In this exciting project we are presenting a double cd release featuring a series of gary smith's incendiary solo recordings coupled with treatments, interpretations and re-imaginings from:
All tracks are exclusive to this album. Bill Fay's 'Pear Tree Tomorrow' features a new recording and interpretation of songs from the 'Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow' album. David Tibet's track 'Black Ships Kill Into View' is an unused song from Current 93's new 'Black Ships Ate The Sky' album.
Available now.
REVIEWS:
The Sunday Times. November 12 2006. By Stewart Lee.
The British guitarist Gary Smith mixes free improvisation's restless
explorations with the crunchy textures of experimental rock. His 19th
release showcases him in two modes. On the first disc, he scrapes out
signature sounds alone. Without effects pedals, edits or overdubs. Smith
unsentimentally short-circuits his own apparent progressions and grazes
stillborn melodic shapes with clusters of scratchy fretboard noise. On the
second disc, he snatches fragments of others' work to treat & interpret.
Pear Tree Tomorrow, by the unjustly overlooked 1960's songwriter Bill Fay,
melts from song-sample in to ghostly translucence. Black Ships Kill into
View, a ponderous oration by David Tibet of Current 93, seems portentious by
comparison.
The Wire. issue 274 December 2006. By Mike Barnes.
" Guitar, amp, volume pedal, that's it ", explains the sleevenotes to
guitarist Gary Smith's 'SuperTexture'. A few photographs demonstrate his
improvisational approach in action - a mix of hammer-ons, fretboard
glissandi and plenty of activity around the pickups. This gives the listener
some insights into what produces these sections of unstable near-melody,
surrounded by untempered sounds - insect-like chirps, pointilist water
splashes, distressed mechanisms - which are a long way away from what we
usually associate with the instrument, yet are still the product of a highly
refined playing technique. Sometimes the different timbres occur in
intricate patterns or Smith produces a number of different sounds
simultaneously - which is quite extraordinary.
SuperTexture's second CD, 'Treatments and Interpretations', comprises
reworkings of the material by 13 guests, and is equally fascinating. It's an
immediate shock to be confronted by a new Bill Fay composition, " Pear Tree
Tomorrow ", partly because the solo improvisations are so intense and
concentrated, and partly because it's something one simply doesn't expect to
hear. Here Smith's guitar hangs behind Fay's lengthy piano outro like sheets
of drizzle.
David Tibet recites an episode from his ' Black Ships ' saga over loops,
while Elliott Sharp processes and multitracks Smith's playing into a dense
forest of sound with which his own guitar clashes angrily. BJ Nilsen,
meanwhile, manipulates the source material into typically slow moving,
iridescent clouds of static. All contributors come up with something
interesting, none more so than The Zoltan Kodaly School For Girls. There are
no details on this curious liason, but their music room recorders certainly
have a soothing effect on Smith's agitated scratchings.
Aquarius Records (USA)
SMITH, GARY SuperTexture (Sijis) 2cd
Ok, here's a clever way to get maybe not-just-the-usual people
interested in an album of difficult, avant-garde electric guitar
improv solos. Make it a double cd, where the raw improvs by British
guitar maverick Gary Smith found on the first disc are used as source
material for the exclusive "treatments" and "interpretations" by a
disparate variety of other artists that populate the second disc. So
if scrabbling, abstract textural guitar glitch isn't enough to pique
your interest (for some it certainly will be enough, Gary Smith is no
slouch at coming up with strange sounds from his axe, for fans of that
sort of thing), perhaps the likes of Steve Roden, Bernhard Gunter,
Peter "Pita" Rehberg, Elliott Sharp, This Heat's Charles Hayward, BJ
Nilsen, and others on the second disc will!!
First, the first disc... Imagine Nels Cline and Derek Bailey and a
bunch of mice, playing guitar and mixing drinks. It's a quietly noisy
disc of tangled strings and liquid chimings. Tinkling ice. Crystalline
shards. Counterintuitive guitar-based beauty. Like a "normal" guitar
track had been crumpled up and irradiated and examined under a microscope.
