ince its first release in 1999, Jon Abbey’s Erstwhile Records has emerged as one of the foremost labels in electroacoustic improvisation. It’s home to a diverse spectrum of sounds – from the spare sine wave murmurs of the Cosmos duo to MIMEO’s mammoth electronic squalls – bound together by a vision that delivers both gutsy experimentation and astonishingly consistent, high-quality records. In many respects, Erstwhile has become the focal point for a new music – an arena for the examination of our assumptions about improvised music and its possibilities, a place to challenge both the ear and mind, and, most importantly, an outlet for creative possibilities heretofore unimagined.


Over the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of maintaining a correspondence with Jon via email and this interview is the product of several months of entertaining and insightful exchanges. Throughout our conversations, I’ve found Jon to be a thoughtful listener and insightful – and sometimes incisive – critic whose fine-tuned musical sensibilities are rivaled only by his accessibility and good humor. Below, Jon offers a personal glimpse into the inner workings of his label along with a collection of personal insights into the current state of electroacoustic improvisation and life at the frontline of experimental music.


Joe (Stylus): You asked a similar question of me a while back in an email, and it seems like a fair place to start an interview - how and when did you first start listening to experimental music? What was and is your listening background?


Jon Abbey: My background is that of a fan, I've never even dabbled with playing an instrument. My path to where I am now was pretty linearly outward, from stuff like the Ramones/Clash/Talking Heads in high school, to exploring rock music fairly thoroughly in college, then afterwards, jazz, free improv, electronic music, etc. Seeing Sun Ra in 1987 at a free show in Central Park was very exciting/illuminating, and seeing AMM and Gunter Muller/Christian Marclay at separate shows around ‘93 or ‘94 was the first time I saw any of the musicians I work with now in a live context. I've always been in search of new sounds, that feeling of excitement you get when you hear something for the first time that is both new and coherent, and it makes you reexamine some of your own attitudes/opinions.


Stylus: Can you think of any particular personal "landmark" records in your musical development, things that capture that "hearing something new" feeling? Anything special that broadened your horizons or helped stir your desire to start a label, or maybe just personal favorites?


JA: The first two that come to mind are Ashley's Automatic Writing and Xenakis' La Legende d'Eer. In general, I'd say more groups than specific albums: Can, Parliament/Funkadelic, Minutemen, Pere Ubu were all especially important for me, among many others.


Stylus: Do you think that being a non-instrumentalist gives you a unique vantage point for running the label that a more performer-managed label might lack? Perhaps your vantage point as fan allows you to assemble groups that performers, with their personal blind spots and comfort zones, might otherwise miss?


JA: There are many facets to this question: I do think that my not being a musician allows me to keep a degree of perspective that it might be harder for a musician to maintain. I also think that musician-run labels almost necessarily run into conflicts, because they need/want to support their friends, which doesn't always lead to the best music. As for the last part of your question, the personal politics of being a free improviser working in collective contexts for some reason seems to sometimes preclude artists getting together into obvious groupings. Since my only real concern is the quality of the musical collaboration, I can sometimes circumvent the politics and bring together musicians who haven't played together previously.


Stylus: How did Erstwhile come into being? Is Erstwhile a full-time job these days?


JA: I worked at Time Magazine for a long time after college, mostly clerical work, but a little reporting and writing. I was never that comfortable or happy there, but it was a way to pay the bills with a minimum of responsibility. I got a nice severance package from them, and made some money trading tech stocks, getting both in and out before the rush, and have been lucky enough to be able to focus my professional efforts exclusively on Erstwhile since I founded it in 1999. I started it because I wanted to give something back to the world of experimental music, which had meant so much to me on a personal level.


Stylus: The first three records in the Erstwhile catalog are considerably different from the records you've put out since - although the collaboration between Denman Maroney and Earl Howard has a synthesizer and hyperpiano duet that forecasts Erstwhile's later acoustic / electronic pairings. Was there a conscious change in the label's direction, or was the change a product of developing more 'connections' in the experimental music community?


JA: I'd agree that the first three Ersts are a bit different, and I'd also say that the Lehn/Hemingway double CD is a bit transitional. I think the VHF disc actually fits better with the later works than the Howard/Maroney, but the Haunted House is definitely an outlier (I'm glad I did it, though, that was an amazing band). As you guessed, this has more to do with my developing connections amongst musicians, as I really didn't know virtually anyone in this world when I started, one reason I'm not tied to one geographic area in terms of musicians like so many other labels are. Getting Thomas Lehn on my roster was a big deal in terms of name recognition amongst other musicians. It's funny to think about with everything he's been widely involved in the last few years, but at that point, he didn't have any widely available CDs.


