Format: FILE - MP3 / WAV
Lenght: 1.21:00 min
Artwork: Audiotalaia
Photos: Antonio Pérez.
Vídeos: Caixa Fosca, Paco R. Baños.
Valencia event: Carlos Flores.
_
DOWNLOAD FULL RELEASE (WAV)
DOWNLOAD FULL RELEASE (MP3)
DOWNLOAD ARTWORK (JPG)
DOWNLOAD ARTWORK (PDF)
hosted at: archive.org
DOWNLOAD FULL RELEASE (MP3)
DOWNLOAD ARTWORK (JPG)
DOWNLOAD ARTWORK (PDF)
hosted at: archive.org
_
This document is a testimony of 6 Relays that took place in four Spanish cities during May 2014. The events where organized in Valencia by Audiotalaia and the Luis Adelantado Gallery, in Vitoria-Gasteiz by Ainara LeGardon and Artium Museum, in Madrid by Wade Matthews and Espacio Cruce and in Seville by Alejandro Rojas-Marcos and the University of Seville (CICUS).
The recordings here presented are a selection over more than 30hours of recordings done by Edu Comelles. All Relays where statically recorded using three independent digital recorders, each of them placed en each scenario of every Relay. Also a secondary set of recordings was made using binaural microphones technic and while moving.
The final mix here presented is a selection of the Binaural Recordings done during all four Relays. Those recordings are the result of wandering about the spaces in which Relays took place and taking an active position as recordist. This involved fast and slow movements, close-ups to determined gestures and instruments and soundwalks along hallways, corridors and staircases. The outcome of this approach provides a subjective perspective over a multifocal hearing experience that has to be listened through headphones to perceive the dimensionality of binaural sound.
Attached to this document we present three texts by Ainara LeGardon, Wade Matthews and Josep Lluís Galiana who kindly wrote their thoughts on the Relay and all about it. There is also a spanish version of the texts on the PDF booklet.
_
Tracklist:
Relay Valencia / 10.05.2014 / Galería Luis Adelantado
Tracks from "Rel01_Vlc_01" to "Rel08_Vlc_08".
Relay Vitoria-Gasteiz / 17-18.05.2014 / Artium
Tracks from "Rel10_VitGas_01" to "Rel10_VitGas_09"
Relay Madrid / 24-25.05.2014 / Espacio Cruce, Galería Liebre, Esto Es una Plaza, Función Lenguaje
Tracks from "Rel18_Mad_01 to Rel24_Mad_07
Relay Sevilla / 28-29.05.2014 / CICUS, Universidad de Sevilla
Tracks from "Rel26_Svq_01" to "Rel34_Svq_09"
This document is a testimony of 6 Relays that took place in four Spanish cities during May 2014. The events where organized in Valencia by Audiotalaia and the Luis Adelantado Gallery, in Vitoria-Gasteiz by Ainara LeGardon and Artium Museum, in Madrid by Wade Matthews and Espacio Cruce and in Seville by Alejandro Rojas-Marcos and the University of Seville (CICUS).
The recordings here presented are a selection over more than 30hours of recordings done by Edu Comelles. All Relays where statically recorded using three independent digital recorders, each of them placed en each scenario of every Relay. Also a secondary set of recordings was made using binaural microphones technic and while moving.
The final mix here presented is a selection of the Binaural Recordings done during all four Relays. Those recordings are the result of wandering about the spaces in which Relays took place and taking an active position as recordist. This involved fast and slow movements, close-ups to determined gestures and instruments and soundwalks along hallways, corridors and staircases. The outcome of this approach provides a subjective perspective over a multifocal hearing experience that has to be listened through headphones to perceive the dimensionality of binaural sound.
Attached to this document we present three texts by Ainara LeGardon, Wade Matthews and Josep Lluís Galiana who kindly wrote their thoughts on the Relay and all about it. There is also a spanish version of the texts on the PDF booklet.
_
Tracklist:
Relay Valencia / 10.05.2014 / Galería Luis Adelantado
Tracks from "Rel01_Vlc_01" to "Rel08_Vlc_08".
