Jason Kahn
Eternal City
Tip! Three pieces spanning free improvisation, noise and extended saxophone technique by long-time collaborators Jason Kahn and Ulrich Krieger.
All Along The Way
Tip! 370-page book + CD chronicling of a solo tour through North America from May 5 to June 30, 2022.In addition to the book, there are two concert recordings on a factory-pressed CD:Portland: recorded June 1 at the Discordance Concert Series.Chicago: recorded June 15 at Elastic Arts.Jason Kahn // modular synthesizer, mixing board, tubeamplifier, electromagnetic transducers, contactmicrophones, radio, field recordingsAll recordings by Jason Kahn.
Köln
Tip! Recorded on their European tour in October 2022, this is the first release from the trio of Jason Kahn, Franzt Loriot and Christian Wolfarth.
Sounding
*In process of stocking* "I wrote the texts in this book as a kind of memorial device to recordings I made in Zürich between February 5 to March 22, 2020. Though not a direct reaction to the Covid pandemic, the transformation of the city due to restrictions of movement in the public space made these recordings only first possible in many ways. Of course, what immediately became noticeable after the first shutdown of the city occurred was how quiet the normally noisy urban environment had becom…
Days Falling
** Edition of 100. Heavy weight 180 gram vinyl. Hand-painted covers on thick gray cardboard ** Editions presents Days Falling by Jason Kahn. Recorded April 9, 2020 in Zürich at Kunstraum Walcheturm. Recording, mixing, mastering, liner notes and LP artwork Jason Kahn. Many thanks to Patrick Huber for allowing me to record in Kunstraum Walcheturm. These pieces were recorded during one evening on April 9, 2020 in Zürich, my home for the last twenty-one years. I rode my bike through the rainy night …
Kangaroo Kitchen
n 2018 Mikroton Mikroten Festival offered a special occasion to record five important musicians from the Swiss experimental music scene.
Joke Lanz was born in Basel in 1965 and now lives in Berlin. He is a pioneer of the electronic independent scene and a crossover artist whose work spans improvised and experimental music, noise and turntablism, performance art and musique concrète. In addition to theatre and film music, radio works, installations and objects, there are two constants in his work…
Limmat
Limmat is the second CD from Günter Müller, Jason Kahn and Christian Wolfarth, following their first album Drumming released in 2005 on Creative Sources. Recorded during one afternoon in Kahn’s Zürich studio, “Limmat” features three unedited improvisations melding microsounds, percussive mastery and swaths of noise and static into a mesmerizing whole.
Originally from Los Angeles, Jason Kahn has lived in Europe since 1990. He has performed or recorded with musicians such as Günter Müller, Norbert…
Planes
Over three decades Jason Kahn developed his unique sonic language, now exploring the interaction between sound and space using a compact setup of percussion and analog synthesizer. He has performed and recorded albums with Günter Müller, Norbert Möslang, Kim Cascone, Arnold Dreyblatt, Steve Roden, Dieb13, Richard Francis, Ryu Hankil, Jon Mueller and many others. He ran his own Cut label from 1997 to 2008, releasing 25 albums.
