E.M.T. (Laubhuette Productions)



This instalment of the “Memories” is particularly important, despite the fact that E.M.T. belong to a very early period of Alfred Harth’s artistic life and, as such, reveal a lot of the initial “work-in-progress” phase of a career which touched on a multitude of different aspects. This notion is strictly linked to the other fundamental root of another cooperative improvising medium founded by the same person - Just Music, to which we will return in an upcoming chapter.

The origin of the E.M.T. collective dates from 1972, year in which AH decided to use three letters to designate a project destined, in his vision, to remain unlinked from any idea relative to a repertoire or a style, and whose meaning was left open to interpretation. The saxophonist recalls that, asked about the name, the favourite translations were “Energy/Movement/Totale”, “Extreme Music Troop” and “European Music Tradition”, the latter a bizarre choice since this stuff has very little “traditional” accents, unless you want to consider free jazz as folklore. It is interesting to note that the Frankfurter was completely unaware of AMM and SME in that period, therefore copycat-ism is out of the question: what was coming from these people was entirely original, like it or not.

The basic nucleus of E.M.T. consisted of Harth on reeds and assorted sonic tools, his then spouse Nicole Van Den Plas on piano and electric organ, brother Jean Van Den Plas on cello and bass and the percussionist who, in AH’s words, plays like “rolling ocean waves”, Sven-Åke Johansson (who, in turn, called it “dynamic vibrations”). Additional contributors (on the recorded material checked for this article) included Helmuth Neumann and Michael Sell, both on trumpet and Liliane Vertessen on trombone.

Harth had begun a steady live activity with Van Den Plas in Belgium a couple of years prior, playing with Peter Kowald and Paul Lovens among others. Johansson, who had performed first with him in 1968, joined them for a trio immortalized in the only official release, 1974’s Canadian Cup Of Coffee on SAJ. The three were intrigued by visual arts, and the drummer also recognized the influence of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (although his version of Sprechstimme is more similar to a drunk man mumbling amid trash cans in an alley…). The tracks’ names were so-called “fanciful inventions” by our main character, who wanted to mix exotic hints, European classicism and German Dada in the same cauldron.

The above mentioned record is probably the most restrained (!) example of what E.M.T. were able to do, as the sense of humour characterizing several of its sections is pronounced and typically vivid. Still, when one lends ears to the recordings dating from 1973 - gathered in two CDRs respectively named Haus Dornbusch / Heidnische Klänge / Heilbronn and Hamburg Fabrik - acknowledging the expressive urgency and lawless vehemence of the ensemble comes rather natural. E.M.T. treated the need of telling the truth against refined insignificance like an affair of honour, pushing their instruments to the limit almost everywhere yet managing to find some available space for duets or, if so preferred, parallel solos that demonstrate pragmatism and perseverance even in absence of aesthetical beauty. Face it: these incensed collections run well over 70 minutes, and attempting a moment-by-moment description would be pathetic. This is about the portrayal of a spirit, not visualizing instrumental colours. Of course, Van Den Plas is as far from grandiloquent as possible, her role apparently tailored to connect the extrovert passions of Harth and Johansson, the whole often turning into veritable frenzies informed by forward-looking wholeheartedness. But all the participants, in every circumstance, seem to listen to no reason, merely worried with keeping the embitterment against the potential enemy active. Let’s not forget the politically charged era in which this was happening: accepting those seemingly incessant blowouts will then be painless - maybe. Let me stress it: a relaxing experience this ain’t, finding correlations also easier said than done. E.M.T. obeyed to a hard-nosed conviction of creative paganism, and there was no time for rethinking. If you still want to do business with this concept three decades and a half later prepare to shed your ear fluff, as this music refuses the definition of “embellishment”.