Relay Vitoria-Gasteiz / 17-18.05.2014 / Artium
Tracks from "Rel10_VitGas_01" to "Rel10_VitGas_09"
Relay Madrid / 24-25.05.2014 / Espacio Cruce, Galería Liebre, Esto Es una Plaza, Función Lenguaje
Tracks from "Rel18_Mad_01 to Rel24_Mad_07
Relay Sevilla / 28-29.05.2014 / CICUS, Universidad de Sevilla
Tracks from "Rel26_Svq_01" to "Rel34_Svq_09"
_
Credits:
Relay VLC:
Venue: Luis Adelantado Gallery
Avelino Saavedra (Percussion, Objects)
Guillermo Torres (Flugelhorn)
Vicent Gómez (Electronics)
Negro (Electric Guitar)
Javier Pedreira (Guitar)
Carlos Edelmiro (No-input mixer, Amplified Objects)
Josep Lluís Galiana (Soprano sax)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Alejandro Rojas-Marcos (amplified clavichord)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Marta Sainz (Voice)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
Antonio Sánchez (No-input mixer)
Francesc Llompart (Violin)
Bartolomé Ferrando (Voice)
Marta González (Viola)
_
Relay VIT-GAS:
Venue: Artium, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo
Naiel Ibarrola (Visuals)
Javier Pedreira (Guitar)
Iban Urizar (Trumpet, Clarinet)
Ruth Barberán (Trumpet, amplified objects)
Lali Barrière (Objects)
Miguel A. García (Electronics, No-input mixer, laptop)
Mario Sarramián (Laptop, objects)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Xabier Erkizia (Prepared Percussion)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
Idoia Zabaleta (Dance)
Paloma Carrasco (Cello)
Álvaro Barriuso (Voice)
_
Relay MAD:
Venues: Cruce, Esto Es Una Plaza, Galería Liebre, Función Lenguaje.
Abdul Moimême (Electric Guitar)
Mario Sarramián (Laptop, Objects)
Naiel Ibarrola (Prepared Piano, Objects)
Guillermo Torres (Flugelhorn)
Lali Barrière (Objects)
Miguel A. García (Electronics, No-input mixer, laptop)
Carlos Costa (Double Bass)
Javier Piñango (Korg MS-20 synth)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Alejandro Rojas-Marcos (Piano, Trombone)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Marta Sainz (Voice)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
Alessandra Rombolà (Flute)
Tomás Gris (Sax)
Paloma Carrasco (Cello)
Rubén Gutirérrez (Amplified surfaces, objects, electronics)
Álvaro Barriuso (Voice)
_
Relay SVQ:
Venue: CICUS, University Of Seville.
Ferran Fages (Electronic devices)
Guillermo Torres (Flugelhorn)
Juan Luis Matilla(Dance)
Natalia Jiménez (Body)
Javier Pedreira (Guitar)
Miguel A. García (Electronics, No-input mixer, laptop)
Carlos Costa (Double Bass)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Alejandro Rojas-Marcos (Piano, amplified clavichord)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
María Cabeza de Vaca (Coreographer)
Emilio Salvatierra (Percussion)
Gustavo Dominguez (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet)
Sergio Rojas-Marcos (Bass)
Sara Martín (Flute)
Marta González (Viola)
Antonio Corrales (Double Bass)
_
Recorded, mixed and mastered by: Edu Comelles. With occasional gear or help by Ainara LeGardon, Wade Matthews, Alejandro Rojas-Marcos and Miguel A. Garcia.
Recording gear: Audiotalaia Binaural PRO microphones, Zoom H1.
