Product Description
Known for his uncompromising tape and synthesizer work, Pete Swanson has pushed the limits of electronic music since the early 2000s. Since stepping down as half of formative underground duo Yellow Swans, he has subverted the genres of noise and electronic dance music as a solo artist. For Eliminated Artist, the third LP release from ISSUE Project Room’s Distributed Objects imprint, Swanson ventures into new territories with two works at the intersection of electronic and acoustic sound, created in collaboration with New York instrumental quartet Yarn/Wire. Combining electronics, tape loops, and modular synthesizer with Yarn/Wire’s unique ensemble of two pianists and two percussionists, both works were recorded live at ISSUE Project Room, initiated as part of the ensemble’s 2011 residency at the Brooklyn venue and presenting organization.
For the title track, Eliminated Artist (2012), Swanson recorded improvised rehearsals by Yarn/Wire, from which he crafted an exacting, repeatable framework for live performance. A combination of live signal and rehearsal recordings were then constructed by Swanson into a live electronic mix, ranging from tranquil chromatic textures to unhinged distortion. Corrections (2014) emerged from a series of recorded fragments Swanson made using “the Putney”, an early EMS VCS3 modular synthesizer, at Rotterdam’s WORM studios in 2013. Over two days of rehearsal, Yarn/Wire and Swanson developed acoustic arrangements to integrate with the earlier recordings. Clattering, intricate rhythms combine with soaring synthesizer pitches and heavy percussive beats; the result is atmospheric, physical and precise.
A: Corrections (20:35)
B: Eliminated Artist (22:00)
Yarn/Wire: Ning Yu, Laura Barger: piano; Russell Greenberg, Ian Antonio: percussion.
Pete Swanson: EMS VCS3, Electronics and Tape.
Corrections recorded live at ISSUE Project Room 5/1/2014, EMS VCS3 for Corrections recorded at WORM Studios, Rotterdam 12/2013. Eliminated Artist recorded Live at ISSUE Project Room 3/22/2012. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Limited edition of 500 on 150gm vinyl.
Since the early 2000s, Pete Swanson has released a nearly uncountable list of CDRs, tapes and vinyl records. As a member of cult noise duo Yellow Swans, he amassed a worldwide following of noise fans swayed by the duo’s clamorous beats and screech combo and ability to carry their sound live just as much as they did on record. As a solo artist with releases on Type, Software Recordings, etc. he has continued to deliver, but unsurprisingly has been able to explore far more ground tonally. Swanson easily demonstrates he can leave an indelible mark on any genre he explores. His density and saturation, created by his signature tape hiss and synthesizer work proves Peter Swanson's strong insatiable appetite for innovation.
Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg, percussion / Laura Barger and Ning Yu, pianos), admired for the energy and precision it brings to performances of today’s most adventurous music. Founded in 2005, Yarn/Wire is dedicated to expanding the repertoire written for its instrumentation, through commissions and collaborative initiatives that aim to build a new and lasting body of work. Yarn/Wire champions a varied and probing repertoire, and has commissioned many American and international composers including Raphaël Cendo, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Tristan Murail, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. The group has given the US premieres of works by Enno Poppe, Stefano Gervasoni, and Georg Friedrich Haas, among others. As well, the ensemble enjoys collaborations with genre-bending artists such as Tristan Perich, David Bithell, and Sufjan Stevens. Yarn/Wire appears internationally at prominent festivals and venues including the Lincoln Center Festival, BAM, New York’s Miller Theatre, London’s Barbican, and others. Their new and ongoing series, Yarn/Wire/Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn, NY.
Album Notes by Pete Swanson
Eliminated Artist (2012)
I was contacted by Ian Antonio from Yarn/Wire about working on a composition for them before I even moved to New York in 2011. Ian and I knew each other from bills that Zs and Yellow Swans had shared and I was excited to be presented with such an unusual challenge. At that point in time, I was mainly concerned with looping themes that did not sync up (it was around the time of "Man With Potential"), so, given the opportunity to work with people, I thought it was best to take advantage of the potential for imperfection that working with human musicians offers. Once we got into rehearsals, I added another element of recording individual parts of instruments to tape loops and looping pedals, and then further processed the live instrumentation and recorded loops of the musicians to create a space that was familiar in its repetition, but disorienting to witness and sonically enveloping, leaving the voices of the individuals obscured and confused, pursuing musical states where the individual expression of the artist is no longer about overt gesture and precision.
Corrections (2014)
"The Putney," one of the earliest versions of the EMS VCS3 synthesizer, is one of the more enchanting instruments I've been able to spend time with. WORM studios was kind enough to let me occupy their recording and synthesizer studio in the final week of 2013, and I spent all of my time working with this little Putney, as opposed to their various ARP and Serge synthesizers. Due to the way patching works with this synthesizer, everything is patched via placing metal pegs into a matrix grid, such that different patching strategies can entirely disrupt the sonic ecosystem of this little synth. I was fascinated with these very musical events I was able to create via unusual cross-modulation, but these recordings had no potential on their own, they needed a little extra arrangement, other coloring. I wrote the Yarn/Wire folks with files while I was still in the studio since I thought they would be the musicians most capable of completing the fragments that I had pulled from all of my sessions. Fortunately, one of their commissioned composers had to cancel shortly after I sent on the audio files and we were able to complete and perform this piece. While I came to the group with several segments of music, we ended up arranging the larger piece over two days of rehearsing, establishing and reworking the narrative arc of the piece until we all felt like the work was sonically compelling enough to perform. Ultimately, the arrangements answered all of the questions posed by the initial recordings. They stand corrected.
