This CD has been compiled by Malcolm Goldstein and Matthias Kaul for a possible commercial release from a recording at the Hessischer Rundfunk in 1999. The artists, who both are composers as well as instrumentalists, have collaborated successfully before, on a John Cage CD from Wergo (WER 6636-2) as part of Wergo’s Edition John Cage. On that renowned issue Kaul plays glass harmonica and percussion, while Goldstein plays his violin. There is a review of the mentioned CD elsewhere at the Sonoloco site.

Malcolm Goldstein’s “it were another” for violin and voice (1998) (13:27) opens the set. The composer is the sole performer here.
Goldstein’s commentary: “it were another” for violin / voice solo is the third in a series of pieces whose source is found in a statement by Jasper Johns, concerning his approach to painting, that was then transformed by John Cage into a mesostic focusing on time and space. This sound-text structure is extended in my work into more fluid dimensions of improvisation in three different realizations: an instrumental ensemble piece (“as it were”, 1996), a radio / acoustic artwork (“as it were, another”, created at WDR [Westdeutsche Rundfunk], Cologne, 1998), and finally a structured improvisation format (“it were another”) [this piece]. This last piece begins with words from the Johns / Cage setting (…”different things at the same time… space… into another world”…) and then introduces words of mine concerning improvisation (…”like a brook… through dirt, rocks, trees… finding… the smell of light.”)

Goldstein’s style of playing is clearly recognizable, in its fresh, wrangling way, like was he holding on to the violin strings across a great ravine, desperately clinging to them; sometimes hanging from them, sometimes managing to get on top of the strings, hauling his body weight ahead, until falling again, to hang in the air, feet dangling, face red…
It’s a plucking story too, where sharp, short sounds hack away like a madman’s little ice axe on asphalt – but then again longer stretches of frictional, almost rubber band-sounding events shoot out into the distance… or perhaps the future… Goldstein inserts more meditative moments into the frantic progression, where everybody stops to rest and listen for a while. Throughout Goldstein reads – in gushing fragments – the words of John Cage’s mesostic, and sometimes breaks into shuddering, trembling Goldsteinean song. He commences the piece with bits and pieces of his own text blended in with Cage’s mesostic flakes of morphemes.

Goldstein’s complete text, excerpted by himself in his commentary above and vocalized in “it were another”, was presented to me by the author / composer as a graphic poem signed as “Jade Mountain Soundings” (1983), with words cut up down the page. It sounds like this when conventionally written out:

Piece no. 2 is the short “that is poetry as” for violin & percussion (1993) (1:33), written by Malcolm Goldstein.
His commentary: “The music is a transformation of the mesostic ‘I have nothing to say…’
by John Cage. The mesostic is a transformation of his statement in his ‘Lecture on Nothing’, to become sound-text poetry, and the music composition ‘that is poetry as’ is a further extension from the word-sense of the mesostic into sound-sense. It is a structured improvisation in which each musician follows a different path in realizing the mesostic setting. The violinist follows the horizontal unfolding of Cage’s sound-text poem, and the percussionist follows the vertical line of the original statement, together creating an interwoven texture of phrases and events.”

This comes on like a rhythmic chamber piece of sorts, with an eastern flair to it, possibly caused by some of the instruments Kaul plays, plus the slow, jerky gamelan beat of the event. Words aren’t perceivable here; only vocal hints at words, in inhalations, exclamative exhalations, an occasional whistle and so forth. The short piece is a sharply contoured statement with a haiku character, and I suppose this could well be categorized as such, as a haiku. Really, this also demonstrates the insignificance of duration, which Morton Feldman expressed through very long pieces, but it can as well be articulated through very short works, which Goldstein and Kaul prove here. It’s a gallant little piece out of a misty East!

There is a wonderful 41-minute reading of John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing” by Frances-Marie Uitti on a double CD from Etcetera (KTC 2016), which was released in 1991.

