Henry Kuntz | IINFIINIITY

“Multi-track recordings have been an essential means of expression for me since 1989. Within pieces that are unique in sound, multi-cultural context, and instrumental combination, I’ve been able to showcase and synthesize those musical elements that are most important to me: independence of line, textural complexity, and equality of instrumentation and mix, The process of multi-track creation has been an ongoing musical exploration and experiment, the results of which have consistently surprised and delighted me. I hope you enjoy listening.”Henry Kuntz (March 2010)

Original Recordings & Mix by Henry Kuntz. Digital Master by Michael Zelner. Photos by Henry Kuntz. Label by Paul Kuntz. Humming Bird CDR 3 – C & P Humming Bird Records 2010 – All Rights Reserved

IINFIINIITY

Trans-Temporal Trans-Spatial Multi-track Creations

1. Critical Density (19:58) Soprano recorder, Balinese & Thai wood xylophones, drums & percussion recorded July 15, 1995; tenor saxophone recorded February 8, 2007. (First released on Speed of Culture Light Cassette Box, Dreamtime Tapes, 2007.)

2. Double 8 Bird (3:30) Hand drum, fetish gongs (Togo), balafon (Mali) recorded September 23, 2009; rhaita (Morocco) recorded August 26, 2001.

3. Grandfather Grasshopper (4:19) Two large bamboo xylophones (Bali), balafon (Mali) recorded September 23, 2009; soprano recorder & Nepalese bamboo flute (played together) recorded August 26,2001.

4. Grandmother Spider (3:23) Wood xylophone (Bali), slit drum (Guatemala), Thai wood xylophone recorded September 23, 2009; Hollowed-out log violin (Mexico) recorded August 26, 2001.

5. Islands to Highlands…the New Polyphonic Orchestra (4:59) Nepalese & Balinese bamboo flutes (played together), two Guatemalan bamboo flutes (played together), Bolivian bass flute recorded October 10, 2009; rhaita (Morocco) recorded August 26, 2001.

6. IINFIINIITY (13:18) Center tenor saxophone, left & right Tibetan bowls recorded August 26, 2001; Left and right tenor saxophones recorded September 23, 2009.

HENRY KUNTZ – IINFIINIITY (CDR by Humming Bird)

This new album by mister Kuntz is subtitled “Trans-Temporal Trans-Spatial Multi-track Creations”. It clearly points at what is happening here. For Kuntz multi tracking is not some necessary evil. On the contrary, for him it is an essential way of composing music. In all compositions on “Iinfiiniity” Kuntz uses old recordings from his archive, and combines them with new presently added playing. There is a time gap of about eight in most pieces. And maybe recordings were done at different places as well as the subtitle suggests. This procedure is like a dialogue with oneself. Kuntz the improvisor in 2001 or 1995 is not Kuntz the improvisor in 2009. Another combination that is relevant for Kuntz is shown by his use of asian and african wind and percussion instruments on the one hand, and western ones on the other. But it is not only the use of exotic instruments that give his improvisation an exotic flavor. It is also because of the way Kuntz structures his improvisations that his music has similarities with ethnic and tribal music. Again an inspiring and original work from this veteran improvisor. (DM) http://www.vitalweekly.net/741.html

Buy Henry Kuntz – IINFIINIITY – Humming Bird CDR 3 (CD or MP3) here…

HENRY KUNTZ

MULTI-TRACK DISCOGRAPHY

1989 – WHIRLS AWAY (HBT 007 Cassette)

1. Whirls Away (23:10)
2. Spirit Whirls (21:02)
3. New Peace (22:33)
4. Shadow Peace (22:57)

Instruments include Balinese gamelan and gamelan selunding, Balinese wood and bamboo xylophones, African balafon (Mali) and “fetish” gongs (Togo), Mexican Indian violin, Chinese musette, Bolivian bass flute, Thai mouth organ, voice.

1990 – HOME (AT) THE RANGE (HBT 008 Cassette, Side B)

1. Sea Smoke (Fire) (14:19)
2. Nebulous Night, Mythic Gardens (13:46)

Instruments include Thai and Balinese wood xylophones, Balinese gamelans, African balafon (Mali), Chinese musette.

1991 – TOTAL MUSIC 1 (HBT 009 Cassette)

1. Jangle of Shadows, Jungle of Hearts: A Leaping Flame’s Embrace (14:45) 2. Untouched Sound, Unfound Black Green Nights, Revel of Unknown Life’s Delights (14:43) 3. Swimming Through Burnt Red Coral in Deep Turquoise Waters (Naked), Schools of Sparkling Goldfish, Dash of Angel Fish (17:25) 4. Sands Shift, Continents Drift, Tides Ebb and Flow, Hot Winds Blow; Night Falls and I Am Alone in the Forest. (Morning Brings Snow.) (12:05)

TOTAL MUSIC 2 (HBT 010 Cassette)

1. Sacred Burial Ground, Wherein Lie the Bones of the Most Wise (14:30) 2. Iridescent Dawn Follows Nightlong Singing and Dancing (Sun and Moon in the Same Sky (15:01) 3. Earth Mother Cries and Sends Love to Her Children. All Creation Hears Her… For A Moment (10:52) 4. Elephant Herds, Flights of Wild Birds (18:26)

Instruments include Balinese and Javanese gamelans, Balinese wood and bamboo xylophones, African balafon (Mali), Balinese and Bolivian bamboo flutes, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, Mexican Indian violins, thumb pianos.

