PBK- Listening To The World Vibrate, 1995

PBK:

"Today's offering is my 1995 release: "Listening To The World Vibrate". There were several well known experimental music colleagues of mine who did not appreciate what I was doing with the sort of music collected on this release. Asmus Tietchens, whom I had already collaborated with on "Five Manifestoes", could not use the source material I gave him at this time, he found it unworkable. Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, expressed a lot of reservations about this music as well. One guy who got it, however, was John Wiggins. Wiggins understood what I was attempting and we proceeded to collaborate together on some things in this vein (which I'll post later on).

And what was I attempting? I was looking for a sound which I heard in my head as a futuristic kind of free jazz. The elements are there- rhythmic patterns, solos, even choruses, but they are abstract and in the end don't sound much like any jazz music I've ever heard. In retrospect, I think I was creating a rather unusual form of "glitch" electronica. Oval's first album came out in 1993, Terre Thaemlitz's in '94, Pan Sonic's in '95. I was unaware of of these artists at the time, yet it seems like our concurrent aesthetics were sort of in the same line of thought. They exemplified a way of (ab)using musical/computer equipment in extreme ways to create new sound sources.

"Listening To The World Vibrate" sounds very little like anything else being done at the time. It is isolationist in the extreme, which makes sense to me since it was composed while I lived in Puerto Rico where there was no "noise" scene (at the time) and I felt very disconnected from the dominant music there. The track 'Common Language', my tribute to David Tudor, was re-released on the "System-Music-End" CD for RRR's Pure label in 1995."

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http://rapidshare.com/files/158987415/PBK-Listening_To_The_World_Vibrate_1995_MP3___Covers.zip

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PBK & Vidna Obmana- Depression And Ideal, 1989

PBK:

"Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, contacted me in 1988 after hearing my "Die Brucke" and "Asesino" cassette releases. Each album included some of my ambient music, which he took note of, and invited me to submit some tracks to an ambient music comp. he was producing for his label, The Decade Collection. We traded sound-sources via mail and he quickly released the collaborative cassette, "Monument Of Empty Colours", which has since been reissued on CD by the Projekt label. By the time I met Serries in-person when he visited the U.S. the next year, he had turned away from his past "power electronics" approach for good and had now become completely immersed in ambient music. We performed concerts together in the San Francisco Bay area and he spent a week working in my home studio on his first solo album in the new style.

Every electronic musician knows that their own instrumental configuration is personal and results in a unique sound, but Serries returned to Belgium and later informed me that he had purchased a number of the instruments he'd used in my studio and was now using a system I had taught him to create his own music. Even though I felt ripped off, I was driven to find a way to reconfigure my studio and bring a new dimension to my music, even if it meant a complete change of direction. I finished using the Vidna Obmana source material I had and released my own tape, titled "Depression And Ideal". As much as I liked the results of this collaboration, the project never gained any momentum. Serries didn't seem to like it much, which was largely the reason I didn't promote it, even though I remember it receiving good reviews.

The original recording was on metal cassette and here I've edited and re-mastered these compositions to a much more detailed sound. Quite different from Vidna Obmana's solo work, these are like large abstract paintings with masses of slow moving sounds, fluxing waves of electrons, and an industrial edge that Serries' own work seems to have intentionally forgone. Good for late-night listening and best listened to loudly where the waves of textures are very powerful."

REVIEW: "Much of this electronics tape struck me as prologue: waves of majestic sound which seemed poised to break into faster themes but instead led into other waves of majestic sound. In tone, the music reminds me of the acid trip sequence in 2001, though there are no vocals here. Ponderous and intense." Factsheet Five

Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, collaborated with PBK on his first all-ambient cassette release, titled "Monument Of Empty Colours".

Serries working with the complex arrangement of synths, sequencers, and effects at the California studio of PBK. Most of Vidna Obmana's first solo album was composed there.