Now for the "compilation" disc, where that radiation produces
mutation. This is one diverse batch of characters taking Gary Smith's
sounds in all sorts of interesting, often surprising directions, their
own music adding to or twining around Smith's. It starts off with a
lovely psych-folk tune entitled "Pear Tree Tomorrow" from obscure
legend Bill Fay!!! Yes the same Bill Fay whose early '70s albums were
recently reissued to great acclaim. Many of the other participants,
some mentioned above, are more in the line of "usual suspects" for
experimental projects such as this. But it's still a very diverse
collection, from the bleak poetry of Current 93's David Tibet, to the
violent digital breakcore of Tom Wallace, to the harsh noise-rock of
Aufgehoben (with whom Gary Smith has collaborated before, on the
devastating Magnetic Mountain album). There's Tianna Kennedy's ambient
low end scrape and Paulo Raposos's high end drone. And lots more.
Somehow, Gary Smith's guitar ties it all together. Puzzling out how
Smith's material was "used" is an interesting, if mostly inconclusive,
exercise. Wow. Even by itself this would be a great comp. The Smith
solo disc almost a bonus. Though we like 'em both!
JAZZWISE MAGAZINE. March Issue 2007. Reviewed by Edwin Pouncey.
4 star rating.
" Guitar, Amp, Volume Pedal. That's it. " Such is UK guitarist Gary Smith's
claim for his latest album of guitar improvisations. No tricks, colouring
and cheap effects, just pure and raw improvisation with nothing added - at
least for disc one of this impressive set, ' 13 Solo Guitar Improvisations
', where Smith's organic playing takes off the second the laser hits and
continues to dazzle and amaze throughout.
Following a steady stream of releases ( many of which were released on the
late Trevor Manwaring's Paratactile label ), SuperTexture is a further
instalment in Smith's ongoing exploration of his chosen instrument. The
simple guitar string motif that has been elegantly used to illustrate the
packaging is the key that unlocks the mindset behind his playing here -
producing sounds that are equally simple and wiry while, at the same time,
concentrating on finding as many ways as possible to give them form. The
late master of UK improvisation Derek
Bailey springs to mind when first hearing these experiments, but Smith's
defiant style shines through too as he strokes and plucks at the strings,
pickups, neck and body of his guitar to allow it's unique voice to sing out.
For the second disc ( ' Treatments And Interpretations ' ) Smith invites 13
of his contemporaries to remix the original improvisations.
Singer/songwriter legend Bill Fay's opening treatment takes an existing song
called ' Pear Tree Tomorrow ' and wraps it around the rattle, scratch and
hum of the guitar piece until both ( albeit awkwardly ) fuse together.
Elsewhere, David Tibet's ' Black Ships Kill Into View ' reels into a haunted
loop over which which Tibet's spoken vocal adds a spectral effect, an
incantation for guitar that conjures it into a ghostly galleon. The best of
these treatments, however, belong to Peter Rehberg ( whose electronic '
GSRX05 ' dramatically alters the original ), and Aufgehoben's '
Process/Recess ' where all hell is allowed to break loose. Here a real sense
of danger screams from the speakers as the original improvisation is
suddenly transformed into something that sounds like a grenade exploding,
with shards of metal flying everywhere.
SuperTexture is a genuine achievement that reinforces Smith's future as a
major improviser.
Massimo Ricci (FRANCE) PARIS TRANSATLANTIC. March 2007.
Although he hasn't exactly been overproductive over the years, Gary Smith is not an alien who fell to Earth last month, as the surge of recent reviews and articles would have us believe. His music has absolutely nothing to do with Harry Partch, either (I fell off the chair laughing when I read that comparison on the web). But he can sure as hell IMPROVISE on the guitar, and SuperTexture his latest solo outing showcases the off-the-fretboard logic already in evidence when his Rhythm Guitar came out in 1991 and no one cared except four or five stray cats. Isn't life always the same when the
world "discovers" artists who have been around for decades? This double CD set offers a black and white contrast between Smith's stark style and other artists' reshaping of this raw material. On disc one, thirteen solo improvisations take full advantage of the guitar's components, as Smith who only uses hands, a volume pedal and an amp scratches, smashes, and plucks at the pickups, the neck, the bridge (I'm sure that if he could get at the pickup wires he'd use them, too)
to bring out a series of discharges ranging from microscopic clicks and pops to a swelling wave of massaged glissandos that had me thinking of those pioneers Reichel, Fitzgerald, Frith who in the 70s tried to open the ears of listeners with treasures like the Guitar Solos series. And, of course, no laptop in sight here, just flesh, nails (maybe a thumbpick too), metal and wood. The second CD consists of remixes by thirteen sound artists somehow connected with Smith's work, from Bill Fay's piano-and-synth simplicity (which, frankly, doesn't work with the mangled guitar) to vocal interventions by David Tibet, who recites rather than sings over Smith's abstractions. Elliott Sharp contributes one excellent track, as does an unrecognizable Bernhard Günter, who uses clean if dissonant guitar lines to pay homage to.. Derek Bailey. But my favourite pieces are the ones by drummer Charles Hayward, who manages to insert Smith's sound into a well, yes robust, bouncing groove, and BJ Nilsen, who translates intricate webs of multidirectional shards into murky loops that could fool you into thinking that Smith was a founder member of :zoviet*france:. So don't be surprised if you read that online somewhere in the future.
