pf027: Erich Steiger – Avant Forte

nathan — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:17:50 +0000

MP3 ZIP DOWNLOAD HERE

Erich Steiger floated into my purview during a hazy period and almost as quickly as he appeared…I was gone. Moving just down the way but into a whole different scene and having different experiences. As time began to strip away the refuse from our lives Erich’s creative contributions and intentions became more and more clear. Mr. Steiger’s growing expertise lies in his ability to survive the stripping away of excess and to emerge clear and intoxicating through the distillation of audio. Whether it be culling through hours of improvisation for those gems and then polishing them up or taking a finished product and proving it is not quite done yet by adding subtle but astonishing final touches…it is this distillation process I keep finding Erich through.

Erich’s name has cropped up recently on many recording sessions and concert recordings happening at the 2640 space in Baltimore, MD. He keeps himself pretty busy these days doing mastering and recording for a variety of different projects as well as his own trio HMS. However he found some moments to send over this mysterious work he calls Avant Forte. An absolutely massive collection of 34 tracks documenting piano improvisation. Recorded under the radar and without authorization at facilities at a local college these recordings find Mr. Steiger feeling right at home. The tension I expected to hear given the recording environment are nowhere to be found, in fact he must have taken his time just given the sheer number of these tracks!

Numbers and location aside the stripping away and distillation I have come to appreciate so much about Mr. Steiger is evident here. Many a musician has sat down in front of the piano and hammered out improvisation covering wide ground from slow and somber all the way to jumping inside the beast and plucking at it’s soul therefore we must look past these simple physical facts and look at the man and his intentions. If one were to sit in a trio with Erich it would be clear right away what can be appreciated in his playing, his approach to guitar carries over seamlessly to the piano and sparks excitement.

Since all of you reading this are not so lucky as to have these trio sessions I will again march back around to his process. He finds the right moments and lines them up for you. When there is a moment missing he plucks it from his pocket and presents it to you. And when you have taken too many moments he takes one back with force. Tracks 4 and 5 speak to these actions with the most clarity. Tracks 2,4 and 5 are what I like to call “Pure Steiger”. After track 5 it becomes difficult for me to assign adjectives to the tracks or provide a sober recollection of them…I become lost in the sea and am not scared of drowning.

My suggestion for how to digest such a lengthy collection is to just suck it up….Stop living your life so quickly and take the time…I don’t care if you have to put it on your damn ipod and listen to it on your useless subway ride…bring this thing into your life.

It should be noted this was recorded onto a VCR at the York College of Pennsylvania (located of course in York, PA) on April 3, 2003.There was a previous session with Ira & Victoria Schneider and Erich, which led to this solo session that was recorded a couple weeks later. They hatched the idea to invade to York College music rooms, and use the baby grand. A couple weeks after that first recording with them he returned to YCP, to capture some solo expressions.

You can find more of Erich’s work here:
Antilog
Bandcamp

pf022: HMS – Resolution

nathan — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:07:31 +0000

Art by Mike Homer

Audio

Download the ZIP

FLAC and more available at Archive.org

Download audio file (01Ockham.mp3)
Download audio file (02Amphion.mp3)
Download audio file (03Ithuriel.mp3)
Download audio file (04Arc-en-Ciel.mp3)
Download audio file (05Oracle.mp3)

1. Ockham
2. Amphion
3. Ithuriel (Leviathan)
4. Arc-en-Ciel
5. Oracle

About HMS

It is a humid and roasted evening in 2003…Mid summer in York,PA somewhere on Linden avenue…A now vacated place where creativity and home brew flowed with equal importance and strength for many years with the vastly creative Peter Richards at the helm….It was here that I first met Erich Steiger…a friendship that would have an ebb and flow not much different than the small brook that ran behind my house growing up….At times clear and fresh….teeming with life….Other times but a trickle…A gouge in the earth to let you know it is still alive and waiting to be replenished…Over the years we would come together on projects such as mastering or just a social event and for months at a time be in and out of communication…

By 2009 a project called Loud & Sad with Joe Houpert had become an all encompassing life project…We needed someone to give us proper recordings of piano and Erich was the logical choice…Some months later we were at Baltimore at Erich’s antilog compound working on those piano mixes and adding some tape layers when HMS was born through a late Friday night improvisation…. HMS has allowed Joe and I to completely step out form our sometimes preconceived placements in Loud & Sad to explore completely new places…higher grounds and hidden passages that lined the cliffs we were climbing as Loud & Sad but had not yet taken the time to explore…With Erich as our guide and new participant we proudly present to you these new places….

The artwork for this release was provided by Mike Homer, current director of the david kordansky gallery, who has been a friend of loud & sad related projects for a long time. Mike shared this work with me as he was creating it and after seeing it in person on his bedroom wall I knew it was the right fit. Please download the ZIP for a full size version!

pandafuzz.com » HMS

pf027: Erich Steiger – Avant Forte

pf022: HMS – Resolution

Audio

About HMS