Black Earth/Red Earth is based upon a compositional methodology entitled Found Complexity (being developed as part of a practice-based PhD at the University of Huddersfield, UK), which fundamentally involves the use of the no-input mixing board (adopted as an instrument during the late 20th century by musicians and composers such as Toshimaru Nakamura and David Lee Myers) in generating an improvised sound-object to be interpreted and recorded by highly accomplished players of traditional acoustic instruments. Those recordings are then treated, edited and layered in order to arrive at an electroacoustic, tape version of the no-input generated 'object' which the player(s) and composer will react to collaboratively in devising a future performance strategy for player(s) and tape.

This LP is unique in the fact that it is the first time that a no-input sound-object has been interpreted by a musician playing an acoustic instrument filtered through electronics, the treated recordings of which are then sonically fused with the original sound source without any further reinterpretation. Indeed, the no-input 'object' that Nick first improvised to (including its duration) remains completely intact, as do the timings of his original improvisation.

Artwork by Shivashankar(India) - courtesy Chitrasante

Compact Disc & Digital Album available to purchase from Subcontinental Records at:
subcontinentalrecords.bandcamp.com/album/black-earth-red-earth

Reviews:

Another electroacoustic collaboration that’s been impressing me lately is Black Earth / Red Earth by composer Andrew Leslie Hooker and trumpeter Nick Janczak. The nature of the collaboration, involving methods being developed as part of Hooker’s ongoing PhD, is interestingly back-and-forth. The starting point comes from an electronic “sound-object” created by Hooker using a no-input mixing board; this is then passed to one or more performers (in this case Janczak) to interpret acoustically. That interpretation is in turn extensively reworked by Hooker to arrive at new version “which the players and composer will ultimately respond to in devising a final score.” i like the multiplicity of this process, and the way it doesn’t just blur but convolutes the distinction between composer and performer, acoustic and electronic, and pre-recorded and live materials. It brings a whole new complexity to the ostensibly simple word ‘electroacoustic’.
The intricacy and interpenetration of ideas implied by that description is borne out in the music. In some respects this makes Black Earth / Red Earth a tricky piece to write about; paradoxical too, since one of its most beguiling aspects is its details – both their quality and their quantity – yet those same details are both difficult to describe and, i would argue, of secondary importance to the more generalised behaviour exhibited by the piece. For while Black Earth / Red Earth doesn’t adhere to the kind of model i’ve previously discussed as being a ‘steady state’, it nonetheless displays many similarities to it. Furthermore, this similarity goes beyond just behaviour and also encompasses elements of style and aesthetic, bringing to mind the psychedelic / proto-ambient melding of early ’70s kosmische musik. Echoes of this manifest in the way that Janczak’s melodic meandering (i assume it comes primarily from Janczak) sits at the centre of the music, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes a barely audible undercurrent, its timbre anonymous and subjected to a primitive form of reverb. And while the piece doesn’t enter into the arpeggiations and minimalistic cycles of, say, Tangerine Dream, it does set up a similarly anything-can-happen environment in which slow-moving, quasi-static elements form the backdrop for unpredictable, fast and fleeting surface details. The proximity to a steady state arises primarily from the way that, while the emphasis on its constituent elements keeps changing, overall it remains pretty consistent. There are periods when the energy is pushed, and times when it’s relaxed, but the nature of its narrative could, in essence, carry on forever. The fact that, in this case, Black Earth / Red Earth lasts 37½ minutes is not so much a musical necessity as an incidental artefact of the creative process.

While its palette is relatively well-defined (though it takes a number of listens before this becomes really apparent), the wealth of its details and the way they appear, evolve, develop and / or vanish is endlessly fascinating. There are episodes when pitch predominates, becoming a spine or a foundation for less significant, transitory things happening around or above them. Equally there are episodes when pitch is practically lost as a concept, becoming a texture comprising a welter of pops, burps, squelches and squeals, some of them appearing to bounce and ping pong between the speakers. But most often, these polar ideas mingle, and it’s the balance of them that proves to be one of the most engrossing aspects of Black Earth / Red Earth. They push and pull against each other; one moment we think an idea is going to blossom, but it yields to a network of gentle abrasion, or the plethora of impacts that threaten to take over everything finds itself swept aside due to the soft laser power of dronal pitches. This micro-balance is matched by a macro-balance whereby the piece oscillates between longer periods of activity and repose, over time strengthening that underlying sense of a largely static mode of behaviour.

And on both the large and small scales, all the while it poses the question – which, considering the creative process, may well be unanswerable – regarding to what extent discrete elements and ideas are reacting to, ignoring or existing entirely obliviously to one another. Not only is it impossible to tell, but each successive listen suggests new possibilities of perhaps spurious connection. i think it’s this, above all else, that makes Black Earth / Red Earth such an immersive, mesmeric and – time and time again – rewarding listening experience.
Simon Cummings - 5against4

English electronic player Andrew Leslie Hooker is the Wales-based composer whom we met at the Ceredigion concert in 2018 and soon after heard his rather grim tape of apocalyptic noise, Ten Million Ways To Die (with Graham Dunning). For today’s item Black Earth / Red Earth (SUBCONTINENTAL RECORDS SCR014) he’s joining his skills with the trumpet player Nick Janczak for a single composition lasting some 39 mins. Hooker’s method here is a two-step process: first he creates a sound-object that’s almost completely abstract and electronic and generated in the no-input mixing board, then Janczak is called on to interpret it as a trumpet improvisation. So far so challenging, but there’s actually a third step – the two original parts get layered together to produce the final work, along with further manipulations by the composer. Hooker, who I recall having a very hands-on rugged approach to his feedback manipulations, calls this method “Found Complexity”, and he’s working it up into a compositional approach for his PhD at Huddersfield. In some hands, this could be a recipe for noisy chaos, but Black Earth / Red Earth emerges as a coherent statement, with a fundamental tension caused by two or more musical directions pulling in different directions, thus creating a delicious mental anguish for the listener. No sooner are you sucked in by the inventive echoed tunes of Janczak than the harsh, grizzled bursts of Hooker repel your senses. Superb cover drawing is by Shivashankar, evoking a visual analogue for the unsettling music.
Ed Pinsent - The Sound Projector