Credits:
Relay VLC:
Venue: Luis Adelantado Gallery
Avelino Saavedra (Percussion, Objects)
Guillermo Torres (Flugelhorn)
Vicent Gómez (Electronics)
Negro (Electric Guitar)
Javier Pedreira (Guitar)
Carlos Edelmiro (No-input mixer, Amplified Objects)
Josep Lluís Galiana (Soprano sax)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Alejandro Rojas-Marcos (amplified clavichord)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Marta Sainz (Voice)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
Antonio Sánchez (No-input mixer)
Francesc Llompart (Violin)
Bartolomé Ferrando (Voice)
Marta González (Viola)
_
Relay VIT-GAS:
Venue: Artium, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo
Naiel Ibarrola (Visuals)
Javier Pedreira (Guitar)
Iban Urizar (Trumpet, Clarinet)
Ruth Barberán (Trumpet, amplified objects)
Lali Barrière (Objects)
Miguel A. García (Electronics, No-input mixer, laptop)
Mario Sarramián (Laptop, objects)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Xabier Erkizia (Prepared Percussion)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
Idoia Zabaleta (Dance)
Paloma Carrasco (Cello)
Álvaro Barriuso (Voice)
_
Relay MAD:
Venues: Cruce, Esto Es Una Plaza, Galería Liebre, Función Lenguaje.
Abdul Moimême (Electric Guitar)
Mario Sarramián (Laptop, Objects)
Naiel Ibarrola (Prepared Piano, Objects)
Guillermo Torres (Flugelhorn)
Lali Barrière (Objects)
Miguel A. García (Electronics, No-input mixer, laptop)
Carlos Costa (Double Bass)
Javier Piñango (Korg MS-20 synth)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Alejandro Rojas-Marcos (Piano, Trombone)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Marta Sainz (Voice)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
Alessandra Rombolà (Flute)
Tomás Gris (Sax)
Paloma Carrasco (Cello)
Rubén Gutirérrez (Amplified surfaces, objects, electronics)
Álvaro Barriuso (Voice)
_
Relay SVQ:
Venue: CICUS, University Of Seville.
Ferran Fages (Electronic devices)
Guillermo Torres (Flugelhorn)
Juan Luis Matilla(Dance)
Natalia Jiménez (Body)
Javier Pedreira (Guitar)
Miguel A. García (Electronics, No-input mixer, laptop)
Carlos Costa (Double Bass)
Edu Comelles (Laptop, field recordings)
Alejandro Rojas-Marcos (Piano, amplified clavichord)
Manolo Rodríguez (Acoustic Guitar, loops)
Wade Matthews (Laptop)
Ainara LeGardon (Voice, objects)
María Cabeza de Vaca (Coreographer)
Emilio Salvatierra (Percussion)
Gustavo Dominguez (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet)
Sergio Rojas-Marcos (Bass)
Sara Martín (Flute)
Marta González (Viola)
Antonio Corrales (Double Bass)
_
Recorded, mixed and mastered by: Edu Comelles. With occasional gear or help by Ainara LeGardon, Wade Matthews, Alejandro Rojas-Marcos and Miguel A. Garcia.
Recording gear: Audiotalaia Binaural PRO microphones, Zoom H1.
_
History of the Relay.
The first Relay took place at 2:13 Club in London, organised by guitarrista and improviser, John Bisset. For many years this was a yearly event. After that first attempt other improviser have been organising Relays in números places.
The german percussionist Burkhard Beins took advantage of an abandoned power plant in Berlin to organize a Relay and cellist Nikos Veliotis did something similar in Athens. Wade Matthews organized a couple of Relays at the Reina Sofia Museum of Madrid, one at a Silk Market from the Sixteen Century in Deir el Kamar at the Shouff Mountains in Lebanon and a fourth one at the Faculty of Arts in Montevideo, Uruguay. As well the swiss violinist Charlotte Hug has organized a memorable Relay that took place inside Paris catacombs (a truly underground event). Finally flutist Jane Rigler organized two Relays at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a commemoration of the first anniversary of the new building.
One of the main characteristic of the Relays is the acknowledgement of the contribution by other organizers in previous Relays. This who organized the previous Relay are usually included on the organization of the following as a gesture of gratitude. Bisset, Beins and Veliotis participated in all first Relays, while Beins, Veluotis, Hug and Rigler played in all Relays organized by Matthews. Also Beins, Veliotis, Bisset and Matthews participate in both Jane Rigler’s Relays in MOMA and also Matthews played agh the Paris Catacombs Relay organized by Charlotte Hug. Some other participants in all Relays are Robert Dick, Jack Wright, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveiros and Jon La Barbara.
