, Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino, Tisziji Mu — oz and their boundary–dissolving ilk. Russell is hardly a niche performer, though. Untold millions of music and film fans have actually, if unknowingly, already enjoyed Russell's riffs Đ at least if they saw any of the James Bond films that John Barry scored, beginning with Dr. No in 1962.
≡ For over 40 years, Russell would not make such exploratory music until West Coast guitar experimentalist Henry Kaiser called him out of the blue and asked if he would be interested in co–leading an ensemble in the style of his '71 masterpiece, Live at the ICA: June 11th 1971. Russell was surprised and delighted by the offer, and readily accepted. Why had he waited so long to once again explore the free–jazz spaceways you might well wonder? Simple Đ no one had asked him to do so!
≡ So on April 12, 2014, Henry Kaiser and Ray Russell Đ along with drummers Weasel Walter and William Winant, bassists Michael Manring (electric) and Damon Smith (acoustic), and saxophonists Steve Adams, Joshua Allen, Phillip Greenlief, and Aram Shelton Đ entered Berkeley, California’s Fantasy Studios for a day–long session that resulted in The Celestial Squid, a nearly eighty–minute embryonic journey through the deepest waters and most cosmic heights of improvised music. Except for melodic heads and compositional structures, everything on The Celestial Squid is improvised, down to some astonishing extemporaneous horn arrangements. While The Celestial Squid echoes the raw energy and youthful bravado of Russell’s earliest achievements, this music synergizes the combined power and imagination of all ten of these musical masters into a force to be reckoned with." — Cuneiform Records
13 Questions: http://preparedguitar.blogspot.com.es/2014/06/henry-kaiser-13-questions.html
BLOG: http://thehenrykaisercollection.blogspot.com/
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::