Unsquare | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 2008 | |||
Recorded | November 18, 2006 | |||
Studio | East Side Sound Studio, New York City | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 60:25 | |||
Label | Intakt (Switzerland) | |||
Producer | Larry Ochs, Intakt Records | |||
Maybe Monday chronology | ||||
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Unsquare is a 2008 studio album by Maybe Monday, a San Francisco based experimental electroacoustic improvisation music ensemble featuring guitarist Fred Frith, koto player Miya Masaoka and saxophonist Larry Ochs. It is their third album and includes guest musicians Gerry Hemingway, Carla Kihlstedt, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins. Unsquare was recorded at East Side Sound Studio in New York City on November 18, 2006, and was released by Intakt Records in Switzerland in January 2008.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
DownBeat | [1] |
In a review of Unsquare at All About Jazz , Kurt Gottschalk called Maybe Monday "a ridiculously strong trio", and described their collaboration with Hemingway, Kihlstedt, Mori and Parkins on this album as "a dizzying, fascinating set of music". [2] Clifford Allen wrote at Bagatellen that Maybe Monday are not unlike the British free improvisation group AMM. He noted that which instruments are producing which sound is not important – it is the combination of those sounds that matters, the "subsuming of the parts to the whole". [3] Allen added that "to parse Unsquare would be a disservice to the breadth of its canvas – this is a very rich recording of electro-acoustic improvisation." [3] Jason Bivins wrote in Cadence that the inclusion of the four guests "unsettl[ed] the group in just the right ways and thicken[ed] the sound provocatively". [4] He was impressed that they did this "without weighing the music down or sacrificing space". [4] Bivins described Unsquare as a "very fine record". [4]
Reviewing Unsquare in DownBeat , Bill Shoemaker was initially concerned that the presence of guests on Maybe Monday's third album would upset the "alluringly precarious elegance and intensity" of their earlier work. [1] But he was pleased at how "keenly ensemble-minded" the guests are, and that they appear to have "infallible instincts for when less is more and when more is much more". [1] The album's pieces "pivot between sparseness and density, altering a consistently bracing mix of acoustic and electronic elements". [1] Shoemaker felt that the way the instruments connect, "the twacks of koto and low-register harp; the gravelly drones of guitar and laptop; the smudges of reeds and bowed strings", explains the growing interest in electro-acoustic improvisation. [1]
All tracks composed by Maybe Monday.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "G" | 14:46 |
2. | "Nitrogen" | 14:07 |
3. | "Saptharishi Mandalam" | 7:52 |
4. | "Septentrion" | 6:17 |
5. | "Unturned" | 17:21 |
Sources: Liner notes, [5] Discogs. [6]
Sources: Liner notes, [5] Discogs. [6]
Sources: Liner notes, [5] Discogs. [6]
Miya Masaoka is an American composer, musician, and sound artist active in the field of contemporary classical music and experimental music. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation, electroacoustic music, inter-disciplinary sound art, sound installation, traditional Japanese instruments, and performance art. She is based in New York City.
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser.
Ikue Mori, also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022.
Zeena Parkins is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard harps, several custom electric harps, piano, and accordion. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and professor in the Music Department at Mills College.
Carla Kihlstedt is an American composer, violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and currently working from a home studio on Cape Cod.
Chris Brown is an American composer, pianist and electronic musician, who creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. He was active early in his career as an inventor and builder of electroacoustic instruments; he has also performed widely as an improviser and pianist with groups as "Room" and the "Glenn Spearman Double Trio." In 1986 he co-founded the pioneering computer network music ensemble "The Hub". He is also known for his recorded performances of music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, and John Zorn. He has received commissions from the Berkeley Symphony, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio, the Gerbode Foundation, the Phonos Foundation and the Creative Work Fund. His recent music includes the poly-rhythm installation "Talking Drum", the "Inventions" series for computers and interactive performers, and the radio performance "Transmissions" series, with composer Guillermo Galindo.
Gerry Hemingway is an American drummer and composer.
Fred Frith appears on over 400 recordings. This is a selection from bands he was/is a member of, collaborations with other bands and musicians, and his solo recordings. The year indicates when the album was first released. For a comprehensive discography, see the Discography of Fred Frith by Michel Ramond, Patrice Roussel and Stephane Vuilleumier.
Freedom in Fragments is a studio album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It was composed by Frith in 1993 as "a suite of 23 pieces for saxophone quartet", and was performed by the Rova Saxophone Quartet between February 1999 and January 2000 in San Francisco. The album was released on Tzadik Records' Composer Series in 2002. Frith does not perform on this album.
Sylvie Courvoisier is a composer, pianist and improviser.
Maybe Monday is an American experimental electroacoustic improvisation music ensemble comprising guitarist Fred Frith, koto player Miya Masaoka and saxophonist Larry Ochs. The trio was formed in San Francisco in March 1997 when they performed in a concert at the Great American Music Hall. They have since toured the United States, Canada and Europe, and released three albums between 1999 and 2008.
Cosa Brava is an experimental rock and free improvisation group formed in March 2008 in Oakland, California by multi-instrumentalist and composer Fred Frith. The band comprises Frith on guitar, Zeena Parkins on keyboards and accordion, Carla Kihlstedt on violin, Matthias Bossi on drums, and The Norman Conquest on sound manipulation. All About Jazz described their music as "somewhere between folk, Celtic, modern chamber, Latin, funk, Eastern, and prog-rock".
Larry Ochs is an American jazz saxophonist, co-founder of the Rova Saxophone Quartet and Metalanguage Records.
Catherine Jauniaux is a Belgian avant-garde singer. She has been described as a "one-woman-orchestra", a "human sampler", and "one of the best kept secrets in the world of improvised music". Her solo album, Fluvial (1983) is regarded as one of her most accomplished works. She was married to the late American experimental cellist and composer Tom Cora.
The Letter is a studio album by Fred Frith's United States experimental rock group Cosa Brava. It was recorded in France in June 2010 and Oakland, California in August 2011, and was released by Intakt Records in Switzerland on March 21, 2012.
Digital Wildlife is an album by composer and guitarist Fred Frith's group Maybe Monday which was released on the Winter & Winter label.
Serpentines is an album by German jazz saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, which was recorded in 2016 and released by Intakt Records. It features a septet with an unusual line-up, with Miya Masaoka playing the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, and individual instrumental parts manipulated electronically by Sam Pluta. Laubrock assembled the band for the Vision Festival 2015.
The Compass, Log and Lead is a 2006 studio album of improvised acoustic experimental music by Fred Frith, Carla Kihlstedt and Stevie Wishart. It was recorded in October 2003 in Oakland, California, and released by Intakt Records in 2006.
Dalaba Frith Glick Rieman Kihlstedt, also stylized as DalabaFrithGlickRiemanKihlstedt, is a 2003 studio album of improvised experimental music by Lesli Dalaba, Fred Frith, Eric Glick Rieman and Carla Kihlstedt. It was recorded at Guerrilla Recording in Oakland, California, and was released by Accretions Records in San Diego, California in 2003.
All Is Always Now – Live at The Stone is a 2019 three-CD box set of live improvised music performed by English guitarist Fred Frith with other musicians, including Theresa Wong, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveros and Laurie Anderson. It was recorded between 2007 and 2016 at The Stone in New York City, and was released in March 2019 by Intakt Records in Switzerland.