Another characteristic of the Relays is that apart from the involvement of music improvisers there is a space for close-by disciplines such as dance through the participation of Valérie Métivier an the choreographer and improviser Elena Alonso among others, there is always a space for other disciplines.
_
How it works?
At a given time, three trios of musicians start improvising in three nearby scenarios. Ten minutes later another group of participants join the improvisation. Each of them can choose freely where to go. As soon as someone joins an ongoing improvisation one of the musicians has to move to another location to relay someone else. This process takes approximately 2 hours in which music is constantly changing as musicians come and go. At last, its also possible that all musicians join in a given point and end up the event playing all together.
_
Texts:
In the month of May, hunger and roses. Such disparate bedfellows!
Or so an old Spanish saying would have it, but there is no particular reason to think that hunger and roses will both be present in the same month of May. Maybe these strange bedfellows alternate years. We don’t know, but we don’t really care, either. What matters is that May of 2014 was full of roses. Or maybe I should say rose bushes, because, of everything that blossomed that month, what most captured our attention wasn’t so much the flowers as the gardens themselves. It’s not about the pleasure of contemplating this or that flower, this or that delightful, though fleeting, patch of color. It’s about the satisfaction of finally witnessing the emergence of new and fertile terrains, fields where, with a certain degree of effort and determination, roses will blossom, not only this May but many more in the future. We don’t need to sew the seeds of hunger, it is already strongly rooted in our present economic system, and our politicians cultivate it so well that even many job holders are now living beneath the threshold of poverty.
“Write the book you’d like to read” counsels a recent American saying, and that somehow describes what happened last May. Do you want interesting musical activities to take place where you live? Do you want cutting-edge sound artists to visit from all over the country, and to play with the finest local musicians? And, do you want it to be well organized? Then organize it yourself! That’s what happened and that, hopefully, is what will continue to happen. In Valencia, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Madrid and Seville, a handful of musicians with talent, imagination and initiative were tired of looking at photographs of roses, of listening to interesting musicians only on CDs, of preparing their seeds again and again without every having a garden to plant them in. Finally, they discovered that enthusiasm is a surprisingly powerful force for change, especially when it is shared. Musicians—and I do not employ the term lightly—like Ainara LeGardon, Edu Comelles and Alejandro Rojas Marcos chose to collaborate with me and with their own colleagues to carry out a multiple, ambitious and powerful project. Henry David Thoreau wrote: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” That is exactly what Ainara, Edu, Alejandro and I set out to do. Beneath the castles of our respective musical communities, we have constructed foundations whose cornerstones are clarity and flexibility.
Here, clarity means knowing what you want and how to communicate it to those who cannot help but share your enthusiasm once they understand the project. And so it has been with Olga Adelantado, of the Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia; Daniel Castillejo and Mari Fran Machin of Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz; and in Madrid, Salomé Ramírez, of CRUCE, Mariejo Obeillero, of Esta es una Plaza, and the directors of the Liebre Gallery and Función Lenguaje, respectively. The decision-makers at the CICUS in Seville proved equally open, interested and willing to cooperate.
Clarity also involves something else, something that fosters flexibility. Knowing what you want includes being able to distinguish what is essential from what is merely superficial, understanding that a rose can grow in places that differ considerably from each other, and from where we imagined planting them. That clarity and flexibility imply acting with the agility needed to get twenty musicians to your city so they can share their art, even when the roses decide to show their thorns rather than their flowers, and even when our politicians have depleted cultural subsidies to support causes considerably less noble than the construction of castle foundations.
The result of this dedication, effort, clarity, flexibility and enthusiasm? A Relay of Relays, a harvest of many, many roses with very few thorns. Musicians blossoming in clusters of fifteen or twenty, instrument in hand, sharing their music, enthusiasm and creativity with their own communities and with those of their colleagues, creating another community, a larger garden where, hopefully, new projects will also flourish. None of us could have done this alone, because the lasting project was not the Relay, or even the Relay of Relays. What we were really building was the cooperation that made everything else possible. There is still hunger, and it will not disappear any time soon, but at least we’re starting to see some roses. Hopefully, there are more to come.
Wade Matthews.
