SAUVAGES INNOCENTS
Hopek Quirin & Anton Mobin
Middle Eight Recordings, 2017
AABA#09, 100 copies
Recorded live at Epsilonia radio show on Radio Libertaire, Paris on 2015 August 21.
Mixed by Anton Mobin in Paris.
Mastered by Kris Limbach at Emitter19 in Berlin.
Hopek Quirin (de)
bass, effects, microcassettes
soundcloud.com/hopek
Anton Mobin (fr)
modulable pocket chamber
antonmobin.blogspot.fr
01. Congestion de la perturbalité
02. Le cri-néant
03. Luxure grammaticaire
04. Antillectuel
05. Humaine capabilité
06. Circonstances accidentielles
07. Résonance laxiste
This live recording is a radio program broadcasted live after the direct part of Epsilonia radio show (
epsilonia-radio.blogspot.fr/2015/08/epsilonia-20-aout-hopek-quirin-bsf.html), during the night which is called "Bande sans fin" (endless tape). This show was dedicated to sonic activities of Hopek Quirin since the 70's; a kind of active retrospective of the artist.
This album provides from an one hour session and it just has been edited in sort of obtain several tracks. Edited later and mixed by Anton Mobin, each title provide from an idea of Hopek Quirin to use neologisms and absurd combinations of opposite words (as "Le cri-néant). I think it comes from a talk with Hopek that he wanted to say something in german had no translation in english and ever in french, when he said "perturbalité". That word was the beginning of a long and cerebral search to find seven titles!
However, the titles are bizarre and / or illegible, so we chose to write them in phonetic, as well as the text of hopek inside the cover. And in the tradition of the Polish posters that I particularly like, phonetics makes these titles very graphic in this mainly lettered composition. A kind of tribute since "Hopek" siginifies "little boy" in Polish!
And what about this title "Sauvages Innocents"? Well I think it came from me, working on the cover, when my various tests of pasting newspaper, collages and then manual scan with a ruler have oriented the visual of this release to a ultra-graphic lettering with those big black letters that let you guess the two words "Sauvages" and "innocents". After discussion with Hopek and also in memories of the feeling of this radio session, we found this title perfectly reflects our music, and IF the music seems wild, we are totally innocent! And then there is always in improvised music some moments that may seem, both to the listener and also from the point of view of the musician, somewhat wild, or ill-suited or just awkward and I think all this is an innocent act; as the musician naturally don't wish to shock his audience. And then there is for me behind this title a sweetness, a deep desire to stick close and fits closer to what we are Hopek and I, without ever betraying ourselves or betraying the other in the game; an unconscious dosage between our personalities and our music.
This live recordings gathers also many "premières fois" at the same time that really deserve for us to be engraved on a disc.
First time i played live during my own radio show as it was a rule in between the team of Epsilonia when i was there; as possible, no host play live during the show. For that night i wanted to transgress this rule. First time also i bring all my gears to record the session.
First time ever i played with someone this special instrument called "Pocket Chamber" (chambre de poche :
antonmobin.blogspot.fr/2015/10/chambre-de-poche-pocket-chamber.html), which is modulable with different sized springs and cymbals mainly with bowed effects. I released a studio solo on cassette or a part of a diary or a sound study as an opening edition of the label (aaba#01 :
middleeightrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/ne-pas-presser-aaba-01).
Built in a very little wooden cigar box with two big contact-mics inside, two entries left-righ channels with in objects, cymbals, springs i manipulated inside the box. A miniaturized "Prepared Chamber"! (pics) which sounds very more tough, abrasive and industrial than my "traditional" ones.
Definitively the first time Hopek and me played live in duo, as our first studio album was a trio with Kris Limbach, on Emitter micro (em03 :
emittermicro.com/em-003/). A live recording in Paris of this trio with Kris on video has been released on Amp-recs (amp140 :
www.amp-recs.com/amp/amp140.html). One album exists on H.A.K. of the duo in a studio recording engineered by Kris Limbach in Berlin (hak252 :
haklofirecord.bandcamp.com/album/hak252-drag-out-thee-oblivion).
De facto, it was important to have Kris Limbach involved with us in the making of the release and we proposed him to mastering the music what he did at Emitter19 studios in Berlin in October 2016; which is very symbolic for me since Emitter19 is the place of my first love in Berlin and my first encounters with Kris in 2009 and Hopek in 2012.
And second time Hopek played my Washburn xr-400 active green bass with a full range of analog pedals plus voices and noises played on diktaphone right on the pickup !
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Hopek Quirin (Berlin/de)
Musician, opponent, member of AADK and Classwar Karaoke,, Hopek works regularly with 6 or 7, abq, Madzaru, and has been working closely with Jochen Arbeit since the 1980s, as witnessed by the trios "Die Ich's" with Rainer Winkelvoss and "The Notorious Heffel Bros." with Thomas Thomas Wydler or even actually with Jochen Arbeit's soundscapes.
emittermicro.com
soundcloud.com/hopek
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REVIEW by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg on Orynx :
orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.fr/2018/01/ivo-perelman-matthew-shipp-nate-wooley.html