Search - Henry Kaiser, Tania Chen, Danielle DeGruttola :: Megasonic Chapel

Tania Chen - Piano Danielle DeGruttola - Cello Henry Kaiser - Guitar Soo-Yeon Lyuh - Haegum William Winant - Percussion "Of the 250 or so albums that I have been on, I am generally more excited about the next project to record, rather than paying much attention to things, after they are out-for-sale. That said, there are certain albums that are enduring and particular favorites of mine. Some of those would be: A WORLD OUT OF TIME, INVITE THE SPIRIT, YO MILES!, EVERYTHING FOREVER, GARDEN OF MEMORY, INVISIBLE RAYS, LIVE, LOVE, LARF, & LOAF, ZEN KAIJU, THE CELESTIAL SQUID, INVASION, TOMORROW KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE, WIREFORKS, ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, THE SOCIAL SET, THE MISTAKES, and RE-MARRYING FOR MONEY. I have to say that I am very proud of MEGASONIC CHAPEL. It is one of the most unusual and original recordings of improvised music that I have been involved with. It also features some of my very best guitar-playing. It joins the list of beyond special of the few, among the many recordings that I have been involved with. We talked a bit before recording this long 80 minute piece of music and decided to throw all of our musical resources into our endeavor. The result was a surprising mixture of not just Korean Court Music + Feldman, but also Korean Shaman Music, and the free improvisation approaches of the AMM, the SME, and the San Francisco Bay Area improvisors, that existed before there was a Downtown Music scene in NYC. Many curious moments occurred during the recording. For me the sonic blending of my acoustic harp guitar and Tania's piano, where they became one big instrument together was a total surprise. Also finding myself for the first time doing an eerily close imitation of Evan Parker circular-breathing on the soprano sax with guitar-shredding and feedback was something that I had neither planned on, nor experienced before. This was Soo-Yeon's first real experience of improvised experimental music and she took to it naturally and daringly, just as I knew she would from my past experiences of working with Korean musicians like Sang-Won Park and Jin-Hi Kim. Danielle was great as always and she's one of the most reliable improvisors that I know of. Tania drew amazing sounds out of the piano. Willy and I had one of the best improvising experiences in our many years of working together. It was one of those magic sessions that happen once a decade or so. Long-form music, pieces over an hour in-length, is not something that most folks spend much time experiencing or creating. We find it in Hindustani Music, Persian Music, certainly in the music of Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, a few DARK STARS from the early 70's, etc. But not too often in free improvisation. I think that musical expression seem to gravitate to certain lengths. Perhaps: 3 minutes, 8 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and 1 hour. When things get longer than an hour there is no telling what their form and architecture might be like. Music more than an hour long is often transcendental and out of normal experience. With MEGASONIC CHAPEL, the five us went somewhere really outside and strange and brought back something that nobody has ever heard before to share with our listeners. It's one long 80 minute track that goes through some very peculiar changes and spaces. We hope that some will take the time to clear a space in their day or night and listen to it uninterrupted. (and you are kinda stuck doing that, since I decided not to put any index numbers on the CD - it's just one immense thing) If you can make it all the way through at one sitting, I can certainly promise you a long, very strange trip." - Henry Kaiser April 2015