collage ensemble, steve roden, alan nakagawa, and others
cassette
collage ensemble
1991
a 1991 cassette that came out of my participation in alan nakagawa’s collage ensemble – a multi-disciplinary performance art group. this cassette was one of my first releases, but was kind of a left turn from my first cassette, the secret of happiness, which was released a year earlier. in that earlier cassette, i was already beginning to work with letter scores and translation; but here the work was much more influenced by ecm records and david sylvian’s first solo release (as well as his collaborations with holger czukay). it was one of those moments where i was searching. i had been interested in minimalism, particularly steve reich’s work, meredith monk, the cold blue label, and music that was, at the time, being called “new music” – which was less dissonant than so-called experimental music. tom schnabel’s late 1980’s and early 1990’s radio program morning becomes eclectic was, at that time, a very adventurous program, and i discovered a lot of music on that program which i never would’ve heard anywhere else (such as a disc by harold weiss called “winter songs” which was also a huge influence).
alan organized the split cassette (i pretty much organized one side, alan the other). each of us worked with collaborators from the group. the music reflects collage ensemble’s disparate members, as well as alan’s tendencies to allow collaborators to bring what they wanted to the table, thus it is a mish-mash (and i use that phrase as a positive) of styles, identities, tastes, ideas, etc.
tracks on my side:
ants (east-mix)
red dragonfly
paper cranes
croatian dance
ants
alan started collage ensemble in 1984 (while we were in undergrad school at otis), and in june of 2012, he will have collage ensemble’s final event at the inglewood library.