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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
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a r t i s t : John Hudak, Jason Kahn & Bruce Tovsky
t i t l e : For The Time Being
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : Cut (cut 011)
g e n r e : Electronic
r l s. d a t e : November/2004
t r a c k s : 02
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 83,1 MB
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john hudak / jason kahn / bruce tovsky: for the time being CD
Three composers, two tracks.
John Hudak and Jason Kahn both take care of the first half of
the album, performed on the occasion of Kahn's sound
installation called Winter. The piece builts up gradually,
combining light static noise with a repetitive, returning high
metallic pitch. The music gets more robust and organic after
about six minutes, before the process starts all over again
with deep rumbling, larded with fine-tuned peeps and crackles.
The combination of harshness and lovely details can be
considered excellent, creating a certain tension that keeps the
listener stay tuned and interested for the whole track.
The second piece, a cooperation between John Hudak and
Brooklyn-based Bruce Tovsky, is completely different. Both
musicians play guitar and used processing. The track is a tonal
experience in which sparkling acoords play a major part. Dark
mystic electronics have been added, but remain in the
background.
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From the world of laptops, here come at least two of my
favourite players on the scene, although actually it must be
understood as a John Hudak plus guest CD. On the first piece he
plays with Jason Kahn and on the second with a guy named Bruce
Tovsky. Of course Kahn is well-known as percussion players cum
laptopist and for what he has being doing either solo or in
combination with others, it seems to me that John Hudak is the
most natural person to work with for him, almost like a twin
brother. In their duo piece, performed on the occassion of
Kahn's installation 'Winter' at the Diapason Gallery in New
York, the winter becomes almost audible. Sounds come in like a
icy winds blowing of the northpole and on top the sound of
snowflakes is kindly processed into that of small stones
towards the end. Gentle, minimal but with a nice edge to it. I
never heard of Bruce Tovsky, but he and Hudak play guitar which
is fed through a Max/MSP programming environment (in other
words: it's fed through the computer to change the shape of the
sound). It starts out minimal and nice, but it couldn't hold my
attention throughout. Things were too minimal but also,
strangely enough, too haphazard for me and towards the end the
piece derailled, which broke the chain of sounds in a rather
nasty way. Facit: the first piece is great, the second only
partly.
>The Vital Weekly, Frans de Waard, 8.2004
For the Time Being presents two very different extended pieces
featuring John Hudak. First up is a 20-minute performance with
Hudak and Cut label owner Jason Kahn on laptops. Recorded live
at Michael J. Schumacher's Diapason Gallery in March of 2003,
the piece hovers delicately in mid-air, like an installationû
there to be enjoyed and scrutinized for a while, then left on
its own, then scrutinized again. Kahn's soft tones and Hudak's
quiet manipulations make a fine match, but the piece is not
striking or distinctive. Both artists have more personal
material out (in Kahn's case, his solo album Miramar released
on Sirr a few weeks before this CD came out). If this first
piece is slightly bland, the second, 30-minute track is
definitely worth your time and money. Recorded live at the
Roulette Festival of Mixology, in June of 2003, it features
Hudak and Bruce Tovsky on guitars and processing. And the
guitar is at the center of the performance, fully recognizable.
There is a soundscaping guitar, its wails setting a dark mood
and offering a source of processed feedbacks and moans. The
second guitar starts with single plucked notes and builds up to
a delicate music box-like theme that, through processing, will
get increasingly frantic, passing through a playful phase
before turning into digital madness. The result is very dynamic
(the piece is in constant progression), attention-grabbing and
downright beautiful in its own way, ranking among Hudak