1992 – ON THE PATH OF DARKNESS IS THE WAY OF LIGHT (HBT 011Cassette, Side B)

1. A Butterfly Awakens, Fulfilled Wonder Filled With Wonder Spreading Its Delicately Jeweled Wings (14:15))
2. (Silver Heavens) The Lands Where Snakes Are Honored (14:31)

Instruments include Balinese and Javanese gamelans, Mexican Indian violin, Nepalese bamboo flute, Balinese bamboo xylophone, Thai wood xylophone.

THE FREEWAY IMPROV COMPILATION TAPE

1. and somewhere SOUND OF LIGHT we require PASSING what silence requires (4:32)

Instruments include Balinese and Javanese gamelans, Balinese wood xylophone.

1993 – PLACELESS TIMELESS 1 (HBT 012 Cassette)

1. Earthly Pleasures, Songs from the Forest (21:00)
2. Demons and Deities + DIVINE HEROES (20:27)

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PLACELESS TIMELESS 2 (HBT 013 Cassette)

1. Dew Silk Flowers (14:39)
2. Nighttime Spirits Come (Jaguar, Starfish, Python, and Eagle): Growth of Water Lilies (7:50) (also on Speed of Culture Light cassette box)
3. Time Was When JAZZ Began… (20:14)

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PLACELESS TIMELESS 3 (HBT 014 Cassette)

1. The Five Directions (22:10)
2. Reaping the Harvest, Replanting the Seed (22:26)

Instruments include Balinese and Javanese gamelans and wood and bamboo xylophones, Thai and African wood xylophones, Tibetan bowls and bell, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, Indian snake charmer’s flute, Mexican Indian violin, assorted drums and percussion.

1994 – THE MAGIC OF MYSTERY (HBT 016 Cassette / foxglove cdr 087)

1. The Magic Of Mystery (13:27)
2. Giants And Genies (14:05)
3. The Memory Of Meeting In Ancestral Dreams (15:21)
4. Knowing Without Knowing Where The Wind Blows (15:14)

Instruments include tenor saxophone; Chinese musette; Thai, Nepalese and Bolivian bamboo flutes; Thai, Balinese, and African wood xylophones; Balinese and Javanese gamelans; Tibetan bowls; assorted drums, gongs, and percussion.

1995 – SPEED OF CULTURE LIGHT (2007 dreamtime tapes cassette box)

1. Fancy Glance (12:37)
2. She Emerged From the Confluence of Two Rivers (9:28)
3. 6 Track Angels (20:06)
4. Critical Density (19:58) (1995 & 2007) (also on IINFIINIITY)

Instruments include tenor saxophone, soprano recorder, Balinese and Javanese gamelans, Chinese musette, Balinese wood and bamboo xylophones, Balinese bamboo flute, various drums and percussion.

2006 – WAYANG SAXOPHONY SHADOW SAXOPHONE (HB CD 6)
Tenor of the Times (Four Tenors)

(1) Storm of Honey (11:38)
(2) Silver Serpent of Justice (8:33)

Instruments include four tenor saxophones.

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2005-2008 – WHIRLING SUN VISIONS (HB CDR 1)

1. Celestial Forest (9:06) (also on Speed of Culture Light cassette box) 2. Solar Sonic 1(4:43) 3. Solar Sonic 2(4:07) 4. Solar Sonic 3(4:12) 5. Ele-Fantasia (3:58) 6. DreamSong 1(9:10) 7. DreamSong 2(6:40) 8. Gods Within (6:01) (also on Speed of Culture Light cassette box) 9. Whirling Sun Visions (4:58)

Instruments include tenor saxophone, Balinese and Javanese gamelans, Balinese bamboo xylophones, Balinese and Thai wood xylophones, African balafon (Mali), Guatamalan chirimia, Mexican Indian violin, voice.


Placeless Timeless

Upcoming Performance | May 23, 2012 | Subterranean Arthouse, 2179 Bancroft Way, Berkeley CA | 9:00 PM …just after sunset

Henry presents

“Placeless Timeless”, a mixed media show utilizing a hundred slide images taken over 30 years from places around the world that suggest a mythical and archetypical life-cycle construct that has at its center humans’ timeless quest to interact, relate with, and comprehend our place in the universe. Henry provides an improvised instrumental counterpoint using small percussion, Mexican Indian violin, flute, Moroccan rhaita, tenor saxophone & voice.

Also Appearing: Matt Ingalls: extended clarinet with Ken Ueno: extended voice.


click the banner above to visit the Subterranean Arthouse web page…


Photo by Matt Ingalls

Photo Feature: California Pomo Dance

Photo Feature: California Pomo Dance

In his extraordinary book, The Ohlone Way (Heyday Books: Berkeley, 1978), Malcolm Margolin chronicles “Indian life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area” as it existed 200 years ago. Drawing on accounts of Spanish explorers and missionaries and a diverse lot of seamen, traders, and adventurers, he creates an astounding multi-layered portrait.

