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PRICE:
$38.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Continuation
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
UBK 002LP UBK 002LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
3/6/2026

A cascading piano improvisation by Xiu Xiu's Hyunhye Seo, recorded live during a Nam June Paik exhibition in Turin. On Side B, Japanese avant-garde pioneer Phew reinterprets Seo's performance into a new electronic landscape. Music as surrender, dialogue between performer, space and the present moment. 200 copies. Comes with Obi. Hyunhye Seo, a core member of Xiu Xiu, in her solo work navigates the precarious edges where composition dissolves into pure gesture. Through ecstatic piano improvisations, restless percussive attacks and an expansive use of acoustic space, she constructs layered sonic environments that move across the boundaries of noise, avant-garde jazz, ambient and contemporary classical music. Her performances reveal an unfiltered process of listening and creation -- a practice in which thinking becomes the enemy, and surrender the only viable strategy. "Continuation" captures one such surrender. Recorded live at MAO -- Museo d'Arte Orientale in Turin during the exhibition Rabbit Inhabits the Moon -- The Art of Nam June Paik in the Mirror of Time, this cascading piano improvisation unfolds as a dialogue between performer, space and the particular acoustics of a museum built to house contemplative objects. Jamie Stewart processes the sound in real time; Giuseppe Ielasi shapes the final mix. What emerges is a work of charged immediacy -- restless gestures giving way to passages of unexpected tenderness, noise and silence trading places in continuous exchange. The title is precise: this is music that refuses conclusion, that exists in a state of perpetual becoming. On Side B, "Continuous Extension" offers an unprecedented response. Phew -- the pioneering figure of Japanese avant-garde music since the late 1970s -- was invited by curators Chiara Lee and Freddie Murphy to reinterpret Seo's performance. Working with synthesizer and subtle processing, Phew distills the resonances of "Continuation" into a new electronic landscape -- waves of abstraction that echo like reflections in sound, tracing the harmonic tensions of Seo's playing into territories she herself did not visit. The accompanying booklet includes an essay by Bruno Lo Turco exploring the deep connections between improvisation and Buddhist thought, and a written reflection by Seo on her own practice of surrender and listening.