creative improvisation electro-acoustics performance art image projection

Improvisation in music is language, ask any Jazz musician – who are without peer in terms of the structured spontaneity of sound – and all language is internalized before being externalized; think before you speak (subconsciously or not), sing within before you sing without. However, Brekekekexkoaxkoax, despite the voluminous scenes and quotes on improvisation present “we used to be such good friends” as less language than demonstration in exponential experimentalism sparsely presented in whispered menacing free jazz form. Brekekekexkoaxkoax’s “we used to be such good friends” is a performance group of considerable sonic divergence. The four tracks metronome, from the aforementioned free jazz (tracks 1, 3) to the darkly smothered performance (tracks 2, 4) of Josh Ronsen, whose compositions divagate unexpectedly. This dichotomous dovetailing presents quite the offset and one that is trying on the senses. This Brekekekexkoaxkoax jam session (tracks 1, 3 ramping up an est. 50 minutes) embarks tangled. Guitar is scraped, harmonically diced, violin pizzicato prickles like a flurry of the many-legged running late, snare drum softly cachinnates and squirreling clarinet and oboe rummage for synchronicity... With all this squirming one could imagine little rest, but the ensemble proves patience and disengagement is best for breath: places ‘tween the scampered chaos is redolent with panoply of scents and space. Slighting the freeform exposition is the dark instability that runnels the belly of the conglomerate’s sonorous output as the pursuit of experimentation burrows unexpected organic tunnels. There is certain post-modern appreciation of the first electronic/sound experimentalists here, the blurts, the faltering, the jerking, the whispering, the spooling, the tightening, the wavering, the upswelling, the festering. “we used to be such good friends” is resolutely peppered. The pairing against Ronsen’s solo productivity breaks first with a four minute gorge of; turntable, vocals, electronics and computer delineating his squeezed wedge of dark ambience. Almost an afterthought given another score minute of the ensemble’s metamorphosing before Josh returns with haunting dominance of a bowed bass guitar and nothing else. No effects. No overdubs. No electronic processing. It spooks. Caterwaul of moans and squeals, where feedback filaments further layers of sound, peel from the sawn low-end strings, a didgeridoo of thickened bass. If “we used to be such good friends” is indeed improvisation, a language, it is unlikely to ever be successfully translated. A jewel-case with laser printed CDr bears the group’s lengthy and unpronounceable moniker. Plastered inside the aesthetically middling four-page colour booklet is text on the aforementioned “improvisation” and liner notes. Uninspired vivid saturation colours the cover’s artwork, though for a CDr at least there has been attempt at providing something other than a computerized burn.

–Heathen Harvest

Been a long time that I ain't never heard no name as weird as Austin, Texas' Brekekekexkoaxkoax but weird is the name of the game these days innit. I'm not even sure how to pronounce it but I think "Breakfast Coax" is close enough. Brekekekexkoaxkoax define themself as "an open-ended art music collective, focusing on improvisational, indeterminate performances using sound, visuals and movement" which is pretty much how every band I wind up reviewing defines themselves anyway. But it's cool though, Brekekekexkoaxkoax actually have some pretty neat credits to their name: they appeared on the illustrious RRRecords 500 locked grooves compilation where thousands of other bands were turned away and they seem to be studious followers of the Fluxus movement given how often their tracks show up on Fluxus-related tributes and compilations (okay it probably only happened like twice). As I understand it, "We Used to be Such Good Friends" is their debut long player for the sometimes-quartet of headmaster Josh Ronsen and compadres Jacob Green, Glen Nuckolls and Genevieve Walsh. On "Friends" however there are guest appearances from like-minded souls Vanessa Arn (electronics) and Bill Thompson (computer). What's interesting about "Friends" is that the quartet only play together on the first track and again in splintered form on the third - the other two are Josh Ronsen going it solo. I guess at the end of the day, after all, it is still his Brekekekexkoaxkoax. I may have made a subtle allusion to the notion that Brekekekexkoaxkoax are another run-of-the-mill campfire squatting tambourine-shaking troupe but they're really not, they're like the version of that troupe that actually went to university and majored in things like Computer Graphics & Design or something with the word Vector in the name. Or they're just adept at adopting a slight air of academia. Or that's just me misinterpreting things as usual. Well the amount of instruments used on the half-hour opener "Haifa Hi-Fi" is as staggering as you'd expect: oboe, organ, acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, violin, flute, snare drum, electronics, and more...basically everything with a string from tennis rackets down on to your mother's sewing machine is put to good use, and I may or may not be exaggerating. The resulting jam though is almost surprisingly restrained for the most part, as the four players take the time to actually pay attention to what the other is playing and meditate on it good n' long until they decide to sneak in with their own contribution. I guess the comparison that kept coming to me was an updated take on AMM (kind of ironic since AMM never really went away), or at least re-imagined by a pack of young'uns affected by/afflicted with the post-Altamont world scenario. The 20-minte accompanying jam piece "Tuesday on Sunday" is a lot less jerky and more fluid, approaching the more down-tempo moments of Labradford or Brokeback. The song is held together at its nexus courtesy Ronsen's on-going electric guitar rhythms, not at all unlike Josetxo Grieta's "European Son" interpretation we visited yester's day. By the time the track starts thinking of a conclusion, Green's oboe is already doing quiet battle with Arn and Thompson's gizmodgery and it flows as smoothly as any Milky Way I've come to know. Real long, and patience is most definitely a pre-requisite, but real nice. Ronsen's first solo track "Figure or Failure II" is a four-minute bridge between the two epics and a rather inhumanely tranquil sound sculpture plundered from turntable, voice, electronics and computer. Mostly it comes out like a black ocean rumble, as soothing as it is disconcerting and as E.A.I. as any of that - hard to hear anything other than what I suppose to be the computer in it though. Ronsen's other piece is "For I.D. II", a slothful goliath if there ever was one. It's another twenty minute jaunt but this one's a solo bowed bass performance and a rather exquisite one at that. It begins as light and airy as you can get while playing a bass guitar and slowly but certainly bleeding into more sinister territories until the sound forms around your ears as thick as an on-rushing tornado, maintaining just the right amount of pressure long enough to splinter into rubbery strands of pure dark matter. Sunn O))) by way of Scodanibbio? Ronsen's solo takes are just as nice and fully-formed as the group tracks, which sound like Rowe, Ambarchi, Muller, Nakamura et al. getting lost on the way to ErstQuake and playing the Terrastock festival instead. "We Used to be Such Good Friends" is no revelation, but the group of musicians working here under the Brekekekexkoaxkoax banner are too talented to not pull off a work of undeniable competency. And the quotes on and about improvising music in the booklet are at least a helpful indicator that these folks aren't slobs either.

