AMPTEXT
Seeds Of Erasure
3“CDR, (19'58''), 60 copies, cardboard sleeve
1000füssler 023, released in February 2014
Ex fan club 11’26’’
Seeds of erasure 8’24’’, mp3 excerpt
Gary Rouzer, objects, tapes, field recordings, cello
Music by Gary Rouzer, 2013. Mastered by Mark Beazley. Photo by Gary Rouzer
‘My musical collages often contain the sounds of domestic and city life. I have used traffic, washing dishes, transformer hum, zippers, a can opener, couch springs, cicadas, keyboard typing, a coffee machine, rain, distant conversation, and furnace noises to name a few. My amplified objects are everyday items, such as egg slicers, combs, paint brushes, cardboard, and wooden boxes with contact mics attached. The only functions I use on the computer are simple cut and paste editing, never effects or plug-ins.
Ex fan club. About a year ago I started using small cassette players in my music. At first I was using just the sounds of the motors as amplified by a contact mic attached to a cassette without tape. Later I started creating tapes from recordings I had made of amplified objects and field recordings to use in my live performances. Ex fan club uses such tapes. Last summer I recorded various air conditioning fans in downtown Washington DC alleyways during my lunch break. I created a 9 minute composition, which included patches of silence, from these fan sounds. I repeated the composition 5 times to fit on one side of a 45’ cassette tape. I made 4 such identical tapes. Lastly I turned on my digital recorder surrounded by four cassette players, each one playing the tape starting at a different random point. This became the canvas or starting point for ex fan club.
Seeds of erasure. A common compositional technique I use is to take two different tracks and paste them side by side to see what might result. I then go about erasing sections to expose any narrative flow that might be hidden. Another meaning of the title, seeds of erasure, is about undoing or ignoring my musical technique and education. The cello is used very simply, almost childlike, by blowing into the f holes, open string pizzicato, drones, and bowing the body.‘
(Gary Rouzer, 2014)
About the Artist:
Gary Rouzer (amplified objects, cello) was born in Washington DC and works in the area between free improvisation and composition. He used to masquerade as a bass player but now his Cageian preparations have taken on a life of their own. His focus is on electro-acoustic sounds and the relation between musician and listener within the performance space while exploring noise, silence, texture, and abstract narrative. He is an active member of the DC experiment music scene and has performed at Sonic Circuits, Electric Possible, Fringe Festival, and Artomatic in addition to performances in Baltimore, NYC, Hamburg, and Berlin.
www.amptext.wordpress.com
REVIEWS:
Just outside / USA
This trio of 3" releases from 1000füssler arrived together and, though doubtless not intended this way, their relative (by no means great) self-similarity makes it difficult not to hear them as a kind of a suite, and an excellent one at that, all three being very enjoyable.
Amptext is cellist Gary Rouzer's affair and this imaginary suite full circle, quite beautifully. He also uses a set of fans (air conditioner variety) for the first piece, recorded and set through a complicated series of transformations, including a final recording of four other recordings played at staggered start times. However arrived at, the result is pretty stunning, an expanse of hisses, wheezes, squeaks, rumbles and the odd roar that's totally enveloping, somehow evoking the natural world and its fauna. The title cut involves placing two unrelated pieces side by side and then "erasing sections to expose any narrative flow that might be hidden". I like that idea...The cello is more prominent here (I think it appears on the first piece, unless there are some cello-like fans) heard against an abstract slate of rubbings and soft abrasions, emerging and disappearing. Another excellent work.
Brian Olewnick, Just outside, March 11, 2014
Vital Weekly / Netherlands
Behind Amptext we find Gary Rouzer, which I think is a new name for me. He is from Washington DC and plays the cello, but also amplified objects, tapes and field recordings. Thre press text describes in depth what he does in his two pieces, and no doubt it's on the website too and I'd say: read that, as it's very interesting. In 'Ex Fan Club' he has an elaborate schematic to record air conditioning fans and use that as part of his improvisations on the cello. Which, actually, never seems to be sounding like cello. He uses all sorts of objects against the body and the strings of the cello, which make odd scraping sounds and very interesting electro-acoustic configurations with it. It has a freely improvised feel yet it also sounds strangely coherent. In the title piece the cello-as-such can be more easily recognized and it's a dialogue of two improvisations at the same time. 'Stick two random recordings together and see what the interaction is between these two' - or some such Cageianguideline. This piece has a more improvised feel to it, but still sounds quite fascinating and, perhaps, also composed (editing two recordings together), due to the fact of it's more rigorous editing. Great release!