Considering that the travelling for that era’s tours was made, according to the reports, utilizing vehicles in the category of Renault 4, Citroen 2CV and Volkswagen Beetle, one justifies the musicians’ urge of stretching someone else’s nerves once they went on stage after those uneasy trips.

in Temporary Fault

CASSIBER

Man Or Monkey

The Beauty And The Beast


In a perfect world (pun intended), the finest music would result in a composition that sounds like an impromptu outburst of accomplished creativity – no pre-established rules, no rigidness, no nothing as Peter Brötzmann would have it. Cassiber (originally Kassiber, the name deriving from the Slavonic term indicating a “message smuggled out of prison”) were maybe the group that got nearest to that vision. The band’s official trace starts from 1982, but Christoph Anders, Chris Cutler, Heiner Goebbels and Alfred Harth had already met five years earlier, at the times of the Sogennantes Linksradikales Blasorchester. Interested by punk, willing to mix that influence with radical jazz, classical and various kinds of interference – made concrete by the use of radio and TV snippets and all sorts of samples – the original quartet recorded a couple of gems between 1982 and 1984, their significance at a stage of intensity and unrefined magnificence equivalent to the most essential politically committed talents of that (and any) era. After Harth’s departure in 1984 to form Gestalt et Jive and Vladimir Estragon, the remaining three kept producing great work in albums such as Perfect Worlds (there you go) and A Face We All Know, both on Recommended. Yet this writer has always perceived Cassiber minus A23H as a healthy body missing a limb.

Still, what really identifies the quintessence of this coherently wild corporation is probably Anders’ perennially hollered delivery: an exaggerated, histrionic mixture of irony, rage and sorrow that constitutes a veritable trademark instantly evident in “Not Me”, Man Or Monkey’s icebreaker. This introduction is unquestionably ill-mannered, an instantly nervous concoction of non-existent harmonic contexts where the collective multi-instrumentalist ability of the quartet is straight-away detectable, the sound shifting across many finalities without a definite answer to the needs elicited by this suspension. The repeated piano note constituting the backbone of “Red Shadow” brings to mind the first movement of Fred Frith’s “Sadness, Its Bones Bleached Behind Us” on The Technology Of Tears, whereas the fake Mariachi style of the impressively anguishing “Our Colourful Culture” is incontestably the most dramatic moment of the album, Anders reciting Cutler’s lyrics portraying a desperate man rambling about his people starving and getting killed while “we fight in the mountains”, the song ending with the protagonist’s spine-chilling hysterical laughter as the main theme fades to black. Curiously, this is the only segment in which the drumming chores are handled by another musician, Peter Prochir. “O Cure Me” sees the fervent vocalist declaiming a passage by Johann Sebastian Bach along delirious instrumental circumstances where contrapuntal implicitness and transitory phases are the menu du jour, the whole underlined by a cheap sequencer-based progression. Perhaps this release is where the doses of anarchy are more abundant than anywhere else, as clearly demonstrated by the free-for-all character of the lengthy title track and the Miles Davis-meets-dilettante guitarist adventure of “Django Vergibt”. The best was yet to come, though.

The Beauty And The Beast is, simply put, an epochal masterpiece of “progressive something” (put your designation here). Here, Cassiber’s deranged poetry achieves the highest level of expressivity, the music conversant with post Henry Cow-ism in the remarkable “What” and, especially, “Six Rays”, featuring Anders again uttering his restlessness amidst apparently unrelated brass blasts and a killer riff emphasizing the piece’s surefooted walk. “Robert” utilizes shreds of classic orchestration in a genre-pulverizing framework defined by illogical vocalism; instead, “Last Call” appears as the soundtrack to a noir interpreted by Tod Browning’s freaks, sarcasm and mystery surrounding an intoxicated telephone conversation. “Ach Heile Mich” is a hallucinating circus beginning with Anders chuckling and talking over a chaotic parallelism of volatile harmonies. Harth hopelessly tries to restore some balance with more linear (…) phrasings, only to get overwhelmed and blasted out by the return of a Tchaikovsky-ish cadenza leading the foursome towards a crazed garrulity in one of the many dangerously exciting moments of this group’s history. This particular piece should be downloaded in millions of iPods across the globe. Also notable are “Under New Management”, a potentially relaxed vibe completely disintegrated by the irredeemably lawless spirit of the ensemble, and the gorgeous “Vengeance Is Dancing” – namely the nearest thing to Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind” that Cassiber could ever conceive. In any case, nobody will ever beat the irresistible passion of the final suite, ending with the hymn “At Last I’m Free” (that's right, Chic!): the musicians play and sing like if they knew in advance that this is the final tune they‘re going to perform prior of their demise, intransigence and dogmatisms thrown out of the window in favour of a multiform granulation of sonic varieties that generously invite the audience to join a party celebrating the upcoming end.

