Debuting with their album 【Flow, Gesture, and Spaces】 in 2019, which won the 31st Golden Melody Award for Best Instrumental Album Producer. The first album was mainly focused on spaces created by the body and improvisational sounds. The new album, titled <Meta, Construct Within’ Spaces> is much more socially charged with its themes, using symbols in consumerism as its main focal point for further discourse, it first sets out to use different dialectics to inspect the masses imaginations of retro-futurism that has been popular in recent years. Could our obsession with the near future be an attachment to a bygone era, just as how androids might dream of electric sheep? Or Stand Alone Complex, a modern CyberPunk with an abundance of homages littered throughout. Meta, Construct Within’ Spaces attempts to create a referential and regional text in virtual space, collaging seemingly unrelated genres such as Free Jazz, Left-field Bass, Synth-wave, Drill, Drum'N Bass, while also refuting the prevalence of minimalism aesthetics which have come to dominate modern life.
Electronic music has always been part of our sonic imagination towards the future, even after nearly half a century, pioneers of the genre such as Kraftwerk and YMO still sound trendy and futuristic to listeners; even tools such as the vocoder, which has been invented for nearly a hundred years now, still produces a sound that many would relate to robots of a future that has yet to come. Meta, Construct Within’ Spaces has quite a few more synthesizer-based tracks than its predecessor. Taking inspiration from John Surman's sequencer Modal Jazz in the 70s, while also adding more intense and violent modulation and morphing on a single melody line. The sound of the West coast synths also gave Minyen Hsieh's saxophone an even stronger response and feedback.
Meta, Construct Within’ Spaces also includes a reinterpretation of Lim Giong's turn of the millennium classic "A Pure Person", which is different from the previous version the duo did for the compilation album. Their interpretation includes three saxophone tracks, aptly titled "A Complex Person".
Experimental rappers PiNkChAiN and TenderG of Yellow Hippie fame were featured on the track "Steely Dan III", with a narrative based on William S. Burroughs of the Beat Generation. Like a pair of machine guns firing on full-auto, the rappers spit out verse after verse of vile scenes of lust and desire in a dystopian backdrop, creating a unique and unheard combination of free jazz rapping influenced by formalism.
The track "Call Us by Our Names" is based on a track previously worked on by Hsieh and frequent collaborator Mars Lin the album A Soulful night of Jazz Poetry. Originally titled “Should You Ask my Name”, the elements are broken up and mixed into completely different genres, with vocals that begin with whispering and lamentation with finally transitioning into angry accusations. Mars Lin’s vocal lines are of a prisoner writing their final letter to family members, with LEO37, an influential figure in the Taiwanese underground hip hop scene, closing out the track with shout-outs to human freedom and dignity. These two tracks are perfect examples of the duality and the often extreme and two-sided nature of the uncertainty interpretation in language.
Musically, the style of Non-Confined Spaces has always been Maximalism. Whether it be the polyphonic modulation sequences that Hsieh has made a reputation out of, or multi-text motivational aspects that Sonic Deadhorse’s performances are known for: this album is like an audio equivalent of magical realist writer Mario Vargas Llosa’s polymorphic realist approach to creating narratives. Seeking truth among the noise, finding complexity in complexity, when all things return to Zen.
This album was produced with the support of the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, MOC
知名音樂人柯智豪曾說過,在4 on the floor上做出任何音樂都是合理的,非/密閉空間當然是反其道而行,這張專輯裡我們試著在不對稱架構中找到另一種和諧,對應文本空間中的拓樸學。在景觀社會裡以23拍的主題出發,在強烈地域性指涉的主題旋律下,用FM synth 調變薩克斯風主旋律作出共時性回應的呈式部,對應到居伊·德波 的母命題, 異國風情作為一種廉價情境主義的的反思。而在符號次元裡,則是將非對稱的結構及不和諧的和聲放在一個理應是44拍架構及穩定低音的音樂類型裡,拆解傳統爵士樂刻板印象融入另一種Neuro-Fusion風格。
後設時空共構這張專輯某種層面也回應到謝明諺今年發行以詩歌為主體的爵士詩靈魂夜。在Steely Dan III裡找了黃嬉皮裡的PinkChain及TenderG ,以敲打派要角威廉布洛斯的故事為文本,如溢出墨水的打字機般噴出一段又一段肉慾橫流的超現實惡托邦想像,這是你們從來沒聽過的爵士饒舌,某種層面上這首曲子就是一點都不形而上而是純然形式主義的自由爵士饒舌!!!在Call Us by Our Names則是直接將爵士詩靈魂夜裡的請問芳名裡的所有元素打碎變成完全不同風格的曲子,從林理惠本來的低語泣訴加上LEO37超groovy的flow變成憤怒控訴,將語言的未定性轉化成極端的兩個異肢 。
Non-Confined Space is an electronic improv duo created by Sonic Deadhorse (Guitar, Electronic, Live Visual) and Minyen Hsieh
(Saxophones, Woodwinds) in 2014. Each has been treading in the ponds called Experimental Electronica and Contemporary Jazz respectively for many years, now they are back with a bounty of brand new chops....more
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