Track 3 belongs to Matthias Kaul and his “Revolver” for hurdy gurdy and percussion (1997) (11:41).
Kaul’s commentary: “This composition [‘Revolver’] is based on the sequence of vowels and consonants of a love song by the medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide (1170 – 1230). It is about two people making love out in the open, in the grass under a lime tree. My music is more about the sounds which surround the lovers, like insects and breaking twigs, and the shyness of the atmosphere; the fear that somebody might watch them… The title refers to the Beatles’ album ‘Revolver’. A revolver is a turning thing [has a revolving magazine], and in my case the wheel of a hurdy gurdy. As a sort of refrain two elements from the song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ [from the ‘Revolver’ album] appear; a melody and a sound quotation, slowed down considerably, making them difficult to recognize.”

The hurdy gurdy stretches out in long, soft carpets across the topography, as Kaul snores and grunts, exhorts short phonemes and mouth sounds in a repetitious manner which elevates these seemingly meaningless or insignificant sonic events to a state of recognizable audio objects in an artistic setting. Matthias Kaul is an expert at conjuring up these dreamy mindscapes. The soft carpets of the hurdy gurdy soon cover the vicinity, the county and perhaps this whole part of the country, and this land has got to be an enchanted province ruled by a knight in his shining castle, because these magic hurdy gurdy carpets are possible – or even conceivable… only in such surroundings, in such environments, and I sense – I don’t really see, but sense! – stooping shapes of otherworldly creatures along the aspen curtains on the farthest side of the field, in the shadows at dusk – and sure enough this is dusk music, as good as any I’ve heard. I can’t recall, right off, any other music that I’ve heard that so strongly suggests a fairytale world in a sleepy state, like a magic spell has been cast over the whole country, where these soft hurdy gurdy carpets are for ever spreading across fields and pastures, mountain sides and city streets while the land and its rightful inhabitants lie dormant… and in the leafy crowns of the trees spider webs spread in a slow, sticky relentlessness…

“Tomorrow Never Knows”:

It is very interesting to note how far Lennon/McCartney (probably mostly John Lennon) had ventured into more experimental veins of modern music (and Stockhausen appeared on the cover of Beatles’ next album; Sgt Pepper!). It is quite amazing that the Beatles could reach a stage at that time (1966) wherein the experimental – yes, electroacoustic – sounds of “Tomorrow Never Knows” could flower and bloom – right at the center of popular music! I wonder how far they could have gone if they’d picked up on this thread and continued working electroacoustically. Unfortunately, this song was about as far as they would go in that direction.

Track 4 again is a Malcolm Goldstein entry; “concerning melody” for violin & percussion (1998) (13:14).
Goldstein’s commentary: “The music focuses on the process of transformation, beginning with three activities (sounding of source-textures, interjections and ‘Renga’ interplay relationships) from which varieties of timbre-texture melodies evolve. It is an improvisation format in which two musicians, performing two very different sounding instruments, move into a field that incorporates individual lines of exploration, as well as the common ground of ensemble interplay. It is a music in which sound becomes noise and noise becomes melody. It is dedicated to Matthias Kaul.”
Kaul’s commentary: “The piece [‘concerning melody’] is an improvisational structure with three elements. One is to build up sound fields from which melodies can be developed. A second one is called ‘Renga’ activity, referring to a Japanese way of creating poetry with two or more participants. One starts, another picks up and leads the poem further, the next person picks up, and so forth. The third element could be described as a kind of counterpoint, but more like an accompaniment.”