Accept a friendly advice from an indelicately aging old fart: everything made by Cassiber is mandatory listening, among the most excellent efforts in the four members’ careers. If you want to start with a single title The Beauty And The Beast is the absolute must, a supreme epitaph for what was once called “art” and nowadays has been reduced to the same status of toothpaste and stockings at the supermarket. What these guys achieved with this record can’t even be remotely understood by the laptop-fed, cell phone-burnt, one-dimensional brains from the present, definitely imperfect world.

in Temporary Fault
Cassiber Sao Paolo 1983 in YouTube

ALFRED HARTH / NICOLE VAN DEN PLAS / FRANZ VOLHARD / PETER STOCK / THOMAS CREMER – 4. Januar 1970



This primeval vinyl, self-released in 300 copies, encloses the recording of a summit that took place in Frankfurt on the title's date. It is one of the earliest episodes in Alfred Harth's discography, all the more charming given its age – which in any case is not echoed by the material comprised, fresh-sounding to this day. Harth and drummer Thomas Cremer had met pianist Nicole Van Den Plas in 1969 at a jazz festival in San Sebastian, Spain; at the same time, the Just Music collective – also featuring cellist Franz Volhard and bassist Peter Stock – was taking shape so, in essence, the LP documents the meeting of Just Music and Van Den Plas. The latter went on to become both the saxophonist's partner and a key element of subsequent projects, including recordings at Frankfurt Radio that involved, among others, Peter Kowald, Peter Brötzmann, Paul Lovens and Jean Van Den Plas (Nicole's brother). In 1972, Alfred, Nicole and percussionist Sven-Ake Johansson joined their forces, giving life to E.M.T.; thus, what's heard in 4 Januar 1970 is considered by A23H, together with the above mentioned radiophonic sessions, as an ideal link between Just Music and E.M.T.

The short extent of the program – about 34 minutes – gives perhaps only a faint idea of what these musicians were able to dream up and fabricate, placing at the forefront of the frame a true cooperative spirit not mottled by egotist spurts and haywire tendencies. This means that there's no available room for flapdoodles: each member sounds concentrated, stable-minded, eager to actively build the muscle of the improvisation until a communal sonic fission becomes substantial, under the semblance of small nuclei of instrumental interaction and intelligible upsurges where each input – also counting Van Den Plas' abstract vocals appearing here and there – looks for the adjustment to unexpected responses as opposed to privileging the strained alternative of an unnatural terminology. Of course, the highly skilful, persistently enlightened legerdemain of the participants is unmistakable, as not for a single instant the immediate signals seem to have been "thrown away". Every phrase, every minute of reciprocal listening symbolizes - more than the achievement of a predetermined goal - the untouched beauty of that kind of spur-of-the-moment gestural courage that was typical of arts and musics from the late 60s and early 70s. Eras that in all probability delimited the birth – and, unhappily, the rapid death - of inner movements and structures of thought that are destined not to resurface anytime soon. In that sense, 4 Januar 1970 is as prized an article as you might find.

in TEMPORARY FAULT

TASTE TRIBES - Taste Tribes (for4ears)



