MACIUNAS ENSEMBLE — The Archives Part 1. 1968-1980
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"Born in 1968, The Maciunas Ensemble took Fluxus founder George Maciunas (1931 - 1978) score 'Music for everyman' (1961) as an invitation to explore the infinite space of sound patterns and musical structures. This exploration still continues after more than forty years. With Paul Panhuysen, Remko Scha, Jan van Riet, Leon van Noorden, Hans Schuurman, Helena Koning, Vincent Panhuysen. 'Since its foundation in 1968 the musicians of the Maciunas Ensemble always recorded their music with taperecorder, listened afterwards to the results and selected the best parts. Mark van de Voort together with Paul Panhuysen made a final selection from these early archival recordings of the first 12 years for this 11 CD box, including a 24 page booklet on ApolloRecords. 450 copies." [label info]
"Whenever the name Paul Panhuysen comes up, two activities with his involvement are usually mentioned, and they are related. Panhuysen was the director for many years of Het Apollohuis, an venue in Eindhoven for modern music of a more serious nature and the Maciunas Ensemble. Usually not a lot is said about the latter, perhaps because we don't always know. The Maciunas Ensemble was founded in 1968 by Paul Panhuysen, Remko Scha (now there is someone whose name hardly pops here in Vital Weekly, but certainly is a man of many talents) and Jan van Riet, who took as a guiding principle a score by George Maciunas - godfather of the Fluxus movement - that anyone can play music and that anything is music. Thus the ensemble had its name and then gathered together every week to play music and listen to the efforts of the previous week. This box contains eleven CDs, all of which have about sixty to seventy minutes of music, which are the best moments from the period 1968 to 1980, carefully
selected from those weekly tapes by Panhuysen and Mark van der Voort. This must have been a herculean task. I got this box, disconnected my phone/computer/internet, but otherwise just went on what I would normally do. Sit down, listen, perhaps read a bit, look outside at passing autumn clouds, thinking about the music, and yes, taking an afternoon nap, but that's because I always take one. Van der Voort warned me that this might be not my usual cup of tea, and it was not to be compared with the highly minimal 'Music For Everyman 861' LP from 1968 - the only work I ever heard properly. I just went down a crazy river of free music, and what a ride it was. This is some of the most radical music I heard in quite some time, and the word radical is often used for things loud, quiet, violent, or extremely minimal. Perhaps of these, the latter applies here, as some of these works are very minimal. But then not minimal in the sense of American minimalism (Reich, Glass), but a quite disciplined
and yet very free. It's like this group has a microphone in the middle, and everybody picks an instrument he/she is bound not to have played before, and then just start playing. Playing a new tones and then keep repeating that phrase over and over again. Each year has more or less a CD here, and as the seventies progress this is certainly the case, whereas in the earlier years it's slightly more chaotic. There is a total lack of electronics, (I think, perhaps save for some music played from a reel-to-reel at a slower speed), so violence and negativity that we associate with noise is totally absent here. Yet, it also doesn't seem to be some hippie meeting of people jamming - also save for some occasions where there is some use of voice material, which I don't seem to dig very well. But I must admit I have been listening with true devotion, and fine admiration and was highly amazed by this. Mark van der Voort said during our last meeting this box set by not be too much of my liking,
too much free jazz I think were his words, but he's all wrong. This total free music sounds like free music, not just in a jazz way, but free of anything else too. At some later works I was reminded of No Neck Blues Band, but the rock agenda was always far away it seems. This is surely one of the strangest boxes of music ever landing on this desk." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
"Whenever the name Paul Panhuysen comes up, two activities with his involvement are usually mentioned, and they are related. Panhuysen was the director for many years of Het Apollohuis, an venue in Eindhoven for modern music of a more serious nature and the Maciunas Ensemble. Usually not a lot is said about the latter, perhaps because we don't always know. The Maciunas Ensemble was founded in 1968 by Paul Panhuysen, Remko Scha (now there is someone whose name hardly pops here in Vital Weekly, but certainly is a man of many talents) and Jan van Riet, who took as a guiding principle a score by George Maciunas - godfather of the Fluxus movement - that anyone can play music and that anything is music. Thus the ensemble had its name and then gathered together every week to play music and listen to the efforts of the previous week. This box contains eleven CDs, all of which have about sixty to seventy minutes of music, which are the best moments from the period 1968 to 1980, carefully
selected from those weekly tapes by Panhuysen and Mark van der Voort. This must have been a herculean task. I got this box, disconnected my phone/computer/internet, but otherwise just went on what I would normally do. Sit down, listen, perhaps read a bit, look outside at passing autumn clouds, thinking about the music, and yes, taking an afternoon nap, but that's because I always take one. Van der Voort warned me that this might be not my usual cup of tea, and it was not to be compared with the highly minimal 'Music For Everyman 861' LP from 1968 - the only work I ever heard properly. I just went down a crazy river of free music, and what a ride it was. This is some of the most radical music I heard in quite some time, and the word radical is often used for things loud, quiet, violent, or extremely minimal. Perhaps of these, the latter applies here, as some of these works are very minimal. But then not minimal in the sense of American minimalism (Reich, Glass), but a quite disciplined
and yet very free. It's like this group has a microphone in the middle, and everybody picks an instrument he/she is bound not to have played before, and then just start playing. Playing a new tones and then keep repeating that phrase over and over again. Each year has more or less a CD here, and as the seventies progress this is certainly the case, whereas in the earlier years it's slightly more chaotic. There is a total lack of electronics, (I think, perhaps save for some music played from a reel-to-reel at a slower speed), so violence and negativity that we associate with noise is totally absent here. Yet, it also doesn't seem to be some hippie meeting of people jamming - also save for some occasions where there is some use of voice material, which I don't seem to dig very well. But I must admit I have been listening with true devotion, and fine admiration and was highly amazed by this. Mark van der Voort said during our last meeting this box set by not be too much of my liking,
too much free jazz I think were his words, but he's all wrong. This total free music sounds like free music, not just in a jazz way, but free of anything else too. At some later works I was reminded of No Neck Blues Band, but the rock agenda was always far away it seems. This is surely one of the strangest boxes of music ever landing on this desk." [FdW/Vital Weekly]