Showing posts with label Ghetto Raga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghetto Raga. Show all posts

November 30, 2017

The Heliocentrics quoted "Ghetto Raga"...


On an article posted on line in June 2017 by (http://www.talkhouse.com/talkhouse-weekend-playlist-obscure-psychedelic-jazz-with-the-heliocentrics/The Heliocentrics compiled a list of music that inspired their last album "A World of Masks".
Quoting TEB's "Ghetto Raga" between the tracks they wrote:

"This late ’60s English album is an oddity which boasts an appearance by the late John Peel on jaw harp. It is, again, very minimalist in approach, and drones feature heavily throughout the whole album—although this time all the instruments are acoustic, the lineup consisting of violin, viola, hand drums, oboe/recorder, cello, and slide pipes, and draws heavily upon traditional English folk and medieval music. This influence is more apparent in the material we have subsequently written, but I’ve always been blown away by the mood and hypnotic string arrangements throughout this album."


"The Heliocentrics are a group for which genres are meaningless and boundaries invisible", is written on their Bandcamp page. 

"Since first appearing on DJ Shadow’s 2006 album The Outsider the group have gone on to release a string of records that float through jazz, hip-hop, psych, krautrock, and musique concrete whilst collaborating with numerous genre heavyweights from Mulatu Astake to Gaslamp Killer and picking up prestigious fans along the way, such as Madlib and the recently departed David Axelrod.

The primarily instrumental group, who operate out of their vintage analogue studio in East London called the Quatermass Sound Lab, bring in a new singer on album number four - a young Slovakian singer called Barbora Patkova. The result is an album that takes the band, already solidified in ever-expanding grooves and rhythms into new previously unexplored dimensions. The group’s deep-set ability to craft music intuitively and impulsively stems from a desire to avoid typical processes or generic structures. Since its conception, the band's music has mainly been created from live improvisation. This musical approach gives the band its own sound and identity - "for anything to happen it must be at that time from the people in the room, and on the spot". A decade of such sonic adventures has resulted in a tightly knit bond that the group refer to as “almost a form of telepathy” with “musical changes that otherwise would be near impossible to write."


Listening the album at the Bancamp page (go here), apart a track title "Down Chorus" (2:17), frankly I feel just  vague references to the TEB's sound... But we live in a 'free world' where everyone can say what they want... 
  
no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)    

November 25, 2017

Ghetto Raga's founder THOMAS ZUNK contacted Ghettoraga Archive... soon here a piece about his connections with the TEB's music...


As probably you readers remember, in 2013 I wrote a short piece here after having  discovered a German band called Ghetto Raga existed (https://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2013/03/a-german-band-called-ghetto-raga.html ). Just few days ago, Ghetto Raga's founder Thomas Zunk contacted me just to thank for my attention...

"Hi Luca, 
thank you so much for your answer. I only came across your article a couple of months ago when I was googleing for "ghetto raga" to check what there is written about us in the net these days. 
I was delighted that you had taken notice of us. Just around that time in 2013 the last line-up of Ghetto Raga had disbanded! We were three then: me on hand drums and Theremin, Alex Ehlers on bass-guitar, oboe and english horn and Hoshiko Yamane on violin. Alex left town and Hoshiko then joined and is now famous with Tangerine Dream
Only since this summer 2017 I have gathered a new generation of musicians and I am very proud of the guys, they are outstanding soloists and improvisers. Note that the violinist, Lutz Wernicke, was also founding member of the very first line-up in 1997. Makes me very happy! The new Ghetto Raga will play its first concert in two weeks. We will do a tribute night in honour of Karlheinz Stockhausen to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his death. Dec 6. at Madstop84 in Berlin. 

                            Thomas with Ghetto Raga

Next spring I am organising three concerts for us in Berlin cinemas to play a new live soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's amazing science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey". A BIG thing. I did that with a different Ghetto Raga line-up (and also as a soloist) already in 2005! 
Luca, I alread started writing down the story of TEB and me, how I came to love them, why I called my band Ghetto Raga and how Glen Sweeney's hand drum playing opened my mind and influenced me. It'll take a few days, my friend, then I will send you the whole story! 
For now, maybe you like to check out my website: www.thomaszunk.wordpress.com It contains my whole work, everything I did before that, during it and after Ghetto Raga. There you will also find a button for the site of Ghetto Raga: www.ghettoraga.wordpress.com
A lot of material! 
You will find all infos from the past line-ups, photos and links to Soundcloud with numerous sites full of music of Ghetto Raga between 1993 (proto-GR) and 2013. The name Ghetto Raga first appears in 1997 and this means that I will celebrate 20 years of Ghetto Raga in December. I know you will like what you will see and hear! I will be back soon with my little story. Thank you!
Cheers from Berlin
herTZliche GRüße Thomas Zunk"

www.facebook.com/thomaszunk
 no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)     

July 07, 2016

"Mosaic", Roberto Musci's tribute to the Third Ear Band. A short review.



Out on June 17th, 2016, published by Rob Ayling's Gonzo Multimedia, is now available Roberto Musci's tribute to the Third Ear Band. Titled "Mosaic", it consists of twelve tracks composed by Musci and played by himself using various kind of instruments as Plunderphonics, tibetan bells, flute, guitar, synth, hand drums, percussion, organ.
At a very first listening, the album is an amazing surprise because, albeit these are new compositions, the listener 'feel' the old fascinating mood of the band, even if totally renewed and rivisited.
Musci adopted for the album John Oswald's technique of composition and recording based on Plunderphonics, "using samples from their cds, filtered with effects and with “cut and paste technique", I created some songs" (from an interview with Musci).

