#nmperign

[dustedmagazine]

Ernst Karel & Bhob Rainey — 47 Gates (Erstwhile)

First-time duos make up a significant chunk of the Erstwhile Records catalog. Typically, the label invites two artists who haven’t previously worked together to come up with an album, and sometimes music results. While this encounter qualifies, one wonders if Bhob Rainey and Ernst Karel relinquished the word “first” over the course of a partnership that was initiated in 2015 and finally yielded 47 Gates in 2024. Whatever fresh ideas were sparked when Erstwhile initially commissioned the duo to make a record have likely undergone recurrent interrogation in order to make the final cut and be included in this immaculately interwoven construction made from environmental, instrumental and processed sounds.

And while music is a big and often beautiful thing, 47 Gates defies the term’s boundaries. On their respective websites both Rainey and Karel assert at the top of their respective bios that they work in sound. Rainey is identified as an improvising soprano saxophonist, an instrument and practice that he has exercised with the duo Nmperign and the larger ensemble BSC. But he’s also developed sonic accompaniment for dance and theatre, as well as sound-manipulating software. Likewise, Karel has wielded a trumpet, and if you’re acquainted with albums made in Chicago during the 1990s on which rock, improvisation, and experimental practices jostled for space, you’ve probably heard him. But nowadays he performs occasionally with electronics, and mostly collects and manipulates environmental sounds that tend to end up in films.

If either man blew a horn on 47 Gates, they aren’t admitting to it; both are credited with electronics and recordings, and Rainey is also credited with piano. Two of its four tracks also feature contributions by a clarinetist and a string quartet. Each has moments where the combination of made and found sounds will confound efforts to determine where one ends and the other begins. But the album also moments when the divisions are not only clear, but essential to its periodic musicality because they establish periodic  divisions that could be characterized as rhythmic. Wind gusts and low electronic tones begin “Weather Imprint,” alternating  so that one feels like one is being buffeted by a stuttered cadence of meteorological events.  But the piece doesn’t stop there; first voices that sound like they’ve been lifted from shortwave radio broadcasts utter phonemes, and then objects are heard being moved.

Every included element is material, something one can use to make something else. Karel and Rainey don’t prioritize their choices of material by type, but by utility at any given moment; droning strings or a blast of antique Indonesian pop that sounds like it’s blowing up an AM radio speaker can be just as handy as the sound of a fly flitting back and forth between speakers.

Bill Meyer

[onryou-onryou]

nmperign 12/18/98 Highwire Gallery, Philadelphia PA

[visualtones]

Nmperign / Jason Lescalleet - Love Me Two Times

2006

[riseofthecommonwoodpile]

back when i was getting really into EAI and contemporary composition and sound art i stumbled across this list of the "best albums of the 2000's", and it honestly kinda blew my mind, but i lost track of it after a while and was never able to string together the right keywords to find it again. until today, that is!

i really wanted to post it here because it's one of my favorite "top X of [Time Period]" lists ever both because of how wide-ranging it is and because of how indescribably idiosyncratic it is. Yeah, Animal Collective and The Microphones and Radiohead are on there, but so are people I'd never heard of before and have never heard anyone talk about since, like Julien Ottavi and Marcus Schmickler and nmperign. It's a list made by one person, and you can tell it was made by one person. Every pick is personal.

Here's (some of) the albums I heard of and listened to because of this list:

The Goslings- Grandeur of Hair

Mammal- Lonesome Drifter

Graham Lambkin- Salmon Run

Olivia Block- Heave To

Tindersticks- Trouble Every Day

Vic Chesnutt- North Star Deserter

Prurient- Shipwrecker's Diary

David Sylvian- Blemish

John Butcher- Resonant Spaces

Weakling- Dead as Dreams

Local H- Here Comes the Zoo

Coil- The Ape of Naples

Wolf Eyes- Dread

Radu Malfatti / Mattin- WHITENOISE

Kevin Drumm- Sheer Hellish Miasma

Jeph Jerman- The Second Attention

Bastard Noise- Mutant

Afflux- Bouquetot/Paris/Port-Jerome

Lift To Experience- The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads

Jackie-O Motherfucker- Fig. 5

Jim O'Rourke- Insignificance

Philip Jeck- Stoke

Richard Youngs- Autumn Response

Graham Lambkin / Jason Lescalleet- The Breadwinner

Birchville Cat Motel- Beautiful Speck Triumph

Kevin Drumm- Land of Lurches

some of these are now in my favorite albums of all time. who else is out here stanning Jeph fucking Jerman? this and Piero Scaruffi's "Best Rock Albums of All Time" are the two "top X" lists that genuinely changed the course of my music listening. i like it so much i will even forgive the Fiery Furnaces apologia.