_
The Aura of Space/time
When guitarist John Bisset and flutist and saxophonist Lester Moses organized the first Relay in the history of sound art at the 2:13 club in London in 1992, they had no idea that their particular “multiple concert of free improvisation projected into the public sphere” would spark similar activities around the world. As an annual event, Relays were subsequently organized by other improvisers in numerous cities. German percussionist Burkhard Beins chose an abandoned power plant in Berlin and cellist Nikos Velliotis did something similar in Athens.
Electro-acoustic improviser Wade Matthews has organized two at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, another in a 16th-century silk market in Deir el Kamar, in the Shouff Mountains of Lebanon, and a fourth in Montevideo, at the National University of Uruguay’s School of the Arts. Swiss violist Charlotte Hug organized one in the catacombs of Paris, the most underground of any so far, and even the city that never sleeps shared this adventure when improvising flutist Jane Rigler organized two at New York’s MoMA to mark the first anniversary of its new building.
This celebration of a place and a moment with the participation of numerous musicians has finally reached Valencia. Sixteen musicians moving freely between three areas in the Luis Adelantado Gallery have carried out a “session of improvised music in constant motion” that faithfully connects the Relay with the dérive, a Situationist practice that Guy Debord defined as “a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences.” For him, as author of The Society of the Spectacle, the construction of a situation involves building a transitory micro-environment and unfolding artistic, psychological, emotional, acoustic, political, economic and environmental events, among others, to generate a unique moment in the lives of various people.
Hic et nunc, the here and now that constitutes the essence of a Relay, is not the only element connecting this experience with the theory of the dérive, and also with the figure of the flâneur evoked by Baudelaire and later, in the context of the modern city, by Walter Benjamin. Each free improviser is like an installation or sound sculpture created to exist—ephemerally—in a particular space. He or she is thus site-specific, and that site owes its existence to sound, constituting a resonant space where time stops, bringing to mind Benjamin’s aura: “an original tissue made up of space and time.” This sonic aura extends over all of us, enveloping us and drawing us into its exclusive and festive play-space, where there is room for chance situations and unpredictable reactions, where the definitive is avoided, the border between art and everyday life is set aside and life is lived freely through careful listening and intuition. The Relay captures the joy of instantaneous and fleeting creative experience, a participation in collective creation that places both the improviser and the listener/viewer on the path to a liberating and unlimited sound world.
Josep Lluís Galiana
_
If I were to describe the Relay with just one word, it would be commitment—an agreement to exercise our responsibility in pursuit of music (and I am tempted to write Music, with a capital “m”).
Another word would be trust—the encouragement from others that potentiates one’s own decisions.
The relay marks our turn to maintain the network, a tightly knotted net with links and connections that insure continuity of movement. We are waves carrying the message in its bottle, and some of us play the role of the wind while others are the Moon’s gravitational pull, or the mass of water on which it floats, or even the foam that cushions its journey… Together, we cradle and transport the idea of commitment.
Following last May’s Relay of Relays, it was a pleasure to collapse after crossing the finish line, because the goal of thrilling, and of thrilling ourselves, had been reached. The seed was sewn and the baton passed to other hands so the adventure could continue.
Enjoy listening
Ainara LeGardon
_
With the collaboration, aid and sponsorship of:
_
History of the Relay.
The first Relay took place at 2:13 Club in London, organised by guitarrista and improviser, John Bisset. For many years this was a yearly event. After that first attempt other improviser have been organising Relays in números places.
The german percussionist Burkhard Beins took advantage of an abandoned power plant in Berlin to organize a Relay and cellist Nikos Veliotis did something similar in Athens. Wade Matthews organized a couple of Relays at the Reina Sofia Museum of Madrid, one at a Silk Market from the Sixteen Century in Deir el Kamar at the Shouff Mountains in Lebanon and a fourth one at the Faculty of Arts in Montevideo, Uruguay. As well the swiss violinist Charlotte Hug has organized a memorable Relay that took place inside Paris catacombs (a truly underground event). Finally flutist Jane Rigler organized two Relays at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a commemoration of the first anniversary of the new building.