He describes an untamed primal land whose incredible abundance of wildlife amazed even those well-seasoned travelers who first encountered it. It is a land far removed in time from us today. Yet in the descendents of the people of that land there remains an essential and alive cultural and spiritual continuum.

Years ago, friends and I attended Native American “Big Time” celebrations at California’s Indian Grinding Rock State Park. In the traditional roundhouse there, around an open fire, Miwok and Pomo dancers danced continuously for two days and nights.

Roundhouse at Indian Grinding Rock 1989

The character of those dances, highly communal in nature, was remarkably similar to that described in early accounts referenced in The Ohlone Way: the flicker-feather shafts the dancers wore across their foreheads, the double whistles held in the dancers mouths and blown in synchronization with the beat of the dance, the manner of dancing itself, the dance’s accompaniment by singing and the clapping of split-stick rattles.

Leaving the Roundhouse after Dancing 1989

Drawing on an early 1800s narrative by G.H. Langsdorrf, Margolin pieces together an archival depiction that could just as easily be a description of the dance today:

“The men formed a circle, the women formed a second circle behind them, and the dance began. The dancers were stooped slightly at the waist, and they blew through their whistles in short, continuous bursts. Their bodies remained rigid throughout the dance, frozen in the stooped position. Their feet lifted sharply at the knees and stamped down hard against the earth. Their heads made jerky motions from side to side. Dressed in feathers that shook and rattled, blowing through their bird-bone whistles, their heads jerking this way and that, the dancers took on an uncanny resemblance to birds – not ordinary birds that twitter in the willows and oaks, but to the gigantic, black feathered birds of the spirit world…

“The beat never changed, but as time passed it grew more intense… The dance went on for hours, sometimes for a whole day or even longer. The dancers stamped and stamped. They stamped out all sense of time and space, stamped out all thoughts of village life, even stamped out their own inner voices. Dancing for hour after hour they stamped out the ordinary world, danced themselves past the gates of common perception into the realm of the spirit world, danced themselves toward a profound understanding of the universe that only a people can feel who have transcended the ordinary human condition and who find themselves moving in total synchronization with everything around them”

Since the dances we attended in the roundhouse at Indian Grinding Rock were of a similar character, taking place in “sacred time,” no photographs were permitted.

Occasionally, however, dances are done in a public and social setting, and at these times it is possible to photograph the dancers. The photos presented were taken at such an event, the annual Native American Spring Celebration in Santa Rosa, California, in May 2011.

All Photos Copyright 2012 Henry Kuntz Jr.

The photos can best be seen by clicking the first one of the following gallery and then clicking on the right part of the photo to see the next one and so on. You can also easily navigate using the directional arrow buttons of the keyboard.

CLASSIC OPEYE | 2 Discs: Free Downloads!

CLASSIC OPEYE

2 Discs: Free Downloads!

1) SILK!

 

Silk! is a companion release to Moss ’Comes Silk (HB CD 1). It was recorded by engineer Myles Boisen the same two days in September 1995 as the earlier release. It is the only time all of the instruments OPEYE was using in performance were individually miked and recorded in a studio setting.

The music is a perfect complement to that on Moss ’Comes Silk. The flavors of Silk! are more subtle, more understated, but the multi-independent musical form is perhaps stretched even further.

From the notes to Moss ’Comes Silk:

OPEYE’s music is founded upon a new world creative aesthetic: one’s own experiences and background are central, but the fetters of provincial cultures are thrown off — we have all become heir to every tradition: Shared Humanity in all its richness and diversity — and the future is likewise embraced.

Free improvisation, we understand as a non-idiomatic approach to playing — an attitude about what we are doing — which is to say that although we remain attentive to all of our music experience, we are not playing music that is tied by necessity or design to any particular style or idiom.

Spontaneous composition, on the other hand, is the actual organizing of sound material, that which takes place at the beginning and end of each “piece” and in and between the lines of improvisation. It is the notions which formalize newly-created sound and the ways in which that sound is showcased.

Musically, we spoke before these sessions about moving more in the direction of true co-creation: we wanted each player to be as much as possible autonomous while remaining indispensable to the creation of the whole music.

In performance, we also frequently utilize masks, textiles, paintings, and unorthodox costume changes, adding a cross-cultural visual component to the music and heightening its dream-like and ritual qualities. For us, it becomes akin to a living shadow play, full of multi-cultural archetypes and (at times humorous) ambiguities.”

 

listen to Opeye | Improvisation No. 32

DOWNLOAD OPEYE SILK! HERE!

2) The Sun Divination Session

The Sun Divination Session is a self-recorded OPEYE rehearsal session from August 1996 at which only Ben and Esten Lindgren and John and Henry Kuntz were present. The open-ended and relaxed nature of our meeting (on an unusually warm Berkeley afternoon) facilitated the creation of some particularly organic music.

listen to Opeye | Drum Bear (excerpt)

DOWNLOAD OPEYE THE SUN DIVINATION SESSION HERE!