Joseph Hammer/Joe Potts/John Wiese – The Elusive Flexure 2xCD
Joseph Hammer/Joe Potts/John Wiese
The Elusive Flexure
2×CD/Digital
Helicopter, HEL 99092
Release Date: June 9, 2023
Helicopter is proud to present the first trio album of Joseph Hammer (Solid Eye, Dinosaurs With Horns, LAFMS), Joe Potts (Airway, Extended Organ, LAFMS), and John Wiese (Sissy Spacek, Strain of Laws).
Joe Potts has composed electro-acoustic music exclusively since 1973, creating art/sound installations and performances internationally. A founding member of the LAFMS, he is also the man behind the curtain in Airway, combining walls of sound with subliminal treatments, utilizing both live musicians and the audience itself as electronic signals which are processed and manipulated. For the past 20 years he has been composing for an instrument known as the Chopped Optigan, a seventies optical sampling console organ that he has customized and rewired in order to create dense undulating chords of up to 64 notes at a time.
Joseph Hammer has focused on tape loops since the early 80s, using phonomontage as a live process to assemble source material by hand with vintage magnetic audio gear. As part of the LAFMS, his groups Solid Eye, Points of Friction, Dimmer, and Dinosaurs with Horns have had an active presence alongside his constant solo practice.
John Wiese is a sound artist and composer based in Cleveland, Ohio and Los Angeles, California. He is known for his unique and innovative approach to sound and his ability to create complex, layered compositions that blur all boundaries. Wiese’s early recordings incorporated elements of cut-up/collage, musique concrete, and electronics. He often used unconventional sources to create chaotic, improvised compositions. As he developed as a composer and performer, Wiese began to incorporate more electronic and processed elements into his work, creating intricate, multilayered works that retained the rawness, precision, and complexity.
“Listening to this album, I feel that I am having multiple dreams at once. The dreams are fragmented and mixed, flowing through time. Dreams are recalled after we wake up, and we are not exactly aware of them while we sleep. However, when listening to music in this album, it is strange to think that the dreams we are having are like this in fact. This may be music that shows us the other side of consciousness.” (Except from the liner notes by Takuya Sakaguchi)