And thus we have old TEB' tunes reborn at a new life: it's really amazing and beautiful listening to legendary tracks as "Ghetto Raga", "Mosaic", "Air", "Druid One", "Egyptian Book of the Dead" or "The Beach" dressed with a new suit.
The grafts of original TEB single sequences of sound work perfectly in this new texture because they seem rightly coherent and natural in this new soundscape. Not a simply juxtaposition of quotations of music, but as for a film editing  we have here sequences of old and new music totally integrated.
Some compositions are very astonishing: my favourite one is "The Beach", a 5 minutes of sinister, disquieting tune with a funeral cadence after an opening debussyan atmosphere...

Believe me, through the years I've listened to many attempts to tribute and/or compose (music inspired by) the glorious, unique sound of the TEB, but this is the real first time we have an album where Sweeney, Minns, Coff and Smith seem to come back for playing their awesome music again!



ROBERTO MUSCI WEB REFERENCES:
A sampler of the album ("Ghetto Raga") at  https://soundcloud.com/roberto-musci
Musci's personal Web site: http://www.rmusci.com/

OTHER STUFF ABOUT ROBERTO MUSCI IN GHETTORAGA ARCHIVE:
An interview with  Roberto on the Third Ear Band is at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2015/09/italian-composer-roberto-musci-talks.html
A file where Roberto explains his project is at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2015/11/italian-avant-garde-composer-roberto.html

 no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)       

November 15, 2015

Italian avant-garde composer Roberto Musci makes a tribute to the Third Ear Band.


Italian musician and composer Roberto Musci composed and recorded a tribute to the Third Ear Band based on original samplers of the band. 
Titled "Mosaic" it's actually a 'mosaic' of tracks build on various excerpts from original tracks of the Thirds, pieces as "Ghetto Raga", "Mosaic", "Air", "Druid One"..., treated with an original, innovative technique called "Plunderphonics".

Roberto explains the thing in this way: "This project is a musical tribute to the Third Ear Band ; it is not  a cover of their music  (it would be impossible, unnecessary and ridiculous), but music closely related and inspired by their art.
In recent years I have worked with Chris Cuttler in a project of Plunderphonics (ie: to sample music of a group to create new songs very close to the original music but different) . I have collaborated on a CD publishing by Recommended Records UK, dedicated to the music of Art Bears ("The Art Box" double and quadruple with the original music of the group and plunderphonics. In the CDs there are also songs made by Jon Rose, Otomo Yoshide, John Oswald, The Residents, Fred Frith). With this technique I’d like to create my own personal tribute to the Third Ear Band and using samples from their cds, filtered with effects and with “cut and paste technique", I created some songs".
 
Considering the interest of Rob Ayling for the project, Roberto has asked Gonzo Multimedia to realise a record from it. We will see what will happen. 
I have had the honour to listen to it and I think it's one of the best reworking of the Third Ear Band's ouvre...

CONTACTS
"To absent friends, lost loves and old gods" (blog)http://robertomusci.tumblr.com/
Roberto Musci Web site:
http://www.rmusci.com/
Soundcloud:  
https://soundcloud.com/roberto-musci
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Musci 

no©2015 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

February 18, 2014

TEB's stuff never published on this Archive found!


Waiting for the interview with first TEB cellist Brian Meredith (now disappeared...), I've found in my personal archive some stuff never published on Ghetto Raga.
So I've updated the two chronological files (here and there), expecially that about the last period the Band played in Italy with reviews, magazine articles and photos as this one here below.

  Carter, Smith, Sweeney, Dobson (and L. Ferrari) with TEB fans at Psycho Club (Genova).
no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)  

March 08, 2013

A German band called Ghetto Raga...


"The name is taken from the second track "Ghetto Raga" on the first 1969 album by british THIRD EAR BAND "Alchemy" and also is program: instruments usually played in classical music playing free improvisations fenced in by simple and monotonous hand drum rhythms - usually just one ongoing hypnotic rhythm per piece. Glen Sweeney, mastermind and drummer of TEB, later called their pieces "electric ragas"".

Thomas Zunk

Here's the description German musician & advantgarde composer Thomas Zunk uses to describe his music on his Soundcloud profile (https://soundcloud.com/ghetto-raga and https://soundcloud.com/ghetto-raga-2), a miner of experimental music with clear references to the Third Ear Band's poetics...
His Berlin based free improvising project called Ghetto Raga started in  1993 and through various different line-ups he recorded very interesting tracks with the intention of creating a synthesis between freely improvised music and the classical gamelan styles of Indonesia. Ghetto Raga's pieces sometimes evoke spherical, metallic landscapes; some others position hypnotically pulsating, monotone grooves under a virtuoso violin. 

As usual, listen to these tracks and make a your opinion about the real connections with Glen Sweeney/Paul Minns' music... 



no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

January 19, 2012

Miracles from the Net: a sampler of "Stone Circle" in a DJ compilation!


Miracles of the Net!
A sampler of "Stone Circle" (even if here titled "Lark Rise") is included in a compilation edited by DJ Snoodaard in  "The New Worck" series ("Free exclusive mixes - Discover new music!").
This very suggestive volume, the # 428, is titled "Sacred Sounds" and comprises also tracks by Albert Ayler, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Harry Partch, John Fahey, The Residents... in a sort of 25:10 long composition.


Commenting this compilation, DJ Snoodaard says: "Mankind has a long history of worshipping Mammon and viewing itself as a divine being, still the true spirit is in the humbled, who feel they are blessed with existence and live in wonder."
You can listen and download  it at http://thenewworck.com/genre/psychedelic/the-new-worck-428-of-dj-snoodaard

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)