Stylus: How did the earliest Erstwhile records come to be? How'd you meet the performers, especially for that unusual Haunted House record?


JA: I did the first three releases simultaneously. I knew Denman Maroney's son, enjoyed Earl Howard's sole release as a leader ( Pele's Tears on Random Acoustics), knew that they had worked together in the past, so I proposed that to them. I was a big fan of Loren Mazzacane's (now he goes by Loren Connors), and the Haunted House quartet was starting around then, I just went up to them after a show and introduced myself. Same thing for Simon Fell: I was in London for a week in late ‘98 (I’m still kicking myself for passing up the Tilbury performance of For Philip Guston that week, I wasn't feeling very well, but it's still an opportunity I'll probably never get again) and I went with my friend to an IST performance in Cambridge. Afterwards, I introduced myself to Fell, told him I’d like to release something involving him, and it proceeded from there.


Stylus: How did you meet up with Lehn? He’s become something of a recurring figure in the Erstwhile catalog...


JA: I actually hadn't heard a note by him (maybe Vario 34-2 ?), but Jim O'Rourke said he was the best synth player in the world, and since he had no readily available releases at the time, I got in touch with him.


Stylus: Keith Rowe, like Thomas Lehn, has become something of a fixture in the Erstwhile catalog. He’s appeared on four Ersts so far, and at least two more are scheduled for release. And in many ways, I think you've been as important to his musical development in recent years as he’s been to the label's development - pairing him with the newer generation of improvisers, as on Weather Sky , has put him in previously unexplored territory. What's working with Rowe been like so far, and how much of a role does he play in the label now?


JA: Working with Keith is a real honor. He has his blind spots, but they mostly stem from his relentless focus to strengthen his work. He told me once that after his kids left for school each morning, and his wife went off to work, that he went out into the vineyards surrounding his home, and rethought his approach to the guitar through from the beginning. He’s the consummate professional also, full of energy, very inspiring. He arrived for the Tokyo festival the morning of the first night, after playing the Wire festival in Paris the night before, and a week-long festival in Sweden just before that, stayed up all day, sound checked, played a great set at night with Thomas Lehn and Marcus Schmickler, and was still going strong at dinner at midnight, stronger than any of the rest of us.

Keith is the most important musician to my label, for numerous reasons. He works on so many levels - the cover of Rabbit Run , for instance, has at least three levels of symbolism, pretty amazing for a painting with so few elements. After three decades pushing the envelope of his instrument, he’s grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years. It’s great to hear you say that you feel I've been important to his musical development, as it's a major objective of mine to place him in challenging surroundings. Once someone achieves a certain level of mastery and recognition in improvised music, it’s very easy and natural for them to just stay at that level, maybe fine tuning their work a little, but giving their fans roughly what they are accustomed to hearing. It’s amazing to me that at the age of 62, Keith continues to astonish, radically changing his sound at times, to the point on Weather Sky where his signature style is barely recognizable. I can't imagine Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey, or Evan Parker releasing a record with so little obvious trace of themselves.


Stylus: What is it about Rowe that makes him so much more adaptive than the vast majority of his first- and second-generation improv contemporaries?


JA: He’s simply unwilling to be satisfied, professionally that is. He’s incredibly tough on himself, as well as everyone else involved in this area of music, so he’s constantly rethinking and reexamining his own work, not just in a superficial way, but also from square one sometimes, as I said above. When he first encountered the new wave of Tokyo improvisers, I think it was really inspirational for him, because they were doing something new and exciting in improvised music, with none of the baggage that the European or American scenes had developed over the course of a few decades. I also think that the long periods of relative inaction he’s had in his career have helped to keep him to stay enthusiastic about continuing to push onward. He also has a real sense of history of the arts, specifically art and music, and he’s OK if a record like Weather Sky isn't fully appreciated for a few decades, or even longer.


Stylus: One of the most interesting things about Erstwhile is your level of creative involvement in each project - there's rarely, if ever, an Erstwhile release that just documents a pre-existing grouping of musicians. Why (and how) do you arrange so many first meetings?


