To keep up to date on the ookoi's b.ookoi's progress and all related events and activities, follow Stduio on Bandcamp!

[ b.ookoi (i) | (ii) | 019 | 131 | 138 | 178 | 284 | 329 | 419 | 506 | 507 | 562 | 624 | 664 | 789 | 793 | 954 | b.ookoipera]

6 min read 🤓

Awesome Foursomes (iv - No. 793)

august 20, 2021

« Because the sounds evoke words, and the words do the sounds, round and round and round and rounds... »

No. 793

1. No News, Strange Rumours [The Young Lions​]

This short instrumental gem gave nothing but its name to the collection of the Young Lions' only ever studio recordings, six tracks in total, laid down one—let's say it was a bright—day in April 1980 in the Ballad Studio in Vuren, a village in the Dutch province of Gelderland. They were subsequently released as a 12-inch vinyl EP on Wally van Middendorp's groundbreaking Plurex label: 'No News, Strange Rumours' (Plurex 0013).
As is written in the psalms, to the chief Musician: « The Young Lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. » There're a lot of Young Lions in the Book, so this may not have been exactly the bible quote that inspired the title of Irwin Shaw's novel (which in turn gave rise to the movie starring Marlon Brando et al. wherefrom the band got its name), but it does capture pretty accurately how we felt; at least for a while we did.
In the second part of Joseph Conrad's novella 'Heart of Darkness' you may read: « The two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance. I heard: ‘Military post—doctor—two hundred miles—quite alone now—unavoidable delays—nine months—no news—strange rumours’ » ...
As a textual sample this never made it to the status of song lyrics, but its message remained. As the title of our Plurex release, and as a text-score and title for the music in this recording, consisting in a number of interweaving, continuously repeating, minimal phrases, played by Rob Scholte on his electric bongo's, Ronald Heiloo on electric piano; electric guitars, distortions... maybe it was a direct-onto-cassette recording, or recorded 'sound-on-sound' on FPCM's Akai reel-to-reel recorder in very early 1979 (when the Lions still were called The Case, and did not yet include Har$ as a fifth player)... maybe yes, maybe no, it's difficult to tell for sure now, shrouded as all got in the mists of time past.
This No News, Strange Rumours is a re-mastered version of the track that originally was part of a cassette compilation of recordings made at various occasions in the years 1979-1980, released in 1982 on the Amphibious Records label, that I started together with ex-Lions Tim Benjamin and Ronald Heiloo.

2. Tafel 15 [ookoi]

During our May 2004 residency on the Dutch isle of Ameland, as part of Timo Mank's Archipel Medialab's 'Treasure Island', the ookoi were joined by PARK4DTV artists Martin Takken and Dick Tuinder. Dick and Martin concentrated on the creation of a series of short video works. But they also actively contributed to some of the many audio recording sessions we did, the results of which provided the material for our Tafelmuziek / Muziektafel (2004) CD.
'Tafel 15' is the seventh track on the album. You will hear straight electric guitar sounds only, just vibrating lines made of metal, with no effects, in a hooky and choppy miniature that stays almost painfully bare. Which accounts for its intriguing sort of naïve neo- or maybe even meta-primitivist feel. It lasts no more than a bit over 50 seconds, and prominently features the only (no exaggeration) handful of notes that Dick Tuinder played on FPCM's guitar during that spring week in 2004 on Ameland.
Dick also cut the lino inside the booklet that accompanies the CD release of Tafelmuziek / Muziektafel (2004).

3. Sally A GoGo [ookoi, feat. Heesbeen​​]

Little Sally Dewinter is the protagonist in Dick Tuinder’s feature film Winterland, that premiered in 2009 at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht. The ookoi were commissioned to contribute to that movie’s soundtrack, and as part of the process they decided to create a ‘global score’, which consisted in the rendering of a selection of their ‘Winterland - Project Icarus’ recording sessions (‘Project Icarus’ is the title of the movie within the movie that the ookoi wrote their 'second order sound track' for) as a genuine folded cardboard organ book, that could be played back and manipulated turning the wheel or handle of a street organ. It is how Sally helped them make an old dream come true: be organ grinders!
They could be heard and seen cranking the small Heesbeen street organ that they borrowed from the Museum Speelklok, manipulating their 'Project Icarus' organ book—slowing it down and speeding it up, without raising or lowering the tone, demonstrating that in all its simplicity a street organ is a genuine analogue timestretch machine, also capable of reversing the playback in a jiffy, literally in a handomdraai, without a glitch—during their elaborate 8 hour long live multimedia performance and showcase at the Amsterdam Conservatory on Saturday January 31, 2009, as part of composer and sound researcher Paul Oomen’s E@rport event, where this ‘Sally A GoGo’ was recorded, live.

4. Merging Middleweight [fpcm​​]

This track is the original soundtrack of the brilliantly visionary videoclip made by fpcm in 2015, created from rushes shot in Amsterdam's venerable artists club Arti et Amicitiae on the Rokin. When you watch the clip, note the January 14th 2015 issue (N° 1178) of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo sticking out of fpcm's bag. That's the magazine's issue released a mere week after the infamous murderous attack that hit Charlie Hebdo's Paris editorial offices on January 7th that year. The camera swirls around the ookoi that started—thinking and talking about—writing b.ookoi as long as—now— six years ago, when Korg Gadget was an inspiring music tool on the iPad, not in the least due to its random title generator: fpcm stretched 'Merging Lightweight' to 'Middleweight'.
The song sounds as a wobblingly energetic up-tempo avant-garde synth-tune played backwards. In reverse. That of course is a more than appropriate sonic metaphor for the ookoi's b.ookoi writing, seen as an object, as an architecture emerging from the concatenation of its parts, for all history is a possible future told backwards (you will experience the actual physical b.ookoi, however, as something time-based, as music, taste-able fully only in the moment, rather than view-able from afar).
The in real-time changing of the parameters of the gadget's several knobs during live playback was the tipping point for this short piece. Though in no way related to a recording of one of the ookoi's many live sessions, 'Merging Middleweight' feels as if it were derived straight from one of these. Like singalong sound sculpting. Like Hefferman and Peterman instant composing. In Second Life. Or maybe Third L, Fourth L, or who knows Whichst L.

To receive updates on the ookoi's b.ookoi's progress and all related events and activities, follow Stduio on Bandcamp!

Bandcamp is our preferred platform, but you can also listen to Stduio ookoi's No. 793 on streaming music platforms, like YouTube Music or Spotify ... :

The b.ookoi are coming!

—wordt vervolgd—

---

Follow @soundblog

tags: ookoi, b.ookoi

# .511.