Stefano I. Bianchi for Blow up Magazine, (ITALY) January 2007
Gary Smith is a rather unknown English guitarist who has a long and noble curriculum. Since the late eighties he has done a series of solo recordings of remarkable gravitas. He has worked with the “right” musicians from John Stevens to Hugh Hopper, Joe Gallivan and Shoji Hano, and he has been part of minor improvising ensembles active in the rock borderline world (Mass, Glass Cage, Aufgenhoben) “I feel very much the idea of structure. My music lives in dangerous pulsations. Once you start to make the rhythm yours, you cannot stop. I repeat scales and phraseologies, but all is always improvised. Most improvisers create things that are born and die immediately and no longer re-emerge. I am simply looking for a modern approach to improvisation”.
The first of the 2 CD that make up “SuperTexture” contains 13 of his improvisations, and the second CD the same 13 improvisations but re-interpreted by (list of names). What results is very singular because almost none of the players (in the 2nd CD) is a guitarist so, for example, Hayward, Gunter or Tibet are re-interpreting a 6 string instrumental on the drums or on the computer or with the voice. The result makes intriguing hearing. Furthermore, Smith’s guitar is not linear, on the contrary it proceeds with jumps, sketches and regurgitations, belonging to a genesis that originates in Bailey, but also often touches Frith and Reichel. The goodness and the originality of his music are born from a very personal methodology. “My work is literally stereophonic. I have two amps, a pedal for the volume and a distorsionist. The sound enters the splitter box so that the signal separates in two different directions. You can hear the distortions on one side and nothing on the other. You can literally control two completely different situations at the same time. What you hear on the CD is what has been recorded live and it is authentically stereophonic, there are no overdubs”. So we are hearing a series of liquid and sharp fragments, notes and counterpoints, reductionist power displays, incredibly tense and frenetic buzzings and spasms that go to form a picture of an almost electronic flavour, as they cloak the tone of the instrument. As we listen, on we ask ourselves how is it possible to treat and interpret such steep sounds in a way that is not guitar-like. Then we listen to the second CD.
Bill Fay and David Tibet build two “songs” adding voice. The first one is splendidly poetic and piano-like (pear tree tomorrow); the second is an evil and crumpled hypothesis that follows on from recent work such as Current 93 (Black Ships Kill Into View). Steven Roden, Paulo Raposo and BJ Nilsen abstract the most crepuscular elements and transform them into ambient music, first delicately (This Grey M), then island-like (Handful of Sand) and then microwave-like (Apple Thief). Elliott Sharp succeeds in the impossible mission of rendering an experimental façade which is perilously avant(gard) still remaining entirely on the guitar work (T and G). Tom Wallace and then the great Aufgehoben hypothesize original wave regurgitations on electronic drums, and improvised industrial noises (Acquired Waste and Process/Recess). Charles Hayward tries to transform the hiccups and the to-ing and fro-ing of the six strings to a loose percussion-like double time (Unravel). Bernhard Gunter mixes a electronic merry-go-round rightly dedicated to Derek Baily. And so also Peter Rehberg and the remaining ones. The listening is also didactic: how to transform a sound into one that is completely different yet uniquely maintaining the base inspiration.
“Taking everything and creating a new context that works: a technique that serves the imagination”, as Smith says in his musical notes. To say that this is a “fantastic compilation” is to say nothing. It is more or less like saying “fantastic improvisations” of the first of the two CDs.
