REMINDS ME OF VIVENZA

NO PART OF IT has started a series of "interviews" which will appear here every month.   The first interview was with Bryan Lewis Saunders.   More info can be found on the series, and to read an interview with Arvo Zylo at The Critical Masses, to help spread the word about this series, go here.  

Excerpt from Bryan Lewis Saunders:

“Don’t make art for wealthy people. Make art for the youth. It’s the kids and young people that are the most important and valuable audience of all.”

 

 Excerpt from Arvo Zylo:

There are ways to take an idea and make it your own. No one really owns the ideas anyway, but unceremonious lifting of other peoples’ ideas, and especially doing a half-ass job of it is not tolerable for me. It renders a person’s work useless in my eyes. And it’s usually the doing of these rather selfish, mean-spirited, rude, and manipulative types who also abuse people, rip people off and so forth. To hear that George Harrison almost certainly stole synthesizer tapes from a studio intern and pawned them off as his own as “Electronic Sounds” is unforgivable to me. You might as well be danglin’ a baby. I can forgive shortcomings, and plenty of people who are rough around the edges, but not the particular conniving narcissist weasel/snake oil salesman type. 

 

Six tracks from PUSSIFICATION were aired on WCSB's Mysterious Black Box radio program with Lisa Miralia.  Also aired were Universal Eyes and Tom Smith + Mark Morgan, among others.  Thanks Lisa!

EaViL was reviewed at Lost In A Sea of Sound.  Thanks Ken!  Here is an excerpt:   Even though Les Fleurs du Mal is a collection of works recorded over many years, the influences and approach span far more girth. Influences from late seventies, through the eighties and on, the diversity on this composition touches a world of sound. Trying to accurately describe Les Fleurs du Mal is a challenging endeavor. An obtuse connection to The Residents, even more undefined impulses from early Jah Wobble, SPK, pop, dance, industrial... an explosion of musical creation reaching a vast proximity and leaving a uniquely specific detonation zone.

Arvo's most recent UPHEAVAL full length was aired a number of times on KFJC, and WE are just seeing it now.  HERE  HERE HERE HERE HERE and HERE .

Thanks folks!   

Upheaval was also reviewed at Lost in a Sea of Sound .

Here is an excerpt.  The composition herein will dislocate thoughts from their resting places. From Arvo's skill and experience, an hour of mind intimidation is too much for any listener. This composition starts off by making a score in the mental fabric, a cut just deep enough to allow feelings to escape and also get in. Calming sounds are applied, coinciding with an exuberant feeling of making the passage and earning the peacefulness on the next track. But the new sonic fields are also precarious and Arvo enlightens listener's to this fact. Over the next three tracks, conditions have calmed, almost drone like landscapes with fascinating electronic willow-wisps. Finally the turbulence returns, all encompassing white noise, like a giant eraser scathing back and fourth. The experience has been removed for something new.




333REDUX (abridged version) was reviewed at lost in a sea of sound:  Here is an excerpt:

Most of the artists on the full length version are unknown to Lost in a Sea of Sound. This fact carries over to the compact disc edition. What is recognized... Bob Bucko Jr., Sudden Infant, Somnoroase Păsărele (on DVD) and Arvo of course. Basically only ten percent of the total on either format. Musicians wielding energy, moving giant blocks of sound with thought and creativity, 333REDUX  awakens the mind to a vast unexplored world. An artist like Dave Phillips for example, twenty years of audio artistry, is new to these ears. Bob Bucko Jr., known and even described on this site, but playing in a different dimension. The mysterious Comfort Link, creeping up from the depths and covering thoughts with warmth and wonder. Just found out about this project from describing a release from the label sPLeeNCoFFiN. Protman, drilling into the mind with electronic insect bores. Critter Piss laying waste to the world with massive percussive explosions and alien wails of turmoil. These are just a few descriptions and thoughts from so much more. 

EAVIL, UPHEAVAL, and the new abridged version of 333REDUX were reviewed by Vital Weekly.  Here are some excerpts:

UPHEAVAL

At various times these transformations are taken to the extreme, enter Zylo's
love for noise, with loops and sounds from the conveyor belts of an industry in decay, but also
decay of a more subtle origin can be spotted in not so ambient but also not so noisy excursions
such as 'Upheaval 96', which reminded me of Vivenza. I prefer that more 'subtle but not too subtle'
approach by Zylo, perhaps more than the blunt noise of 'Upheaval 99'. It is, however, the variety of
approaches here that makes this a most enjoyable release, even when the noise pieces could
have been shorter.

333REDUX

...and we get the music of Dave Phillips, Pigswill,
Verdant, Seth Ryan, Critter Piss, Comfort Link, Marlo Eggplant, Bob Bucko Jr, Aodl, Blood Rhythms,
Jason Ogawa, Insect Deli, Protman, Sudden Infant and One-Eyed Zatoichi. I am not sure why Zylo
decided to do this release; what was wrong with the DVD-R release? It's interesting to see that not
many of the names mentioned in the first review made here, but that's all right. I don't think I heard
the original (still!), so it is hard to judge these pieces, but throughout Zylo choose a varied bunch of
approaches here, from Bucko Jr's saxophone wailing to noise (various actually) and more subtle
variations on the word noise, which we sometimes call 'ambient industrial'. Actually, so I was
thinking, not unlike Zylo's own approach music. So, while being a bit in the dark as to the question
'why', this is altogether a pleasant remix trip.

