ESP 4061 Eli Keszler - Oxtirn
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Personnel CD Release 1. Eli Keszler : piano, motors, cymbal, crotales, snare drum, microphones Sakiko Mori : prepared pianot Personnel LP Release Side A
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"...fantastic solo percussion and dark matrixes of strings from this past collaborator with Jandek, with aspects of Scelsi and Dumitrescu, , Keiji Haino and Biota..... straddles 20th century avant garde thought, sound sculpture, free jazz and contemporary drone and is one of the most lovingly assembled packages to have passed through VT of late" - David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue, Wire Magazine) "It's hard to envisage that this music has been made by just one person...the music slowly builds..the slower more textural sections are particularly striking: bowed cymbals, bells and fender rhodes give track 2 a chamber music intimacy."- Mike Barnes, Wire Magazine August 2007
Bio Eli Keszler is a
composer/multi-instrumentalist based in Providence, Rhode Island. He primarily
uses percussion, bowed crotales, guitar as well as invented instruments (his
harps which use strings and motors) to create his sound that balances droning
harmonics with shaterring acoustic sustain and fast, free rhythm, all working in
balance with his integrated installations. |
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unreleased live performance of oxtirn hand assembled gatefold style package designed by Eli Keszler and Ashley Paul
includes photos insert on silver paper hand screened poster featuring original artwork by Eli Keszler
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Oxtirn Live Personnel
for 3 guitars, drums, voice, motor harp, tenor harp, bass harp, microphones, clarinet, alto saxophone, crotales, cymbals
Performed by
Eli Keszler
Ashley Paul
Geoff Mullen
Oxtirn Live
Although it is a concert version of the same notated score that produced Eli's ESP Disk' debut Oxtirn, it’s with a different instrumentation of three guitars, drums, voice, motor harp, tenor harp, bass harp, microphones, clarinet, alto saxophone, crotales, and cymbals, played by the lineup of Keszler, Paul, and Geoff Mullen. Keszler’s notation allows for interpretational freedom by the players, so while stylistically there are similarities between Oxtirn and Oxtirn Live, they don’t sound the same. Thanks to the guitars, Oxtirn Live sounds a little closer to the rock avant-garde than Oxtirn as keening high frequencies collide and intertwine, free of standard tunings, setting up ear-cleaning vibrations.This is both a sonically and visually stunning package raising the bar for both ESP and REL releases
ESP-Disk' has released some far-out albums in its 47 years, but Eli Keszler’s Oxtirnraises the bar. Keszler is a percussionist and composer like no other; some connoisseurs of outside music will know him from his work with the singular guitarist Jandek.Oxtirnis Keszler’s ESP-Disk' debut and most widely distributed album after prolifically self-releasing micro-edition CDRs, tapes, and vinyl via his label REL Records.
On Oxtirn, Keszler plays drums, guitar, piano, prepared piano, motors, cymbal, crotales (bowed and unbowed), snare drum, prepared/riveted sheet metal, spring harp, bass board, and microphones. He’s joined by clarinetist Ashley Paul (his partner in Aster) on two tracks, plus Andrew Fenlon(trumpet, tuba, French horn, trombone) and Sakkiko Mori (prepared piano) on one track each.
There are few musical analogies to what Keszler is doing here. It might sound like freely improvised noise, but it’s actually meticulously composed ?and if you don’t believe it, you can check out his graphical-notation score for all three tracks, included on a six-panel fold-out. The Italian Futurists of the 1920s would have loved this magnificent din, so full of startling timbres and arresting textural combinations, like a cross between Xenakisand free jazz.