Bad Alchemy
One can hardly believe that Smith produced these 13 solo improvisations exclusively with guitar, Amp & volume pedal. But Smith is not only a virtuoso solo guitarist, his discography is littered with memorable signs of life. At the beginning, 1978-81, stood the Bill Fay Group, whose Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow David Tibet re-issued. From 1999 Smith then again came into view, as Mass (w L Ciccotelli & G. Jeff von God), as Powerfield, (w J. Gallivan & P. Thomas), with Hugh hopper & Shoji Hano as Glass Cage and with the mysterious Noiseprojekt Aufgehoben. On CD 1 Smith sets forth his cryptic guitar vivisections (Rhythm Guitar, 1991, Forgotten Room with Chairs, 1998, Futurethoughtreveal, 2003), which may sound to a few ears like Gobbledegook Freakishness from beyond the Derek Bailey horizon (or like Olaf Rupp) and provides for a small cult following, from which such merry abstraction draws an approving smile. Smith refers, in the best way possible, to Conlon Nancarrow or the caper quartets of Xenakis as parallels of his own super+rhythmic, bruitist pixel accumulations. Mostly repetitive, but always multi tonal. Only the devil knows how he does it without overdubs. Perhaps Smiths small cult following can explain, which pirates and apple thieves announced themselves for the treatments & interpretations from CD 2. Bill Fay & David Tibet are obvious, but Steve Roden, Elliott Sharp, Paulo Raposo, Bernhard Guenter, Tom Wallace, Zoltan Kodaly School Of Girls (All Girl Future Rock'n'Roll flute ensemble!), Peter Rehberg, Tianna Kennedy (Cellist & Radio Artist in Brooklyn), Charles Hayward, BJ Nilsen & Aufgehoben?!? This wild bunch shows however, how connectable Smiths strange loop worms are, whether one continues to use or transform them further into both abstract and minimum Electro and ³pathetisches² songwriting (Tibets "Black Ships Kill into View` was originally sketched for his apocalytic Black Ships album - BA 53).
From April's Furthernoise issue:
SuperTexture by guitarist Gary Smith is a two disc set of 13 electric guitar improvisations and 13 collaborations with contemporaries. The first disc, Smith's solo work, is pure guitar and amp. The second disc features guests exploring each improvisation through their own interpretation.
Smith's previous work ranges from elegant tremolo guitar with the Bill Fay Group (1978), to his own rock-oriented "stereo guitar" and also noise. A common theme in Smith's work is an attempt to somehow challenge the way the guitar is used. SuperTexture could be considered a climax to this progression, as Smith has chosen to discard every available tool except the guitar itself.
13 Solo Guitar Improvisations draws you into a lucid and unpredictable world. Attempting to find patterns and predict the course of Smith's discourse is only natural, but there are so many reasons to become distracted. The prolific repertoire of techniques will humble most guitarists, and the aesthetic influences will keep everyone else pondering. Perhaps this is because the guitar is inescapably important
to modern culture: familiar sounds from rock, blues and jazz are almost allowed to escape, only to crash in on each other like waves on a beach.
Smith sees the poetry in the noises that are usually discarded from most guitar recordings. He layers these "extra-musical" sounds by combining them gently but rapidly. By drawing upon the guitar's innate ability to produce both rhythmic and melodic sounds, Smith produces something fluid and translucent. This approach has been likened to pointillist paintings, yet the end result is superficially more
similar to glitch and many laptop-based improvisers.
Starkly contrasting with the first CD is Treatments and Interpretations CD, in which artists connected with Gary Smith use his improvisations to produce a new piece. For some it appears to be a source of influence, others weave in an out of it, and the rest tear it apart searching to express something else. For example, Bill Fay's Pear Tree Tomorrow seems to converse with the original material in a delicate and thoughtful manner, whereas Paulo Raposo's Handful Of Sand transforms it into something totally new.
J Train by Tianna Kennedy, a New York-based cellist, is one of the more satisfying mixes. Kennedy's work and approach are naturally suited to re-imagining Smith's work, in a way that complements the original piece. The dense ambient explorations in Apple Thief by BJ Nilsen are also notable. Nilsen captures static slices of the original source material inside familiar ambient drones. And in Unravel by
Charles Hayaward we find an amazing take on the rhythms found in Smith's original work.