Interview Series #1: Bryan Lewis Saunders

Today begins a series of "interviews".  I have sent the same questions to several people of varying stripes.  Each month on the 13th, a new interview will appear here for at least three years of the foreseeable future.  Unless people have been sharing/sneaking the questions amongst eachother, no one will see anyone else's answers until they are published.  From February 13th to March 13th, numerous people were sent these questions, unbeknownst to eachother.  I have stopped collecting answers and scheduling posts on March 13th, 2019. 

Bryan Lewis Saunders is an artist (and former performance artist) who is probably best known for his self-portraits that he created while ingesting various different drugs.  He's done a self-portrait per day for several years, under various circumstances.  He was also known for his "Stand Up Tragedy" performances, where he worked out some particularly traumatic experiences, and in some cases, subjected himself to devices of torture, and "made strangers cry".  He has collaborated with Z'ev, Hal McGee, Kommisar Hjuler und Frau, and myself, among others. Particularly notable is his twelve cassette set of dream speech collaborations, The Confessor, featuring his own dream speech, and the involvement of Joke Lanz, Leif Elggren, C.M. Von Hauswolff, Requiem, and many others.  More recently, Saunders has done lectures, been the subject of a documentary, and has been doing a series of works under the influence of deafness and blindness. I've also known him to collect found photos from a dumpster behind a foot doctor's office.   I think it would be adequate to call him an outsider artist, but also a kind and wildly talented person. 

1.  What types of things have you been getting into lately?

I’ve been freezing and burning myself in the bathtub. Lol. Seriously though, I’ve been doing extreme temperature drawing experiments and looking into thermoregulation and thermoreception and how these experiences with temperature influence my self perception.


2.  What you do, do you do it as an artist, or is it a hobby? 

It is not a hobby but I’m not a traditional gallery type of artist either. I guess it depends on your definition of artist.


3.  How would you describe what you do?

I draw myself every day and experiment with life and art in order to make knowledge visible. I use art to advance my life, improve my health and gain a better understanding of myself. So for example, I know alcohol thins our blood and an ice bath constricts the blood vessels to conserve heat, so today I’m going to draw half of my body sober in an ice bath in order to compare and contrast that image to yesterday’s half of a drawing from the ice bath where I had a BAC (blood alcohol content) of .16. I’m basically looking for similarities and differences. Patterns and novel perceptions.


4.  How would you describe your creative progression over the years, in a brief synopsis?

First I used daily-self-portraiture to increase my drawing skills. Then I used it to counteract boredom and purge unwanted feelings like anger and anxiety. Then I used it to face my fears and to try and grow feelings. Then I discovered even more tools and practical utilitarian uses for it so now I am doing all of those things as needed but I’m also trying to hyper-sensitize myself by using them with sensory experiments.


5.  How would you describe your philosophy?

Art is advancement and the way that we advance is by facing challenges and overcoming them. So I’m using art to create challenges and survive and move forward.


6.  Do you believe in psychics, magic, ghosts, or gods?

No. Not while I’m mentally well.


7.  What would you say was your most definitive experience?

Prison, college, mental hospital, group home… These institutional environments all seem to have had a large and somewhat equal influence on the course of my life. Even more than the near death experiences.


8.  Do you have any side projects that I am not aware of? If not, what is something you'd like people to know about you, that you don't think anyone would ever ask?

I have retired from performing to focus on drawing. Did you know that? I started publishing a journal “Just Noticeable Difference” to start sharing my sensory and art experiments. They are kind of like a cross between imaginary exhibition catalogs and my art journal.

Not sure. People can ask me anything.


9.  Would you care to name any theoretical "desert island" records, or at least releases that you think are approaching your concept of "perfect"? 

I think Erratum in Paris is consistently putting out high quality music that heals. If I had to pick only one Erratum release I would go with the “New Crium Delirium Erratum Coyote Circus” LP.

That said, both Dave Philips and L'Autopsie A Révélé Que La Mort Était Due A L'Autopsie consistently release masterpieces as well. If I knew I was going to be on an island I would probably go with L'Autopsie A Révélé because I often use their albums at low volumes to cure my migraine headaches.


10.  What is the earliest childhood memory you can recall?

Being a paralyzed infant and seeing a round man’s face going “wa wa wa wa wa wa…” bouncing in and out of my personal space. It is as if I was crying and my father forced me to breathe gasoline in order to stop. I call it the Wa Wa Man. Might just be my imagination though but I’ll never forget it.


11.  Are you able to appreciate other peoples' creative work regardless of their personal shortcomings or inherent flaws?  To what extent? 

We should not be the sum of our worst deeds. I think we should weigh the good along with the bad and go from there individually.


12.  Do you have any heroes or heroines?  Who are they?

Tehching Hsieh, John Duncan, Morgan O’hara, Carolee Schneemann, Chris Burden and Linda Montano to name a few. And all of the people that dedicate their entire lives to study.


13.  What would you like to have on your epitaph?  Or what is your favorite quote?

No idea but I thought of a good one yesterday. “Don’t make art for wealthy people. Make art for the youth. It’s the kids and young people that are the most important and valuable audience of all.”