In 2007, during the European trip that also gave birth to the 7K Oaks
project, Alfred Harth met again - after 20 years - with Günter Müller,
whom he played with in 1987 at Willisau together with Andres Bosshard,
Phil Minton and Sonny Sharrock. A few days earlier, the expedition had
featured the summit with Faust's Hans Joachim Irmler; both sessions
were duly recorded and reworked by A23H back in Seoul. There, through
overdubbing and various manipulations, a new stunning chapter of XXI
century EAI - that of the anarchic and noisy kind - was born. The trio
started on-the-road activities since December 2008, trying to convey
the same evil forces that this unpredictably pungent, inhospitable
record throws at us in large doses. Make no mistake, this is a must -
and Faust fans should love it at first try, too. Harth is the most
instrumentally loaded with tenor sax, clarinet, Kaoss pad, thumb
piano, voice and Dochirak Con Arco (sic). Irmler and Müller "limit"
themselves to customary organ, iPod and electronics. "Genuine
Imitation" starts with a hellish mire of menacing roars and bubbling
acidity, electro-fishing applied to the flotsam and jetsam that was
previously generated in the studio. Dialectics do exist, but the
quantification of the levels of fury released by the musicians is a
next-to-impossible task; the sampled guitar of Makoto Kawabata is an
element of gore if you will, the recipe possessing nevertheless an
epic spice that's definitely unusual. This does not prepare for the
beginning of "Servicing The Target", an unbelievable mass of
low-frequency rumbles that, received via headphone, puts the structure
of your cranium in a state of total vibration, a fantastic
illumination in the utter darkness, our eye sockets containing broken
glass instead of eyes. "Weasel Worlds" sees the saxophone more at the
forefront to begin with, soon engulfed by the incessant, if irregular
pulsation of the other sources, a lattice of numskull noise that could
be used by some doctor to cure photophobia, occurring into dark holes
and godforsaken quarters where fragments of regular music echo in the
distance, faded memories of concepts that are now nothing but sonic
intumescences splattered with astuteness. The whole ends with Harth
approaching the airy nothingness of contemporary new silence over a
morbidly hypnotic drone until he remains alone, then stops for a while
only to return with additional insufflations. Bizarre, and great.
"Doubletwist" retrieves the mumbling giant from the centre of the
earth, its limbs spreading in a territory where people were intent in
scraping, warping and maiming conventional aesthetics. The absurdist
combativeness heard all across the track is a sign of resiliency, yet
there's really no way to remember what happens, we're just knocked out
by the sheer uncontrollability of the acoustic events. The disc is
sealed by the aptly titled "Eruptive Obfuscation", still dominated by
ominous presences in the quaking subsonic area. This is the basis for
a hammer-drill succession of seismic movements, muttered prayers to a
putrescent devilish icon dipped in the mud of obtrusive omnipresence
that leave speechless in a tempest of feedback, metallic lament and
that classic "Müller pump" at the very end, alone like a bird's flap
after a carnage. Taste Tribes are a killing machine, and no one's
going to be able to understand where their weak point is. The process
is simply unstoppable, the music hard-faced and instinctive; no hope
to conceive a method for the classification of something like this.
Confess yourselves before attending the show.

In Touching Extremes

GUILLAUME DERO - Otomo Yoshihide's Music(s) (La Huit)



