eRikm & Fennesz on Hatology

Hatology 618

Look out Jon, the Uehlinger clan is nosing in on your demographic!

Man, nice to see that Hat is always trying to keep an eye out for what's fresh and new, as opposed to certain labels stuck in 1969 whose names begin with "F" and end in "P" (*cough* *cough*)


And oh, for all who await an answer to the burning "Is eai Jazz?" question, the disc itself carries the usual admonition "File Under: Jazz/Free Improvisation." There you have it! Authoritative!

[Sergio Zamora]

Pretty cool. They kinda started making headways in this direction with the Trapist. Then there was one from last year or early this year that foks here said sucked (a double trio).

Just noticed some cool reissues (Salty Swift, Charlie Parker Project) and a new Ellery at the Hat site.

[Jon Abbey]

yeah, let's see how it works first, it's not so easy to do this. I'm a big fan of both of those musicians, but I can't exactly hear them together working fluidly as a duo.

based on past results, I think the Hat crew has something of an idea of the right musicians to work with in this area (Polwechsel, Trapist, Kurzmann, Dieb13, Philip Jeck, although the last few were kind of tangential), but very little idea about the actual music. I passed on releasing that first Trapist record before they sent it to Hat and commissioned Too Beautiful To Burn, although that one is very good, they did a lot of work on it after I heard the rough mix. but Hat's other couple of recent dips into eai waters, the Wolfgang Mitterer and the Baden-Baden thing, didn't need to be released.

anyway, very curious to see how this turns out, Erik is supposed to send me a bunch once it's actually out. it looks like it was made before Erik switched primarily back to turntables, which I prefer from him, he and Dieb13 are recording a double turntable disc for me in February, hopefully with lots of concrete record samples mixed in.

I have a lot of respect for Uehlinger as a producer, I used to be a very avid collector of his releases, and still pick up quite a few of them. Hat Art's attention to detail and production definitely influenced my own aesthetic. I'm very curious to hear this one, I wonder who actually initiated it.

[Nate Dorward]

Well, they did do things like those Polwechsel discs & so forth too.....



Incidentally is it just me, or are the Hatology covers really DRAB lately? Lately they seem to go in for a lot of shots of bare concrete urban architecture.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by Nate Dorward

Well, they did do things like those Polwechsel discs & so forth too.....

yes, I mentioned that. they only really did the second one, the first was originally on Random Acoustics, they reissued it a while later.

[Nate Dorward]

Oh, missed that from a quick read. But the comment on the boring Hat covers still stands .

[Jon Abbey]

the first incarnation of Random Acoustics was well ahead of their time, documenting musicians like Burkhard Stangl, John Butcher, Polwechsel, Phil Durrant, Axel Dörner ten years ago. Earl Howard's record on there was the reason I asked him to do a record with Denman Maroney, and he's been a crucial part of Erstwhile as the mastering engineer for whichever records need it ever since. I've never been a fan of Georg Gräwe's music, but big props to him as a label curator.