Apart from Hugo Ball's seminal work with language invention and vocal sounds,the other Dadaist of note in Jaap the sound poet's life was Kurt Schwitters,Though initially associated with German Dada, he later started his own one-man movement Merz, and published a magazine of that name. Like Ball before him, he made a smart move and left Germany before world war two,via oslo,then settled in that hell-hole of English country living, Ambleside, in the gloriously lovely Lake District of England.Life was hard as a sound artist.
The earlier version of "Ursonate" that Jaap did in 1986, was prohibited by Schwitters' son Ernst. He wouldn’t allow any other versions of the work except his fathers' one. The pressing was officially destroyed and unofficially went underground.So,as you can guess, we don't have it here,except this live version from 1998,live in Norway,which seems to be the modern home for sound poetry.
The house that Kurt had created in a Dada style from 1923-37 in Hannover, the Merzbau, was responsible for the naming of Merzbow,the prolific japanoise artist,rather than Jaap-a-noise. The original Merzbau was destroyed by the RAF in 1943,very likely by a bomb dropped by my fathers plane.A more Dadaist ending to this story I cannot imagine;but why it wasn't destroyed by the Nazi's before that I find incredible! Classsic Degenerate Art by any Nazi standards.
Tracklist:
1 Erster Teil
2 Largo
3 Scherzo À La Zrem
4 Presto
Arch Dutch dadaist sound poet, Jaap Blonk...real name.....has made a career out of these six Hugo Ball penned 'sound Poems' .He actually earns money doing this, so how stupid are we?
Apparently, according to his biog on Wikipedia, he went through a lot of employment failures and sackings before trying his hand at being a musician,which he was also a bit crap at.This left his voice as his last chance for gainful employment without the boredom and toil of 'real work', and it...er... worked!The one thing you can say about a poet,is that you can never say he isn't working.Even when laying down he can always claim that he's thinking about his next poem. Perfect.
As sound poetry has been around for longer than 100 years, one cannot claim that this is something startlingly 'Neu',but it is an-neu-ing,and it will still have Mr and Mrs Henry Normal running in fear from this challenge to their world.That is a testament to the sheer originality and subversion of the original work.....yes that word again....of Hugo Ball.
This recording uses the improvisational skills of double bassist Damon Smith....real name....that give it,debatably, a more listenable edge.Jaap's grunting and raspberry blowing is a bit more paletable when backed up by scraping discordant contrabasse strings.
I would like to see a Jandek and Jaap Blonk collaboration on day....Jaap and Jan.
Tracklist:
1 Prelude 7:33
2 Wolken (Clouds) 6:08
3 Katzen Und Pfauen (Cats And Peacocks) 4:38
4 Karawane (Caravan) 5:57
5 Interlude 7:34
6 Gadji Beri Bimba 5:57
7 Totenklage (Dirge) 7:03
8 Seepferdchen Und Flugfische (Seahorses And Flying Fish) 5:20
9 Postlude 7:56