–Outer Space Gamelan

Equally heady is the tongue-twisting collective Brekekekexkoaxkoax, featuring the guitar and clarinet stylings of local improv vet Josh Ronsen and a few fellow experimentalistos. We Used to Be Such Good Friends weaves in and out of free-jazz traffic jams, incorporating flute, oboe, guitar, and turntable for electric soundscapes with equally boggling names like "Haifa Hi-Fi."

–Austin Chronicle

Covered in soft felt: Tender spiderwebs of winds and acoustic string instruments. The term improvisation means different things to different people. To Josh Ronsen, it is more than just a drawer to file all music made in the moment, more than just a nostalgic relic from the 60s and 70s. To him, it is the essence of performing and the closest one can get to communicating something which can not be put into words. Or, to put it frankly: To him it means everything. After listening to “We used to be such good friends”, his point is becoming more and more convincing. Even the name of his loosely associated, tightly knit, long-lived and open-ended ensemble brekekekexkoaxkoax (don’t let your shrink catch you trying to pronounce that) sounds as though it could have been the result of a verbal jam session. In the booklet, one finds excerpts from an interview with French Deconstructionist Philosopher Jaques Derrida as well as short, seemingly unrelated text fragments, which combine in a halucinatory way to form a clear picture of Ronsen’s aesthetics: A freely interacting group liberates the inmost desires of its participants, all of which are combining their forces to create something at the same time familiar and foreign. Improvisation, therefore is not a genre, nor a technique, it is a process which will lead to results as unpredictable and complex as life itself – which is maybe why many consider it “difficult” and prefer the easy organisation of prepared compositions. On the other hand, there is nothing “difficult” about “We used to be...”. The band has been associated with the lower case movement around Josh Russel’s Bremsstrahkung Records and this becomes more than apparent in these quietly lumbering tracks. As if everything were covered in soft felt, there is never an outburst, never even the threat of an explosion. Sometimes, unusual combinations will cause a sensation of uneasiness, but other than that the group members are treating their instruments like parents telling their children to be careful in a china shop. Which can be explained by the non-linear outset of brekekekexkoaxkoax: Unlike many of their colleagues, the many different artists involved in this effort are not necessarily interested in building structures from the void, but rather in finding modes of cooperation, short passages of harmony and shaking-hands, before loosening the grip and moving on to something else. On the almost half an hour long opening “Haifa Hi-Fi”, this leads to tender spiderwebs of winds and acoustic string instruments, while “tuesday on sunday” works by contrasting introvert melancholia with sonorous claustrophobia. Of course, enjoying this album at home on your stereo and especially putting it on several times in a row, reduces quite a bit of the immediate complexity of the music and especially of its unpredictability. And yet it never looses its spontaneous and surprising character. That may well be its greatest strength: To brekekekexkoaxkoax, improvising not only means creating something from the moment, but working on music which feels as though it were born anew with each listen.

–Tokafi