JA: The musicians I work with tend to be extremely talented free improvisers, quick to find answers and solutions for how to interact with other musicians in real-time. For me, existing combinations often quickly lose that edge of excitement and newness, although of course there are exceptions (as well as many projects that take some time to gel). I think of Erstwhile more as a curated series than a record label, with each project a piece fitting into a larger puzzle, so it's unusual that projects I don't come up with myself are a perfect fit. One funny exception is Cor Fuhler/Gert-Jan Prins, who I'd thought of as a possible idea (they'd worked together in MIMEO, but not as an electronic duo), but never got around to proposing it to them, when they proposed it to me. Also, cross-fertilization between musicians and scenes is something that's very important to me, helping to build connections, which will hopefully keep this music creatively exciting for longer.


Stylus: Is there a particular reason for the strong duo emphasis on Erstwhile releases?


JA: Yes, for me the well-balanced duo is the most interesting combination, in general. Solos rarely interest me deeply: no matter how talented, there's almost always some masturbatory element, and there's no surprise, no interaction, no being pushed into unfamiliar places (the musicians, not the listeners). The larger the combination gets, the more possibility there is for a musician to stay in the background and just provide color. There’s no hiding in a duo.


Stylus: One notable break from the label's duo emphasis was the "group series," which featured three consecutive releases from larger ensembles (the MIMEO/John Tilbury, poire_z, and Polwechsel/Fennesz discs). Did it just so happen that all the projects materialized simultaneously, or was there a plan to assemble these projects in consecutive order?


JA: This miniseries was very consciously planned: my attempt to pair the most established larger groups in this field with collaborators strong enough to push them out of their groove. I wanted it to be four releases, not three, but my ideas for the fourth one didn't come to fruition. The other consciously planned consecutive sub-series was 007-009, all duo side projects by Polwechsel members. I also think of do , Weather Sky and Tears as a series, as well as Schnee , Wrapped Islands , and eh .


Stylus: Another interesting numerical note - you've just recently released the Rowe/Lehn/Schmickler trio disc, and there are three more notable trios on the horizon (Matt Davis/Phil Durrant/Mark Wastell, Sachiko M/Toshimaru Nakamura/Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe/Axel Dorner/Franz Hautzinger). Is it another series like the "group series," Or is there going to be a new emphasis on slightly larger settings?


JA: No, this is just coincidence, I still plan to largely focus on duos.


Stylus: How much involvement do you have with the musical results once you've arranged the meetings? I've noticed you've received production credits on a release or two...


JA: Each project is different; I do whatever necessary in my mind to produce the best possible result from the musicians involved. It can range from discussions or suggestions beforehand from me to hands-on postproduction decisions about editing and mastering. Earl Howard is the mastering engineer I work with here, he has amazingly sensitive ears.


Stylus: What sort of pre-recording suggestions have you made? You've mentioned that you're not really one for the Company aesthetic of throwing players together unprepared and seeing what shakes out.


JA: It totally depends, a couple of examples: with Wrapped Islands , I asked all five musicians to be equally involved with every stage of the process. With Duos for Doris , I asked them to do a double CD, one along the lines of what AMM fans might expect, one not.


Stylus: What records have you had the most personal involvement in creating, in terms of group arrangement, recording, editing, etc.? You’ve mentioned in the past that the Cosmos record was a particularly grueling affair.


JA: In terms of group arrangement, the majority of the recent projects are my ideas to start; the musicians have rarely played together in that exact combination, if at all. The Cosmos record was especially demanding for me, because it’s an extremely fragile duo, I was trying to get it just right, editing, noise reduction, volume levels, track order, etc. and I can only intensely listen to sine wave music for a few hours a day, so I spent a good four to six weeks totally immersed in that project, trying to best showcase the duo. I’m very proud of the way it turned out, and was extremely happy when they won the recent Ars Electronica award, along with Astro Twin. I’d prefer not to specifically go through record by record, but typically if Earl Howard is credited with working on the sound, it means that he and I did a fair amount of postproduction on that project.


Stylus: Improvised music is more prone to hit-or-miss performances than other music, even with the best artists. Have any of the first-meeting recording sessions been less-than-ideal? I know some of the musicians involved in the MIMEO and John Tilbury Hands of Caravaggio session said it was a difficult concert but a great record...


JA: I'd say most recording sessions are less-than-ideal in one way or another, being the obsessed perfectionist I am, but there was one project where after the master was submitted, I asked them to record again from scratch, which turned out for the best, we all thought.

