MORIMOTO, SEIJI / YAN JUN - RING + BALANCE / SOLO WITH BACKGROUND (LP)

"The Festival Experimentelle Musik is a music festival in Munich, organized by Stephan Wunderlich and Edith Rom, that has been held annually in December since 1983. One of the festival's unique characteristics is the way the performances are organized: Each is limited to 20 to 25 minutes and all take place in direct succession without pauses, on previously set-up small stages. In 2017, Seiji Morimoto and Yan Jun performed after each other. Seiji's piece was called "ring + balance" and he used small speakers, microphones and amplifiers on a table to create feedback rings that were eventually distorted by alarm clocks. Yan performed "solo with background" where he sat on a chair making vocal and body gestures, and had two audience members announce the elapsed time every 3 or 5 minutes, respectively, according to their own inner clocks. As a spectator, I felt that the two performances had something in common. Their very quiet and experimental nature - in the sense that it was impossible to anticipate what would happen and when, if at all - made the audience listen not only to the performers but also to each other. When I met Seiji a few months later in Berlin, it turned out that he had a similar feeling. We asked Yan and the idea was born to make a split LP of both recordings. The performances were recorded by Albert Dambeck and carefully mastered for vinyl by Werner Dafeldecker. Audience noises are an intended part of the recordings." (label info) edition of 300 copies