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PT10

Che Chen - Pulaski Wave (Violin Halo)/Newtown Creek Mirror Lag 7"

A.  Pulaski Wave (Violin Halo) mp3
B.  Newtown Creek Mirror Lag

Che Chen: violin, sine wave generators, feedback and tape delay (on Side B)
Recorded November 2010 on the banks of Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, NY.
Released April 2011
300 copies





"The Pulaski Bridge and Newtown Creek (over which it spans) are regular fixtures in my daily life, geographical features that I move on or over with great frequency. As I developed this system--which i did over very long durations of listening, mostly very late at night or early in the morning--and gradually felt the need to be able to differentiate certain settings from others, it made sense to name them, somewhat arbitrarily, for things that were close at hand.  These systems and intervals had become very familiar to me, and during my long listening sessions in the hours on the edges of sleep, I often had the sensation of them moving from the foreground of my attention to the background and then back again. They became more like a kind of geography or weather than ‘music’." - Che Chen


REVIEWS:

Still Single (Bill Meyer)

JULY 31, 2011
Che Chen – “Pulaski Wave (Violin Halo)” b/w “Newtown Creek Mirror Lag” 7” (Pilgrim Talk)

Four years ago the True Primes put out a rather winning hunk of clatter-rock, but it’s taken until now to know what the story was with their name. Turns out Che Chen, who was in the True Primes and currently plays with Jozef Van Wissem and Robbie Lee in Heresy Of The Free Spirit, is a tuning nerd. These two tracks are all about the numbers; both pieces originated in tuning ratios, and both sides throb repetitively for so long that they have to spin at 33 1/3. “Pulaski Wave” is the purer effort, composed solely of a violin wailing in the best Tony Conrad/Henry Flynt style. Sine waves and tape loops make “Newtown Creek Mirror Lag” the choogler of the two, with pulsing rhythms and little feedback leaks squeaking out past that Theatre Of Eternal Music wall of sound. Sometimes just intonation means just right, and this is one of those times. Three hundred copies, black vinyl.

The Wire (Byron Coley)
September 2011

Che Chen
Pulaski Wave
Pilgrim Talk 7"

"New York improvisor who works extensively with violin drones, tape delay, feedback and electronics. The sawing is more cracked and fragmentary than I'd expected, but it mixes beautifully with the generator drone."

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