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http://rapidshare.com/files/153145444/PBK___Vidna_Obmana-Depression_And_Ideal.zip

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PBK- Headmix, 1997

PBK:

"This is the companion piece to "The Mescaline Tracks". Both albums were produced in 1997, both were influenced by the electronica scene of the time and, maybe moreso, by the psychedelic experiences I was submitting myself to. Working with my cousin, Artemis K, on the Acclimate industrial project, I became sort of disenchanted with "programmed" rhythms and in my solo work began utilizing turntables in unusual ways to create different kinds of "free" rhythms. In the mid 90's I had heard drum'n'bass music, but I knew a lot of these musicians were really just cutting up jazz breaks, re-sequencing them, speeding them up, etc. It sounded great, but I was more interested in abstract, or free percussion: rhythms that didn't exactly keep time. So, a lot of my turntable use, in these recordings, is to find rhythmic actions that punctuate the musical sentences, or float around within the composition acting as another part of the sonic fabric."

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http://rapidshare.com/files/153073468/PBK-Headmix_1997.zip

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PBK & Artemis K (Acclimate)- Dreams Into Dust, 2000

PBK:

"In 1996 I began working with cousin, Michael Kowalski (aka Artemis K), in a duo project we would come to call Acclimate. Artemis' role in this group was a more typical industrial approach, based on his love of Wax Trax style music, using sound-bites and heavy rhythms, while I improvised drones and noises around his rhythmic sequences.

We made quite a splash at The Experiences Festival in Paris, France that year, later playing the Knitting Factory in New York City and further concerts in our home-base of Flint, Michigan. From 1996 to '98 Acclimate performed on the same stage with such artists as Kid606, Schimpfluch-Gruppe, Toy Bizarre, Lesser, ConDemek and many others. Yet in spite of our résumé, we never had a proper official release in the time we worked together. I was disillusioned with the rhythmic elements in our music; I never cared much for straight industrial electro beats which I felt were too stiff, and I kept asking for what I called "cracked" rhythms. I realize, in retrospect, that what I was seeking was a more IDM based approach to rhythm, but I couldn't characterize it properly at the time.

Artemis and I stopped working together in 1999 as I focused more of my time on my collaborations with Ernest Carter in Mulatto Experience and our free jazz group, the 4/4 Quartet, see the "Ode To Sony'r" album below. But in November 2000, Artemis and I met up once more and recorded live improvisational sessions at his home studio. These stunning tracks are now available here for the first time. Artemis drops in his usual film sound-bites here and there, but the rhythms have changed, they're more textural and morphing, only occasionally do those harder electro beats emerge yet the overall tone is still distinctly industrial. This would be the last time we worked together as animosity soon grew over Artemis' mischaracterization of my role in Acclimate, and the later release of the "Miscreant" CD, which used some of our collaborative tracks without permission or credit to my contributions."

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http://rapidshare.com/files/151297163/PBK___Artemis_K_Acclimate-Dreams_Into_Dust.zip

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PBK & Guillermo Gregorio with De Fenestra- Chicago Pieces, 2005

PBK:

"In September of 2005 I toured with Will Soderberg and Uncle Dave Lewis as De Fenestra. A short mid-western jaunt, we hit a few spots, did a radio show, and also performed in Chicago on 9/11 with Hat Art recording artist, Dr. Guillermo Gregorio. This is a fantastic recording and precisely what I had been seeking in this group, a mixture of free jazz and free-form electronics. Uncle Dave's guitar never sounded better than here and he meshes quite nicely with Guillermo's clarinet tactics. Guillermo is obviously a master of the avant garde and his contributions work the whole range of possible sonic vocabulary: clicks and pops, high pitch squeals, drones, melodicism, etc.

We performed the concert for the AC Improvised Music Series (hosted by Vadim Sprikut) in a loft apartment in front of an audience of about 15 people. It seems a shame that this was never properly released as it is obviously a wonderful example of free improvisation. Where, on occasion, this configuration of De Fenestra could be quite over-the-top, here we were very careful and restrained. There even seems to be a sort of melancholic quality to this music, best exemplified by the beautiful interlude at approximately 8:30 on track number 4. (perhaps the reason for this is because of the resonance of the date it was recorded on?) The fabric of experimentalism was never woven any better in this group than on this particular recording, which I've titled "Chicago Pieces", and I'm proud to present it here... Enjoy!"


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http://rapidshare.com/files/152350304/PBK_De_Fenestra___Guillermo_Gregorio.zip

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