Asher is one the most interesting new composers in the United States, …
Bangalore
Bangalore marks MKM’s fifth release for Mikroton. Recorded in concert on February 2, 2019 in Bangalore during a tour of India, this LP documents the group’s plunge in the ebb and flow of India’s intense energy. In visiting India the group found a social space which mirrored their own approach to music. Or in the words of David Tudor:
Resonance is the condition whereby a tiny input autonomously cascades into a much larger output. It occurs when a small vibration interacts with the internal struct…
Infinity Suite
In common parlance the term Infinity Suite refers to a luxury hotel apartment comprised of several adjoining rooms. But my usage of the term here invokes the notion of infinite realities as resonating through dream and memory. An interconnected suite of spaces populated with vivid sounds and images spanning across periods of one’s life. My experience here focuses on the Indian city of Varanasi, but this sense of reality drifting I found there could’ve taken place anywhere. I focused on Varanasi …
Spirits
**Edition of 100 copies on heavy weight 180 gram vinyl, comes in hand-painted cover on thick grey cardboard. In process of stocking.** "Spirits marks the second release of my duo with Christian Wolfarth, though in 2010 recordings of a trio with Christian, Günter Müller and myself (then on electronics) came out as the CD “Limmat” on the Mikroton Recordings label in Moscow. Following this trio CD, Christian and I didn’t play together again until 2016, when we had a series of concerts in Switzerlan…
Space Text Sound
Space Text Sound documents text material used in three of my recent installations: An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Hong Kong (After Perec) (2016), Drifting (2016) and Other Ghosts (2015). All three of these works investigate the nexus points between the production of space through sound and how text can be used to reflect on this process. I’m interested in how words can convey the sense of place sounds can and, beyond this, how these words impart a feeling for inner spaces, often more common…
Songline
An extended voice/ radical vocality album, Songline was recorded during one evening in the rooms of a former Swisscom telephone relay station in Zürich. I decided to use the main room, which was entirely empty. Its linoleum floors, bare walls and many windows made for a very resonant space. Double glass windows sealed off the world outside but many sounds still emanated from somewhere deep in the bowels of the building. My vocal work goes back a few years now, appearing here and there on various…
Five Lines
The meeting of heavyweights of electroacoustic improvisation from Europe and the Pacific United States happened during MKM trio tour in Northern America. This recording, at CalArts in 2010, yielded interesting results: a nervous displacement of noises and rich sonorous timbres. Casey Anderson, from Los Angeles, works with sound in a number of media from composition and improvisation to installations. On Five Lines he played a combination of digital and analog instruments of his own design…
Noema
"Noema is a collection of 37 short pieces composed from source material I recorded in and around Kyoto during a three-month stay there with my family in 2012. The over-arching theme of the record is the idea of exploring social space through everyday sound and especially in the case of Kyoto, not just focusing on what we've come to know the city for (temples, shrines, etc. Ð though some of these are in there as well). The pieces also deal with the idea of memory, much as the famous episode…
Things fall apart
Jason Kahn : drum set, voice, metal objects, radio, mixing board, contact microphones, magnetic coil, speaker, computer, chairs, plastic bags. Recorded in Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich, Switzerland on April 14, 2013. Mixed and mastered May 2-31, 2013. Cover design Jason Kahn. Audio CD, 6 panels digipak. 'Back in 1981 I was studying at the University of London in the School of African and Asian Studies. One lecturer had us read Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart.' Aside from the book moving …
Open Space
I've been composing graphical scores since 2004. Each score has been done for a particular group, and not just for a certain set of instruments but also for specific persons, each with their own personal sound and their own distinct approach to improvisation. The scores hover in the gray region between composition and improvisation. They create a situation where the players are free up to a point to improvise but in which they could also find themselves in juxtapositions with other player…
On Metal Shore
The idea for "On Metal Shore" goes back to the 2008 collaboration "Vista" with Boston artist Asher. The genesis of this piece was early morning recordings I made on the shores of the Lake of Zurich in 2007, where I played some very resonant steel railings with my hands. There was something magical for me about being down by the water an hour or so before sunrise. My hands were freezing and as I played a flock of birds in a tree nearby would fly away from my noise (even though I wasn't playing ve…
Espírito Santo
* 250 copies limited edition * “Espírito Santo” was recorded one October day in Lisbon in the cellar of the “Espírito Santo” building. Formerly a bank, this building had been empty many years and was recently opened again for artists to use as studio and exhibition space. The room we recorded in, resembling at first glance more a cave than a cellar, is remarkable for its acoustics. With eight-meter high ceilings, brick walls and concrete floor we found ourselves dealing with a very responsive s…
Intervals
'Z'EV: percussion. Jason Kahn: percussion, analog synthetizer. Recorded by Jason Kahn April 13-14, 2009 in Zürich and Lausanne, Switzerland. Mixed and mastered by Z'EV. Artwork by Mirt.' label info Jason Kahn, born 1960, New York, USA. Composition, installations, percussion, electronics. Based in Zürich, Switzerland. Z'EV. After studying at CalArts with Concrete Poet Emmett Williams he concentrated on producing visual and sound poetries, and was included in the ÔSecond Generation' show at the Mu…