Improvisations [Fringe Benefit Records No. 24], by Jon Rose, Dave Ellis, Rik Rue, Serge Ermoll, Peter Kelly

Improvisations [Fringe Benefit Records No. 24]

by Jon Rose, Dave Ellis, Rik Rue, Serge Ermoll, Peter Kelly

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1.	Trio 1 03:01	info	buy track
2.	Trio 2 01:07	info	buy track
3.	Trio 3 04:36	info	buy track
4.	Trio 4 02:17	info	buy track
5.	Trio 5 06:04	info	buy track
6.	Trio 6 06:40	info	buy track
7.	Trio 7 06:12	info	buy track
8.	Trio 8 03:53	info	buy track
9.	Trio 9 05:22	info	buy track
10.	2 Duos [Live] 06:04	info	buy track
11.	Duo 02:54	info	buy track

about

Jon Rose: If my memory serves me right, this was recorded on a primitive TEAC 4 track tape recorder in an early iteration of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music electronic music studio with everyone adding their parts without hearing what anyone else had played. I have taken some of the more egregious clicks and surface noise out of the file transfer from an original disc.

Highlights - The late Serge Ermoll laid into a wobbling upright piano with a succession of 9th Dan black belt Karate kicks. The violin was recorded direct with a piezo - at the time I was trying to make the instrument sound like a synthesiser. Dave Ellis sounded great as always. The talented Peter Kelly soon gave up music and became a Christian. Rik Rue guested on a VCS3 synth.

This was what I said on the back cover:
Rather than improvise and interact in the usual group fashion, the music on this album was recorded in the following way: each musician was asked to improvise a solo for a given period or free time period. These solos were played knowing that one or two other solos would be superimposed with each original. At all times none of the improvisers knew what else was being played side by side with their own work (with the exception of track 4 side 2 [track 10 here]). The aim of this process was to create sound structures which might not ordinarily happen in a group situation. All the musicians have improvised with each other in various combinations before and the unity is strangely present as each solo improvisation reaches out from its fixed isolation into a trio or duo of mobile time and space.

Recorded in the spring of 1978

Cover design: Kristine Rose

After the original "copy-on-demand" cassette release [FBR6], this was produced in a very limited vinyl edition as an EMI Custom Pressing with silkscreened cover [FBR24].

For Fringe Benefit Records, a huge thanks to all the following people, without whom this project would never have flown:

Rik Rue
Jim Goodwin
Clinton Green
Michael Sheridan
John Gillies
Shane Fahey
Juke Wyat
John Jacobs
Jeannie Lewis
Richard Johnson
Jim Denley
Penelope Courtney
Glenn Winfield
Manny Gasparinatos
Rainer Linz
Stephen Jones

credits

released January 1, 1979

Jon Rose - Violin, Sarangi and Autoharp
Dave Ellis - Contrabass
Serge Ermoll - Prepared Piano (Side 1)
Peter Kelly - Percussion and Clarinet (Side 2)
Rik Rue - VCS3 Synthesiser (Track 7)

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Fringe Benefit Records Sydney, Australia

Fringe Benefit Records was set up in 1977 by Jon Rose as a tape library of Australian improvised music. By the time of the final release in 1985, more than 50 cassettes and more than a dozen LPs had been released. This site now exists to digitise and bring those releases to a new audience, beginning with the compilation double CD released on Entropy Stereo Recordings in Michigan in 1998... ... more

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