Yes, Well
Jeph Jerman and I first started playing together in 1995 and have collaborated ever since. When Jeph lived in Seattle, I was one of the first to take instruction on his animist orchestra approaches and have played with him in Blowhole, Climax Golden Twins, and others in ad hoc groupings, as well as his El Grupo Arrestra. When Jeph moved away from Seattle we have continued to play, exploring exceedingly lo-fi approaches with cassettes, mini-cassettes, dictaphones, our various assortments of homemade instruments & collected materials, all over the phone. Our 22 & 1/2’s series was a limited run of 100 c46 cassettes, each a unique side taken from this Arizona ~ Washington dialogue and any other previously unreleased “session” recordings we have participated in together (like excerpts from the Anomalous Records Thursday Night Improvised Music Above the Artificial Limb Company recordings). Jeph did one side and I did the other = tape #x done.
We also made a record, a limited edition lathe cut 10″ LP: the Yes, Well… No, Really! There’s only a couple of those left, so email me if you are interested in getting one of those or a 22 & 1/2 cassette.
Tune into Doug Haire’s Sonarchy Broadcast of the Yes, Well… from Jack Straw to KEXP, 2014: “Jeph Jerman and Dave Knott create a remarkable radioscape with guitar, piano, materials from nature, battery amps, objects and various inexplicable sound sources.” (from the Sonarchy radio feed).
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more on Jeph Jerman & his El Grupo Arrastre
For over 25 years, Jeph Jerman has been a seeker of sound — a sono-seer of the highest order. Tirelessly creative, he has released cassettes, vinyl, cd’s, cdr’s, hand-made sound-oriented objects, and collaborated widely – and sometimes wildly. During this time, he has developed a global network of enthusiastic listeners who follow his work. In 1999, Jerman established animist orchestra, a group that uses natural materials and very specific, directed actions to evoke sounds. In January 2007, animist orchestra was the first performance in the Wayward Music Series at the then recently renovated Good Shepherd Center Chapel Performance Space. Jerman has continued to assemble groups to play his compositions, with recent invitations from Arizona State University, New Music Co-Op Austin and Oberlin College.
During the summer of 2010, he recorded a series of drone works using found pot lids and metal bowls, played in the manner of Tibetan singing bowls, by dragging a wooden dowel around their rims. Titled “arrastre”, these pieces were released as a three-part work on an LP, CD-R and cassette. Arrastre is the Spanish word for ‘drag’, and also the name given to a 19th century spindle and arm mining apparatus. Often using pack animals, boulders or stone wheels were dragged around a pit filled with gold and silver ore, breaking the ore into smaller and smaller bits to reveal the precious minerals. It seems a fitting name behind Jerman’s current compositional group work, as his musical processes -often appearing rough at a glance – always, eventually, reveal precious sonorities.
In 2012 the live premier of “arrastre” was performed in St. Paul Minnesota by a quartet. On July 12th, “arrastre” was performed by a 7-member ensemble comprised of Jeph Jerman, Dave Knott, Doug Theriault, Mike Shannon, Esther Sugai, David Stanford and Carl Liedman in the fine resonance of the Chapel Performance Space., utilizing specially selected kitchen pan lids. Jeph’s music is capable of directing players’ and listeners’ attention, re-attenuating to place and space in a way that is rare.
Sounds * Radio * Discography * Bio
