Chris Cutler

Conspiracies

ReR Megacorp/kuda.org CD

 

Conspiracies is an outcome of two wokrshop held in Novi Sad, Serbia. They were organised in 2016 by the activist collective kuda.org and this live recording was subsequently made at that city's CK12 Club, during a festival investigating the art and politics of improvisation. Catalytic percussionist Chris Cutler, who can be relied upon to provoke thought and spark useful reflection, conceived a score that requires each participation to conspire with other players in order to agree upon coordinated actions. These are then to be introduced into a strictly time-based structure that is mostly open and non-specific in terms of content.

Today conspiracy invariably suggests plans made or some plot hatched in secret and its connotations are commonly negative. Traced back to its Latin roots, however, the word implies breathing together and somewhere along the etymological track it also came to signify musicians sounding their instruments together. The word is worth unpacking because Cutler's piece is critically involved with processes of shared creativity and temporary group formation, as well as with surprises sprung by collusion of the record.

His fellow conspirators are London based writer Howard Slater and ten musicians from the region including guitarists Milan Nenin and Dimitrije Jakovljević, reedsman Voja Savkov and trombonist Vladimir Orešković. Moods shift persistently, idioms slide and instrumental alignments alter. A folk tinged melody, electronic doodling, loose jazz exchanges, a cosmic interlude and motoric rock drumming – the kaleidoscope turns and endless negotiation, adjustment and revision continues, finding viable ways to accommodate those conspiratorial episodes.

Extra spice is brought to this mixture by Slater's no less varied vocal and verbal input: clandestine and sinister, excoriating, hilarious, parodic or goading. A note on the cover points out that this music is “also designed to be played in shuffle mode”, signaling for anyone still in doubt that beyond whatever is imposed or given other orders do remain possible. The function of the music is to galvanise rather than offer confirmation, to precipitate transitions rather than consolidate. And, shuffled or not, Conspiracies remains instructively a record of sounds made and breaths taken together.

 

Julian Cowley

The WIRE magazine issue 415

 

****

 

CD u izdanju kuda.org: Conspiracies / Konspiracije – Chris Cutler

https://archive.org/details/SempleScoreConspiraciesChrisCutler

 

Ovaj CD je rezultat saradnje i dve radionice sa Krisom Katlerom (Chris Cutler), u Novom Sadu 2016. godine u organizaciji kuda.org. Radionica je bila deo programa Neumorna rezidencija čija je namera stvaranje prostora za dinamički kolaborativni umetnički proces, kao i prostor kulturne i teorijske proizvodnje. Neumorna rezidencija je takođe uključila sastanke, razmenu i saradnju izvan granica vremena provedenog u Novom Sadu, sa ciljem da se olakša razmena aktivnih znanja u procesu stvaranja novih umetničkih produkcija. 

Radionica je dovela do Festivala u opoziciji - Umetnost i politika improvizacije (evociranje na ideju Rock in Opposition), koji je zamišljen kao dinamična platforma za istraživanje odnosa umetnosti, obrazovanja i politike improvizacije, kao i privremenih zona grupnosti i zajedničkog stvaranja, kroz participativu muzičku i poetsku produkciju.

Festival u opoziciji - Umetnost i politika improvizacije je održan u oktobru 2016. godine u okviru projekta Proširena estetska edukacija, na kojem su sarađivali Multimedijalni institut (HR), Kontrapunkt (MK), Kulturtreger/Booksa (HR), Berliner Gazette (DE) i kuda.org (RS) u saradnji sa Omladinskim centrom CK13. 

Materijal objavljen na CD-u je snimljen na javnom nastupu u klubu CK13, Novi Sad, 29. oktobra 2016, u kojem su učestvovali lokalni izvođači i internacionalni gosti.