[les-proliferations-malignes]

Festival des Musiques Innovatrices / Saint-Etienne (1987-2014)

13ème Edition du 1 Au 10 Juin 2002 : Diane Labrosse / Martin Tétreault - Pierre Bastien / Jean-Pierre Marsal - Rotophormen - Nmperign - Masayoshi Urabe - Michael Vorfeld - Palinckx - Nappe - Janek Schaefer - Pita - Alexandre Pax - L’ensemble Rayé - Pascale Labbé / Christine Wodrascka - Viktoria Frey - Axel Dörner - Super Jean-François Plomb - Exposition photos Dominique Saliba

[tinymixtapes]

Bhob Rainey (nmperign) announces first solo electronic album “From null lands led, starrily”

After essentially two decades, it seems almost contrary to supposition for a musician/composer who's had his hand in so many pots to be only now announcing his "first" solo (electronic) album. http://j.mp/2xyutxT

[niceupintl]

Next week..

[gianttankeh]

Giant Tank’s ‘POT LUCK’ at TUSK TV & TUSK Editions, The Internet, your device: 2/4/21.

You can view Ali & Collette Robertson in conversation with Joyce Whitchurch & Greg Kelley tonight as part of TUSK TV’s evening schedule of international wonky sounds fae way OUT & round the way from 8pm here and find out how to purchase the first issue of TUSK Editions, which features Joyce & Greg’s blind audio collaboration, here.

[les-proliferations-malignes]

Festival des Musiques Innovatrices / Saint-Etienne (1987-2014)

13ème Edition du 1 Au 10 Juin 2002 : Diane Labrosse / Martin Tétreault - Pierre Bastien / Jean-Pierre Marsal - Rotophormen - Nmperign - Masayoshi Urabe - Michael Vorfeld - Palinckx - Nappe - Janek Schaefer - Pita - Alexandre Pax - L’ensemble Rayé - Pascale Labbé / Christine Wodrascka - Viktoria Frey - Axel Dörner - Super Jean-François Plomb - Exposition photos Dominique Saliba

ToTo n’aime pas la soupe / les concerts à Saint-Etienne en 2002 : Voé - Catherine Crachat - Taku Unami / Masafumi Ezaki / Masahiko Okura - Oligo-Eléments

[tinymixtapes]

Bhob Rainey (nmperign) announces first solo electronic album, reassures his sax that he still has feelings for it

After essentially two decades, it seems almost contrary to supposition for a musician/composer who’s had his hand in so many pots to be only now announcing his “first” solo (electronic) album. Of course, Rainey’s done a ton of collaborating throughout his generally improvisation-minded career, and From null lands led, starrily — the new album out October 2 courtesy of the dynamic Anòmia outfit — promises to showcase his solitary mind likely more than any other previous release. In other words, get ready to hear the Philly native’s prodigious outbursts unornamanted by the likes of Jason Lescalleet or Greg Kelley (in nmperign). But hey, who says you always need a friend to accompany you to the movies, anyway? (Although, Raine doesseem like a guy whose post-movie commentary would be in high demand, despite his constant annoyance at being desperately asked to deliver his insight regarding “Megatron’s newfound role.”) Again, this is Rainey’s first solo, electronic, full-length album; which means that all of the non-saxophone and specially-conceived synthesis stuff that you might’ve heard over the years is taking center stage for the prescribed length. And that “length” then takes on a new significance when you consider the role that space plays in his music, because it essentially makes the album the musical equivalent of that “so much room for activities” meme. And Rainey’s apparently been working on this one for a while. Stay tuned for official pre-order and tracklisting info, but in the mean time, check out an excerpt from the track “Sinter” below: http://j.mp/2fRFKiX

[indefensibleactions]

incredible live artifact.

[gianttankeh]

An old Dave Dougan, Greg Kelley & Ali Robertson album.

You can now stream or download the 2007 album ‘Guest Beers’ for free, or send us a few quids if youse like, via Bandcamp.

Both Duff & Robertson are freelance workers and have nae work or income lined up due to the current pandemic so any contributions are much appreciated.

STAY SAFE!

[les-proliferations-malignes]

Festival des Musiques Innovatrices / Saint-Etienne (1987-2014)

13ème Edition du 1 Au 10 Juin 2002 : Diane Labrosse / Martin Tétreault - Pierre Bastien / Jean-Pierre Marsal - Rotophormen - Nmperign - Masayoshi Urabe - Michael Vorfeld - Palinckx - Nappe - Janek Schaefer - Pita - Alexandre Pax - L’ensemble Rayé - Pascale Labbé / Christine Wodrascka - Viktoria Frey - Axel Dörner - Super Jean-François Plomb - Exposition photos Dominique Saliba