One of the main characteristic of the Relays is the acknowledgement of the contribution by other organizers in previous Relays. This who organized the previous Relay are usually included on the organization of the following as a gesture of gratitude. Bisset, Beins and Veliotis participated in all first Relays, while Beins, Veluotis, Hug and Rigler played in all Relays organized by Matthews. Also Beins, Veliotis, Bisset and Matthews participate in both Jane Rigler’s Relays in MOMA and also Matthews played agh the Paris Catacombs Relay organized by Charlotte Hug. Some other participants in all Relays are Robert Dick, Jack Wright, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveiros and Jon La Barbara.
Another characteristic of the Relays is that apart from the involvement of music improvisers there is a space for close-by disciplines such as dance through the participation of Valérie Métivier an the choreographer and improviser Elena Alonso among others, there is always a space for other disciplines.
_
How it works?
At a given time, three trios of musicians start improvising in three nearby scenarios. Ten minutes later another group of participants join the improvisation. Each of them can choose freely where to go. As soon as someone joins an ongoing improvisation one of the musicians has to move to another location to relay someone else. This process takes approximately 2 hours in which music is constantly changing as musicians come and go. At last, its also possible that all musicians join in a given point and end up the event playing all together.
_
Texts:
In the month of May, hunger and roses. Such disparate bedfellows!
Or so an old Spanish saying would have it, but there is no particular reason to think that hunger and roses will both be present in the same month of May. Maybe these strange bedfellows alternate years. We don’t know, but we don’t really care, either. What matters is that May of 2014 was full of roses. Or maybe I should say rose bushes, because, of everything that blossomed that month, what most captured our attention wasn’t so much the flowers as the gardens themselves. It’s not about the pleasure of contemplating this or that flower, this or that delightful, though fleeting, patch of color. It’s about the satisfaction of finally witnessing the emergence of new and fertile terrains, fields where, with a certain degree of effort and determination, roses will blossom, not only this May but many more in the future. We don’t need to sew the seeds of hunger, it is already strongly rooted in our present economic system, and our politicians cultivate it so well that even many job holders are now living beneath the threshold of poverty.
“Write the book you’d like to read” counsels a recent American saying, and that somehow describes what happened last May. Do you want interesting musical activities to take place where you live? Do you want cutting-edge sound artists to visit from all over the country, and to play with the finest local musicians? And, do you want it to be well organized? Then organize it yourself! That’s what happened and that, hopefully, is what will continue to happen. In Valencia, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Madrid and Seville, a handful of musicians with talent, imagination and initiative were tired of looking at photographs of roses, of listening to interesting musicians only on CDs, of preparing their seeds again and again without every having a garden to plant them in. Finally, they discovered that enthusiasm is a surprisingly powerful force for change, especially when it is shared. Musicians—and I do not employ the term lightly—like Ainara LeGardon, Edu Comelles and Alejandro Rojas Marcos chose to collaborate with me and with their own colleagues to carry out a multiple, ambitious and powerful project. Henry David Thoreau wrote: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” That is exactly what Ainara, Edu, Alejandro and I set out to do. Beneath the castles of our respective musical communities, we have constructed foundations whose cornerstones are clarity and flexibility.
Here, clarity means knowing what you want and how to communicate it to those who cannot help but share your enthusiasm once they understand the project. And so it has been with Olga Adelantado, of the Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia; Daniel Castillejo and Mari Fran Machin of Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz; and in Madrid, Salomé Ramírez, of CRUCE, Mariejo Obeillero, of Esta es una Plaza, and the directors of the Liebre Gallery and Función Lenguaje, respectively. The decision-makers at the CICUS in Seville proved equally open, interested and willing to cooperate.
Clarity also involves something else, something that fosters flexibility. Knowing what you want includes being able to distinguish what is essential from what is merely superficial, understanding that a rose can grow in places that differ considerably from each other, and from where we imagined planting them. That clarity and flexibility imply acting with the agility needed to get twenty musicians to your city so they can share their art, even when the roses decide to show their thorns rather than their flowers, and even when our politicians have depleted cultural subsidies to support causes considerably less noble than the construction of castle foundations.
