Wire mix: Sunik Kim
July 2021
Sunik Kim in The Wire 450. Photo: Justin Leveritt
The New York noise musician and film maker shares a new mix, inspired by the English rock group Henry Cow
Kim often treats mixes as “densely layered ‘pieces’ in their own right” and an extension of noise music and experimental film making practice. “Before this much-needed eureka moment”, they say, “I was increasingly attempting to capture an extreme musical intensity in a rather direct, largely effective, but ultimately literal and limited way, through sheer, unrelenting density of sound itself, extreme volume, digital clipping, and hyper-speed tempos. Henry Cow's approach completely reoriented my thinking on musical intensity: rather than establishing a visceral, near-psychedelic sculptural intensity (like I had been trying to do), their intensity explodes calmly, horizontally – every musical gesture has a certain almost slapstick flatness, but those gestures are layered, sequenced, and aggregated with such dexterity that the visceral intensity is there, just achieved through entirely different means.
“From this starting point, in making this mix I mapped out a constellation of artists that achieve a similar effect via similar means: an absolute dryness and flatness of sound spun into dazzling percussive webs. In this process, I found that humour – which I truly believe is present in my recent work, against appearances – was the other thread tying everything together, manifested most directly in vocalising that wavers between a deadly serious operatic approach and an almost cartoonish improvised one. This combination of technical rigor, playfulness, and militant political intensity – as exemplified by Henry Cow, but also many other artists here – is music to me... at least for now...”
Tracklist
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band “Peon”
Slapp Happy “The Drum”
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band “Doctor Dark”
Henry Cow “Gretel’s Tale”
Henry Cow “Look Back”
Henry Cow “Half The Sky”
Carol Genetti “The Shuddering”
George Lewis “Homage To Charles Parker”
Iannis Xenakis “Kassandra”
Klein “Snippet”
Horațiu Rădulescu “Frenetico Il Longing Di Amare”
Ghédalia Tazartès “Traces De Coups”
Anthony Braxton “Compositions 40D & 40C (+63)”
Dagmar Krause/Anthony Moore/Peter Blegvad “Your Exemption Isn't Recognised (For Thirty Years)”
The Science Group “Mnemonic”
Luigi Nono Al Gran Sole Carico D'amore, Tempo II "La Notte È Lunga Ma Già Spunta L'alba": Scena 5. Fabbrica Russa - La Madre Distibuisce I Volantini
George Lewis “Voyager Duo 1”
Jeanne Lee “Sundance”
Katalin Ladik “Four Black Horses Fly Behind Me/Négy Fekete Ló Mögöttem Repül”
(excerpt from Straub-Huillet’s Antigone)
Stevie Wonder “Contusion (Live At The Beat Club, 1973)” (excerpt from Straub-Huillet’s Une Visite Au Louvre)
Charlie Parker “Donna Lee”
Anthony Braxton “Donna Lee”
Liberation Music Orchestra “We Shall Overcome”
Barbara Harris “It Don't Worry Me” (from Robert Altman’s Nashville)
Galina Ustvolskaya Symphony No 3
Ana-Maria Avram “Orbit Of Eternal Grace”
Joe McPhee “Nation Time”
Liz Phair “Strange Loop”
Haptic “Some Gravity”
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band “One Red Rose That I Mean”
Excerpt from Peter Watkins’s La Commune
Excerpt from Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale
Read more about Sunik Kim's work and practice in their interview with Raymond Cummings in The Wire 450. Subscribers can read the article in full via the online archive.
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