For those who are not familiar with their productions, La Huit is a Paris-based distribution firm whose catalog of DVDs includes documentaries about central figures of free music and contemporary jazz, featuring names such as ICP Orchestra, Aki Takase, Wadada Leo Smith, Marc Ribot, Sainkho Namtchylak. "Otomo Yoshihide's music(s)" is not really a proper revelation of this unassuming border-crosser's creative doctrine (the elucidation of which is restricted to a couple of intrusions in broken English where, more or less, all he says is that improvisation and composition - or noise and tranquillity if you will - are impossible to tell apart for him, as they're just diverse colours of a same palette to choose from). Yet the movie does possess something that characterizes it as particularly important, as this is the only available official video document of the activities of ONJE (Otomo New Jazz Ensemble), here captured in extracts from a 2005 performance in Paris presented in alternance with segments of solo sets on prepared turntable and guitar. The lineup for this particular event consisted of the leader plus Alfred Harth, Kenta Tsugami, Kumiko Takara, Hiroaki Mizutani, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki and Sachiko M. Five pieces are executed, comprising original compositions and covers of Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Jim O'Rourke. For starters, it's probably a good thing that no vocalists were featured in the documentary, as keeping the focus on the instrumental energies of this group is made easier without the distraction of a sing-along. The front row features Harth and Tsugami's intertwined saxophones, each gifted with an individual approach to the music: technically refined and rather elegant the Japanese, customarily unpredictable between fury and sweetness the German, both meeting halfway through ballad-tinged cuteness and enraged blowout like in the final "Eureka", an O'Rourke piece that somehow has become a traditional, devastating goodbye in ONJE and ONJO's concerts. Another almost invisible but decidedly effective presence is Sachiko M, her sinewave activity discreetly invading and persuasive for the viewers/listeners, attributing to the whole extravaganza a quality of inquisitive, if a tad glacial connection with the unknown forces of collective synchronicity, the latter perhaps the most evident trait of Otomo's recent projects, which inevitably tend to a synthesis of early jazz influences and onkyo. The main character is neither an ostentatious performer nor a terrific guitarist, his figure perhaps a little more iconic while manipulating a modified-for-guerilla turntable to obtain mind-altering sonic substances. This notwithstanding, he shows a peculiar ability as a silent director, aptly highlighted by Dero's sapient shots of his picking hand and grimacing expressions which seem to keep the combo galloping without even the need of a glance to the other musicians. Suggestive nocturnal panoramic views of the city are interspersed with the live action, and the use of slow-motion is applied to beautiful effect, especially on the percussionists' side: the performances by vibraphonist Takara and drummer Yoshigaki (who doubles on trumpet in "Eureka") are often a joy to watch, while the double bass towering on the little-but-heavy-handed Mizutani is yet another element of visual pleasure. The whole represents an experience that isn't likely to add anything new to the memory of the lucky ones who were able to see the band in the flesh; for the remaining majority, it constitutes as an essential addition to their DVD collection as any from this French imprint. Needless to say, anyone interested in this fascinating facet of Otomo's artistic career should treat this item as a necessary requisite.

In Touching Extremes

ALFRED HARTH - Ballet music (Laubhuette Production 08)



From 2002 to 2007, Alfred Harth collaborated with a dance company in Seoul, which gave him the opportunity to work on some of his most radical and difficult to assimilate music of the XXI century (well, at least for tenderfoots). When the principal shuts the door of Laubhuette studio, something outlandish is definitely going to come out from there, this CDR being no exception. The five tracks represent a validation of the unrestrained creativity of this man, should you have any residual doubts. "Mercury I" takes strength from asymmetrical glissandos and psychedelic-like organ chords that relentlessly grow, get modified and flourish in hundreds of different streaks over a rhythmic device that sounds like the cheap drum machine of the typical electric organ received as a Christmas present, the one which many people tried to learn to play stupid songs on, usually with next-to-desperation results. The piece is a hodgepodge of discordant designs and splintered electronica, causing a reasonable quantity of saturation and, ultimately, resulting as devastating for a regular intellect as an involuntary bad trip. "That person then" starts with synthetic washes and altered vocal mumbles amidst what's liable to be processed water, then enters the realm of gloom through anxious deviations from the norm, uttered twists and daily life occurrences (…of whom?) as heard from within a sealed rubber suit. I won't be surprised to know that a radio was the source for the preponderance of the things we catch a glimpse of, a feel of "air surfing" defining certain rather disconcerting segments. Right here one comes to terms with Harth's rational use of the spiritual aspects of sound, concreteness and ceremonialism finding a common ground in upsetting mixtures of sonic pragmatism and thoroughly made-up timbral concurrences. "55 Quintets" was, in the composer's words, a "kind of sketch" for the ballet music in question, but works quite fine as a stand-alone miscellany, corroborated by the illustrious presence of frequent collaborator Choi Sun Bae on trumpet and electronics. It's a very long track, pregnant with events: TV scraps, voices from just everywhere, fabulous cut-ups of Bee Gees and other assorted absurdities, humans and instruments crying and squealing all over the place. Still, the basic pulsation of this piece is nourished by a simple pattern turning round and round, partially shrouded by a majestic hell generated by the couple's myriads of abnormal suggestions. In a record whose axis - for once - is not AH's saxophone, a lot of it is found exactly in this place, the intercourse with the uncontrollable anarchy of Choi's blowing fury at times staggering, if more lo-fi than usual. "Direct jazz", says the boss, is an etude. An etude? Forget the standard meaning of the term: this time, corroded beats, lamentations bathed in stretched reverbs, sloping sax lines and a variety of sequenced oddities will put your sense of "belonging somewhere" in serious trouble. The final "Gobi powder", a soundtrack for an as yet unedited video, was inspired by the effects of the "…annual yellow dust in the air above Seoul around springtime, which originates from the Gobi desert and is full of Chinese petrochemicals". Coherently, the result is an intoxicating blend of static interference, maybe a pinch of shortwave, and tampered tools which wouldn't be out of context on labels such as Confront or Erstwhile. Only a further aspect of the inventiveness that this gentleman constantly fecundates to engender meaningful ideas, one way or another.