The result of this dedication, effort, clarity, flexibility and enthusiasm? A Relay of Relays, a harvest of many, many roses with very few thorns. Musicians blossoming in clusters of fifteen or twenty, instrument in hand, sharing their music, enthusiasm and creativity with their own communities and with those of their colleagues, creating another community, a larger garden where, hopefully, new projects will also flourish. None of us could have done this alone, because the lasting project was not the Relay, or even the Relay of Relays. What we were really building was the cooperation that made everything else possible. There is still hunger, and it will not disappear any time soon, but at least we’re starting to see some roses. Hopefully, there are more to come.
Wade Matthews.
_
The Aura of Space/time
When guitarist John Bisset and flutist and saxophonist Lester Moses organized the first Relay in the history of sound art at the 2:13 club in London in 1992, they had no idea that their particular “multiple concert of free improvisation projected into the public sphere” would spark similar activities around the world. As an annual event, Relays were subsequently organized by other improvisers in numerous cities. German percussionist Burkhard Beins chose an abandoned power plant in Berlin and cellist Nikos Velliotis did something similar in Athens.
Electro-acoustic improviser Wade Matthews has organized two at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, another in a 16th-century silk market in Deir el Kamar, in the Shouff Mountains of Lebanon, and a fourth in Montevideo, at the National University of Uruguay’s School of the Arts. Swiss violist Charlotte Hug organized one in the catacombs of Paris, the most underground of any so far, and even the city that never sleeps shared this adventure when improvising flutist Jane Rigler organized two at New York’s MoMA to mark the first anniversary of its new building.
This celebration of a place and a moment with the participation of numerous musicians has finally reached Valencia. Sixteen musicians moving freely between three areas in the Luis Adelantado Gallery have carried out a “session of improvised music in constant motion” that faithfully connects the Relay with the dérive, a Situationist practice that Guy Debord defined as “a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences.” For him, as author of The Society of the Spectacle, the construction of a situation involves building a transitory micro-environment and unfolding artistic, psychological, emotional, acoustic, political, economic and environmental events, among others, to generate a unique moment in the lives of various people.
Hic et nunc, the here and now that constitutes the essence of a Relay, is not the only element connecting this experience with the theory of the dérive, and also with the figure of the flâneur evoked by Baudelaire and later, in the context of the modern city, by Walter Benjamin. Each free improviser is like an installation or sound sculpture created to exist—ephemerally—in a particular space. He or she is thus site-specific, and that site owes its existence to sound, constituting a resonant space where time stops, bringing to mind Benjamin’s aura: “an original tissue made up of space and time.” This sonic aura extends over all of us, enveloping us and drawing us into its exclusive and festive play-space, where there is room for chance situations and unpredictable reactions, where the definitive is avoided, the border between art and everyday life is set aside and life is lived freely through careful listening and intuition. The Relay captures the joy of instantaneous and fleeting creative experience, a participation in collective creation that places both the improviser and the listener/viewer on the path to a liberating and unlimited sound world.
Josep Lluís Galiana
_
If I were to describe the Relay with just one word, it would be commitment—an agreement to exercise our responsibility in pursuit of music (and I am tempted to write Music, with a capital “m”).
Another word would be trust—the encouragement from others that potentiates one’s own decisions.
The relay marks our turn to maintain the network, a tightly knotted net with links and connections that insure continuity of movement. We are waves carrying the message in its bottle, and some of us play the role of the wind while others are the Moon’s gravitational pull, or the mass of water on which it floats, or even the foam that cushions its journey… Together, we cradle and transport the idea of commitment.
Following last May’s Relay of Relays, it was a pleasure to collapse after crossing the finish line, because the goal of thrilling, and of thrilling ourselves, had been reached. The seed was sewn and the baton passed to other hands so the adventure could continue.
Enjoy listening
Ainara LeGardon
_
With the collaboration, aid and sponsorship of:
_
Relay 2014 by Varios Artistas is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional License. Creado a partir de la obra en www.audiotalaia.net/catalogue/at075-relay-2014.Puede hallar permisos más allá de los concedidos con esta licencia en www.audiotalaia.net/catalogue/at075-relay-2014