Metal screeches weave in and out of a general direction, in high pitches of factory skeletons and iron railings in frictional caresses. Kaul pushes brownish-grayish drum patterns into the factory, and leaves them there in the half dark of a recession close down, banging the door shut, letting whatever happens happen inside those large halls of destructive constructivism. Goldstein climbs the brick walls with his violin, sticking it in where ever he can find a crack, and soon he’s high up in the shadows under the dark ceiling. His instrument gives off a fragmented, minute violin mimicry, in which the tones turn on themselves in an autoimmune disorder of the audio, in much grave beauty of dread and despair.
Dark Kaul sounds murmur as a backdrop for Goldstein’s insect-hopping string-plucks. Goldstein provides a rugged, harsh surface for the fiddling fauns to stick their crooked claws, as they rise in myriads out of the corners and well up across the walls, infesting all sane thoughts with sickening perversions… Ah, this feels so hostile, but beautiful nonetheless…

Matthias Kaul is next with “Last! Movement” for violin & percussion (1997) (16:57), which is the longest piece of the set.
Kaul’s commentary: “Walking the seaside I once saw fine blades of sea grass washed to the shore by the water, now lying on the beach, frozen in their final movements, appearing like alien writing – so the piece is a kind of metamorphosis from a very wet to a very dry situation.”

A hardly detectible dark ring moves like a turboprop plane above the nocturnal clouds, off and away, beyond the horizon, and the sound reaches you through a crack in the skies, like dark, vicious fingers of a demonic creature which can get inside your mind at any time… and you’d better put the pillow over your head and not let your feet stick out below the blanket…
The ringing moves closer in cloudy timbres, dark, thick, dense… threatening, unavoidable – as the violin paints calligraphic signs on your forehead.
The dark rumbling sounds from Matthias Kaul’s percussion sound like some ongoing, hypnotic sound installation by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in their Manhattan Dream House, or like some long, thin wire project by Alvin Lucier, and the curvature of Goldstein’s violin moves like a Costaeu submarine plant life, dancing in a slow, erotic emphasis across the inside of your eyelids until your fingertips glow and tremble…
It gets very loud at times. The intensity of the volume moves back and forth like the dunes of the ocean, speaking of a storm that has died down below the horizon…
Kaul’s percussion sounds like something that is electronically achieved, but it’s not. He has set something in a vibrating motion, and the dark, ominous ring spreads concentrically, making your anatomy vibrate sympathetically… You could get lost in this dark vibration.
As the heavy timbres cease, a crunchy, chewing, saliva-running event in an oral cavity atmosphere rounds things off, and the violin just creaks a little…

The concluding sixth piece on the CD is a joint composition by Malcolm Goldstein and Matthias Kaul; “good mourning, moon” for violin, hurdy gurdy & percussion (1999) (10:56).
Kaul’s commentary: “the piece [‘good mourning, moon’] is a slightly altered quotation from Jimi Hendrix’s song ‘Hush Now!’, a collaboration between Hendrix and Curtis Knight, where the phrase ‘good morning moon, good evening sun’ occurs. This piece normally constitutes the end of our duo concerts [Kaul & Goldstein].
(Holy smoke! I made up this pun years ago [good mourning], and now I find I wasn't the only one...)

This moves ever so slightly, though soon hinting at rougher circumstances, as instrumental sounds similar to electric charges from a faulty wire or a badly crashed bumble bee vibrating its wings against a tin can lid in a waste basket emerge and whisk around through dusty kitchen corners… Some sounds make me think about a not fully grown dijeridoo, or maybe a spinning top spiraling away like a gyro towards the edge of the table, with a child’s fascinated and concentrated gaze glued onto its movement…
Eventually this rather transparent music fills up into a very dense grove of violin and hurdy gurdy, which you’d need a machete to cut through. You’re stuck in this swamp, entangled in root systems and bit by mosquitoes…

This is a brilliant CD, and I sincerely hope it will be released commercially soon. I feel unduly privileged to be able to hear it any time, and would like the public to be able to purchase it freely. Perhaps we could talk for example Mode Records or Wergo into involving themselves. We do deal with a couple of the most talented musicians of our time here! Matthias Kaul and Malcolm Goldstein make an ingenuous duo, capable of surprise and pure sensual auditory pleasure!

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ADDITION 2004: Indeed this magnificent sound work has now been commercially and officially released by NURNICHTNUR, to which we bow and give ample praise!!!