Caravaggio is a different thing, there was most likely only ever going to be one meeting of those thirteen musicians. I got them to do a test run a few hours before the actual show, which helped the integration of piano and electronics in the actual concert. I don't think anyone involved with the concert thought it worked at the time, but there were some stressful externalities going on, and with the concert being in quad, with different mixes from each of the four corner speakers, the only ones in the room who could really hear the concert live were Cor Fuhler and John Tilbury, as Cor discusses in his notes on my site. The musicians weren't balanced well around the table either; the Kaffe/Pita/Drumm side should have been more widely separated (at the twenty-four hour show in Vandouevre, the three laptoppers, Pita, Kaffe, and Fennesz, were all on different sides). Marcus Schmickler did a remarkable job on the mixing and mastering that shouldn't be minimized, but I think it’s impossible for anyone but Cor or John to really compare the recording to the concert (I circled the perimeter of the musicians during the piece, trying to listen from numerous points in the room).


Stylus: In a similar vein - your label has a decidedly more post-production-friendly perspective than most (especially on records like the Schmickler/Lehn duo Bart and the Kelley/Lescalleet duo Forlorn Green ). It's a refreshing change from the strictly no-frills documentary fashion to which so many purist improv labels cling. Do you think electroacoustic improv lends itself more naturally to studio treatments? It seems like the John Wall disc on the Erstwhile release schedule would be a pretty extreme example of this sort of production.


JA: Just to clarify, it’s not a full-length John Wall disc, he'll be doing a five-to-seven-minute piece at the end of the Matt Davis/Phil Durrant/Mark Wastell disc, using just their source material.

I do think that postproduction is an under-explored option on recordings in the improv world, the purist attitude you mention is pretty old-fashioned to me. As long as the recordings are rooted in improvisation, I welcome the judicious use of postproduction, being careful to keep the energy of the improv intact. Two of the recent releases are more along these lines, Rowe/Lehn/Schmickler and Noetinger/ErikM.


Stylus: Where do you draw the line on postproduction? What sort of things would somehow detract from the "energy" you mentioned earlier? With the tracks played on shuffle as instructed, the Rowe/Lehn/Schmickler could end up radically different than the original performance.


JA: Hmm, good question. I think it’s important that the music has some sort of forward momentum, with Dach being around the minimum edge of my range. Too much cutting and splicing can kill that energy, at least to my ears.

As for Rabbit Run , it can be played either way, linearly or on shuffle. That’s a trio with such a wide range of possibilities that we had four decidedly different masters along the way to the final one, any of which were good enough to release. In addition, the concerts I’ve seen them do have been yet another thing. We thought about releasing a double disc, but, in the end, we went for the possibility of randomization, which kind of recreates the range of possibilities a little bit. The set they did in Tokyo, which will be included on the box set out this fall, is wildly different than Rabbit Run , showcasing another facet of their remarkable range.


Stylus: You’ve mentioned that the recent Rowe/Tilbury record Duos for Doris is the Erstwhile release you’re most proud of -- edging out my personal favorite, Weather Sky . What sets it apart from the other releases for you? Do you have any other particular favorites among your label's catalog?


JA: Well, for me, it’s obviously a combination of the music on the project intertwined with the circumstances surrounding it. Weather Sky was my favorite up until recently: not only is the record a masterpiece, but also I think that duo (Rowe/Nakamura) is the strongest live combination in this music. They will be the core of the AMPLIFY 2004 festival, closing each night as part of a different quartet. I find their music so powerful live that I sometimes am on the verge of passing out, and can be affected for hours afterwards. Also, Weather Sky was recorded in France on the same day my father passed away in New Jersey, and, for me, he was in the room with them while they recorded, guiding them to create such a brilliant piece of music.

Duos for Doris is more than just an amazing record, though, it fills a historical gap. Rowe and Tilbury had never before played as a duo, and probably never would have if I hadn't worked on the parties involved for two years. I think It’s most likely both Keith and John's strongest improvised work (I think John’s For Bunita Marcus is his masterwork). It’s just such an assured, accomplished, mature, perfect statement, deceptively simple, yet revealing new layers on every listen, even fifty or sixty times through. I believe it’s the best freely improvised music recording I’ve ever heard, and my part in making it happen is probably the accomplishment I’m most proud of thus far in my life, personal or professional.

Maybe it comes down to the fact that despite how great Weather Sky is, I think Keith and Toshi are capable of creating an even better record. In fact, I’m fairly sure they will, I’m releasing a second studio disc from them next summer (as yet unrecorded, but all three of us know where the bar has been set).


