Powerplant: Import/Export
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Liner notes
Powerplant - the multimedia group led by young genre-trashing percussionist, Joby Burgess - follow up the debut release ‘Electric Counterpoint’ (remixes of Kraftwerk and Steve Reich for xylosynth, percussion and electronics) with the groundbreaking commission ‘Import/Export’ a suite for global junk from Gabriel Prokofiev.
Import/Export is inspired by the pioneering composers and musicians, whose use of unconventional objects has created a groundbreaking repertoire for percussion over the last century. These range from institutional greats such as Schaeffer, Stockhausen, Cage and Varese, to the Babaton bendi in Tanzania and the Zawose family in Africa whose use of these instruments derives from a necessity to make music based on the recovery of the materials around them.
This release comes complete with a DVD containing a full performance of the piece and interviews from both performer and composer which explicitly shows how the music is performed live; no laptop-gazing in sight! The rich sounds and inspired rhythms of these four junk objects provide fantastic material for remixers. Nonclassical were fortunate to have contributions from some leading names in Electronica, including: Matthew Fairclough, Murcof, Martin Parker (aka tinpark), Medasyn, Richard Lannoy and Joby Burgess himself.
'Oil drums, plastic bags, soda bottles and wooden pallets are deployed - along with a minimal amount of electronic looping ... redolent of an earlier era in percussion music (namely Cage and Cowell) ... Import/Export is that rare achievement: music wholly sufficient in itself that is shot through with the cultural fall-out which inspired it.'
Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone, March 2011
’If the aim of musique concrete was to collapse the walls between art and life, Import/Export: Suite for Global Junk takes the connection an eco-logical step further - pollution as a sound source, recycled to maximum effect. It's a demonstration that in music, nothing can be discarded as beneath its purposes.’
David Stubbs, The Wire, September 2010
Track listing/listen
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Voyage I - On Land
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Voyage II - Engine Multiplier
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Voyage III - Cloudburst
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Voyage IV - Plastic Invasion
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Voyage V - Fanta®
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Voyage VI - Tropical Shores
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Voyage VII - Memories of a Wooden Workhorse
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Epilogue - Distant Drum
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Shards and Splinters Remix
Matthew Fairclough -
Evening Hill Remix
Richard Lannoy listen -
Remix
Murcof listen -
Last Wooden Dance Remix
Gabriel Prokofiev -
Just Drumming Remix
Joby Burgess -
Black Gold Remix
Medasyn -
Chatter Remix
Martin Parker