Frans de Waard / Vital Weekly 921
The Soundprojector / UK
Three mini CDs arrived on 14 February 2014 from Gregory Büttner and his 1000füssler label in Hamburg. (...) Another very transformative sound artist is Gary Rouzer, the American appearing here as Amptext. His ‘Seeds of Erasure‘ also uses field recordings, but lots of other elements too, and listening to this is a somewhat fuller and more nourishing experience than the blanked-out, over-processed dry world of Luciano Maggiore. Rouzer finds interest in “domestic and city life” and often is attracted to sounds, events or situations which you or I might consider rather banal, such as washing dishes or sitting down on the settee and hearing the springs creak. He’s also one of many who like picking up small non-musical household objects and discovering their sound-making potential, including cardboard boxes and paintbrushes. This mini CD exhibits two quite different instances of his practice. ‘Ex Fan Club’ is founded on the use of cassette players and his own recordings of amplified objects, plus field recordings of air conditioner fan vents he found out in the street. The quite elaborate set-up we’re hearing is based on the playback of four such recordings, each starting at a different random point, being captured “live” by his digital recorder. As such, it’s a rich event of the “found mechanical droner” sort that Gen Ken would doubtless endorse. The second piece, ‘Seeds of Erasure’ does have a musical instrument somewhere in its workings – a cello, to be precise, but he doesn’t exactly play it in a conventional manner (blowing into the f-holes, indeed!). In any case, the point of this one – another process based work – is about juxtaposing two recorded (and unrelated) tracks just for the hell of it, and then deleting certain parts of each track in order to “expose any narrative that might be hidden”. I like the notion that tape recorders, be they analogue or digital, might be capturing a secret truth at all times, and that an artist has to intervene in some way to reveal that truth.
Ed Pinsent / thesoundprojector.com/2014/11/15/ventilation
Bad Alchemy / Germany
Hinter AMPTEXT steckt Gary Rouzer, der in Washington DC mit dem Vector Trio und Nine Strings am E-Bass improvisiert hat, zunehmend jedoch auch noch dekonstruktiveren und geräuschorientierteren Interessen nachgeht. Mit Jeff Surak zusammen als Salarymen entstand z. B. Out to lunch, zusammen mit Gunnar Lettow Fundstücke. Auf Seeds of Erasure (023, 3" mCD-R) lässt er bei 'Ex fan club' vier identische, aber zeitversetzte Tonbandmitschnitte von kompositorisch aufbereiteten Lüftungsventilatorengeräuschen zusammen rauschen und interagieren mit dissonanten Cellotraktaten. Beim Titelstück bilden zwei mehr oder weniger willkürlich ausgewählte Bandspuren ein zusammengeklebtes Gespann. Indem er Passagen löscht, schafft Rouzer zufällige neue Zusammenhänge. Dazu spielt er wieder Cello, als wüsste er nicht wie das geht, nämlich indem er hineinbläst, daran klopft oder mit dem Bogen den Korpus streicht. Er kann es knarren lassen wie Tauwerk, i-aen wie einen Esel, dongen wie einen Gong, glissandieren und keckernd kaskadieren, dass sich einem die Nasenhaare sträuben. Cage und Burroughs stehen als Graue Eminenzen hinter dem Flirt der Neugier mit dem Zufall, bei dem laut tickende Wecker sich marschierend in Gang setzen.
Rigo Dittmann / Bad Alchemy 81
Improve Sphere / France
Gary Rouzer est un musicien américain basé à Washington, qu'on trouve ici sous le pseudonyme de Amptext. Et pour ce mini-disque de vingt minutes tout rond, il nous propose deux belles pièces composées à partir d'objets, de cassettes, de field-recordings et de violoncelle. Sur Seeds of erasure, on commence par entendre les field-recordings, des enregistrements d'espace sonore comme ceux d'Anne Guthrie par exemple, des enregistrements de ventilateurs à air conditionné superposés. Et par-dessus ces belles bandes, Amptext agite et fait résonner divers objets (métalliques, motorisés, etc.) avant de jouer quelques notes de violoncelle enfantines sur la seconde piste. L'ambiance est aérienne, lumineuse, et espacée. Les éléments soniques présents sont simples, Amptext ne se précipite pas et propose deux pièces proches du drone dans la forme, mais plus créatives dans le contenu. Comme souvent sur ce label, on a affaire ici à un artiste qui a su accorder une large place au développement d'un langage personnel, et abstrait. C'est le première fois que j'entends ce musicien, et ça s'annonce plutôt bien. J'aime beaucoup cette superposition d'enregistrements abstraits et profonds, avec des objets incongrus et un instrument classique joué de manière tradtionnelle surtout. En soi, chaque élément n'est pas tellement neuf, mais leur superposition sensible et fine, par contre, l'est assurément. Conseillé.
Julien Héraud, 24 mars 2014, improv-sphere.blogspot.fr
www.1000fuessler