Despite being aesthetically very different propositions, 13 Solo Guitar Improvisations and Treatments and Interpretations form an inseparable whole. Exploring and digesting 13 Solo Guitar Improvisations is incredibly personal -- listening to Treatments and Interpretations makes the experience feel shared. Review by Alex Young
Massimo Ricci (ITALY) TOUCHING EXTREMES. February 2007.
This 2-CD set comprises a solo album by Smith, on electric guitar with no additional effects except a volume pedal, and a disc of "treatments and interpretations" of his improvisations by thirteen artists in close contact with his music one way or another, namely Bill Fay, Steve Roden, Elliott Sharp, David Tibet, Paulo Raposo, Bernhard
Günter, Tom Wallace, the Zoltan Kodaly School for Girls, Peter Rehberg, Tianna Kennedy, Charles Hayward, BJ Nilsen and Aufgehoben. Both records are interesting and quite enjoyable. Smith conceives instant compositions with ease, his fingers picking and scraping strings, pickups and wood to elicit microsounds, roaring thuds,
snarling groans and clickety-clackety snippets that at times might sound as computer-generated to unprepared ears, but absolutely aren't. Indeed an expert guitarist is able to more or less determine where these tiny capsules spring from, but listening to them remains pleasurable enough this notwithstanding. The second disc is quite strange right from the start (despite their long-time collaboration, the fusion of Bill Fay's voice and keyboards and Smith's freedom here does not yield very exciting sensations), yet there is a good choice of quality moments, most notably the tracks by Raposo, Hayward and Nilsen that, exploiting the guitarist's inventions by putting them in a significance-mincing, often loop-based context, create several sublime moments of pure groove-and-bliss, thus generating a striking contrast between the first and the second CD, a noticeable divergence which is probably "SuperTexture"'s strongest asset.
Baggage Reclaim - Best Records of the Year (UK)
Gary Smith - Supertexture
I saw Gary play a set of this stuff at Scaledown, and it blew me away. he used to do very noisy two amp stereo guitar- now it's one small amp and a kind of miniturised extended technique which uses no implements, just focuses on tiny sounds. The results sound like laptop cut ups -but it's all done live. It's engrossing and astonishing. This double CD on Sijis couples a selection of riveting improvisations, with a CD of variable re-mixes and re-workings, that range from the engrossing (Steve Roden) to the execrable (David Tibet), but the first disc is the one that counts.
Vital Weekly review
I believe this is my first encounter with guitar player Gary Smith, even when his first recordings seem to date back to 1978, which were with the Bill Fay Group. Smith has produced a great deal of solo CDs for labels such as Impetus, FMR, Paratactile, Ecstatic Peace and Chronoscope, and has recorded CDs with John Stevens, Mass, Rhys Chatham, Powerfield, Shoji Hano, Aufgehoben No Process and Mukai Chie. Here my first encounter, a double CD right away. The first disc contains thirteen improvisations for 'guitar, amp, volume pedal. that's it', no overdubs, no effects or other tricks. Just his hands and the guitar, playing some fine tunes in which a lot happens. Smith takes the guitar for what it is, a guitar and not an object that also produces some sound. The guitar is always recognizable as such, despite his crazy way of playing it. Out of the apparent chaos rises small textures, short frenetic rhythms and delightful mayhem. Mayhem as in mayhem, not as in noise for noise sake.
It's clear that he likes to play his guitar. Thirteen of these improvisations might be a bit long, but I suggest taking a small dose at a time.
And people love Gary Smith, since the second CD is filled with 'treatments and interpretations' by certainly not the least in the field: from Charles Hayward to David Tibet, from Peter Rehberg to Elliot Sharp. This is not a regular remix CD in the traditional (?) way, but rather a mixed bunch of music involving the sounds produced by Gary Smith. Some take this material to expand upon, such as Sharp (with extra guitar), vocals (such as Tibet) or inside techno music (Tom Wallace), while others take the material to create new music, say the traditional forms of remixing, such as is the case with people like Paulo Raposo, Peter Rehberg or BJ Nilsen. Here the guitar is hardly to recognized as such and is a mere brick as part of a larger composition. It's this combination of pure remixes and adding extra musical treatments that makes this into a project that is indeed much more than 'just' another remix CD. (FdW)
7 short films of Mr. Smith in action, specially recorded as part of the SuperTexture sessions. Click on The forward and back buttons to move through the films. The triangle next to the volume slider shows/hides the playlist controls.
SuperTexture |