In Touching Extremes

TRIO VIRIDITAS - Live at Vision Festival VI (Clean Feed)



Recorded on June 2, 2001 (a couple of months before Alfred Harth's departure to the Korean shores, which prevented him to be a New York resident exactly from the most disastrous month of man's history) this superb concert gives an idea of the potential - sadly unfulfilled due to bassist Wilber Morris' death in 2002 - of Trio Viriditas, the third member as always the tremendously articulate, ever imaginative Kevin Norton on drums and vibes. In this particular occasion, the music generated by these artists suggests a veritable inviolability, three distinctive personalities - each endowed with inimitable qualities - delivering themselves from any hypothetic artistic puffiness in order to disclose to the lucky spectators both their barest soul and a strong purpose to accomplish the mission through deep, intense paths of conscious agony and just a pinch of fun. Let's also make perfectly clear that this is a hell of a "must" if one isn't acquainted with Harth's reed omniscience and would love to figure out at least a smidgen of what the man is capable of doing (on pocket trumpet too, if saxes and bass clarinet weren't enough). In a track like "Melancholy", A23H evidently illustrates why he should be ranked as the ultimate poignant soloist, the phrasing starting with the predisposition to a soft kind of ballad (with hints of melody that even quote - involuntarily? - the "all my troubles seemed so far away" segment of Paul McCartney's "Yesterday"!) then, out of the blue, exploding in vicious yelps, the upper partials splitting in a thousand fragments, the whole underlined by vocal growling 'n' shouting, old bluesman-style. Then again, dissonant popping corks and splintered lines materialize, only to reformat into unrepeatable splendour. Ah, the frustration of not being able to convey the words for those incomparable, literally huge solos. And what a gas, listening to Harth cackle via clarinet in certain sections, or blowing the empire away with well-informed usage of space and time during short yet effective trumpet-based interventions. And the solo in "Viriditas Waltz", shall we talk about that, too? Stuff that - no kidding here, folks - might elicit the urge of hiding the instruments in the cases and go to sleep for many pretenders, unless they're open to listening and learning something for once in a lifetime. You should also hear what Norton does, as it's all substance. The remarkable contrapuntal skill in "Braggadocio" is a noticeable evidence of how talented this percussionist is, a man too humble to be seriously renowned. Not a problem for the cognoscenti, who will instantly identify his "guerrilla smartness": finesse and concentration amalgamated by one of the brightest architectural minds around. Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith and Joëlle Léandre must have good reasons for having been willing to exchange ideas with this grown-up kid. Knowing that Wilber Morris is not among us anymore is, somehow, akin to urging ourselves to welcome first-rate human beings and outstanding musicians earlier than fate, which comes and modifies what's erroneously meant as certitude. This man's bass recalls integralist jazz and chamber music at one and the same time, an emblem in that sense a medley of "Fuer die Katz's deli(ght)" and "Starbucks", Morris reciting his intentional extraneousness from any plausible pattern or lick to concentrate on a warm tone, attributing muscle to particularly spacious designs where Norton and Harth seem to come in with utmost ease, sounding as ghosts skating on ice. A bad loss for the world of improvisation, and this CD is just perfect for ringing a bell of memory. There goes the wish of hearing more of this special trio, possibly from Mr.23's archives: another studio recording, realized in the same period to support tours that - alas - never occurred, definitely exists. If that's half as powerful as the moving force of this live set, we're riding high already. Play "Peace", last selection of the album, louder and louder; open your windows and let everybody rejoice, for this a new jazz masterpiece - no ifs and buts.

In Touching Extremes