Stylus: There’s a very clear design sense to the packaging for your releases - an Erstwhile look, perhaps. How much involvement do you have in the artwork that accompanies the albums and how much do you leave for designers like Friederike Paetzold? Does Friederike listen to each release she works on?


JA: She listens to each of them at least once, although it’s rarely the final version. Since I go for quick turnaround time (less than four months between recording and release on Duos for Doris ), she usually gets an earlier version. She primarily relies on my guidance though, to get her into a general range, and often we use source material from the musicians. One of her great strengths is that she's capable of working in an amazing range of styles, so once I get her into the general area, she mostly takes it from there. Her designs for the recent releases Duos for Doris (incorporating a Rowe cover) and Time Travel are amazing; I’m really lucky to have her, she’s a crucial part of my label.


Stylus: Part of Erstwhile's intrigue is the way in which newer - or perhaps just less well-publicized - artists make appearances in a catalog packed with more established artists. I'm thinking in particular of Jason Lescalleet - who can be tough to find on record elsewhere - and, more recently, Ami Yoshida, who has received far more attention since her appearance on the Improvised Music From Japan set and her disc with Sachiko M. Have you seen anyone new in concert or heard anyone on record who has really caught your attention lately?


JA: Martin Brandlmayr, the young percussionist from Vienna living in Berlin, is a superb musician who's equally at home working in improvised music (Trapist) as he is with compositions (Radian). He recorded for me with Martin Siewert in January and I'll be releasing the results in August or September; I think he's a rising star in this scene.


Stylus: I saw Brandlmayr with Radian last year, both he and the band were incredible in concert. You've spoken about your fondness for Radian in a number places. What sets them apart for you from other groups playing composed music? Do you still keep up with many bands outside of improvised music?


JA: Last question first - sure, my background is as a fan, and I still buy plenty of CDs. I have more than 6000 CDs in my collection, and that's with trying to get rid of ones I no longer care about. One interesting thing since I started Erstwhile, though, is that I sit in a totally quiet room at home much more than I ever used to, mostly in the last year or so. Some days I don't even turn the CD player on at all.

As for Radian, I like that every sound they make is essential, completely stripped down but surprisingly, consistently funky. They've made a career out of very precisely "standing on the verge of getting it on." I also love their sound quality, their records are brilliant but warm, and their live shows always maximize the available sound system. I was surprised when I saw them for the first time in 1999 to learn that their music is so minutely and strictly composed.

They will be premiering a quartet with John Butcher at the AMPLIFY 2004 festival in Berlin.


Stylus: Can you give us more details on next year's AMPLIFY festival? I hear Keith Rowe is co-coordinating the event, and you've hinted that it will be "insanely ambitious..."


JA: Yes - it was co-curated by Keith and myself and the program is set. It will be the first two weekends in May 2004, the first in Cologne and the second in Berlin. It’s subtitled "addition," and it’s about quartets and the construction/deconstruction of them. I’m not quite ready to announce the full schedule yet, but here's a sample night, May 14, the first night in Berlin (each night will be in three parts, with two intermissions):

1. AMM/Toshi Nakamura

2. 20-25 minute duos from Tilbury/Sachiko, Otomo/Rowe, and Nakamura/Prevost

3. Rowe/Sachiko/Nakamura/Otomo.

We'll be premiering fourteen new quartets (including the three mentioned above) involving twenty-five different musicians over the six nights. It’s definitely decidedly more ambitious than the Tokyo one was.


Stylus: And what are the plans for the box set documenting last years AMPLIFY event in Tokyo?


JA: Seven CDs, one DVD, hopefully out in the fall. It will combine sets from the festival, sets from some of the related shows at small clubs the week before and after, and one CD of studio recordings by the duo of Günter Müller and Toshi Nakamura, which were made that week (essentially a regular Erstwhile project, but part of the box). The DVD will contain a documentary by Jonas Leddington of footage he shot that week, and maybe extras of some of the more visually oriented performances in longer chunks. A more detailed listing of the contents is now posted on my site, here.


Stylus: Where do you think Erstwhile will be in the next ten years?


JA: I really don’t know. This music is evolving so rapidly that it’s tough to say, but my plans are pretty firm through the end of 2004. Hopefully this music will still be creatively vital, sales will have picked up, and I won't be bankrupt and working at the neighborhood coffee bar.


Stylus: What are the last five records you've listened to?


JA: I’m not crazy about this question, because I’d prefer not to be associated with anything I think is awful, and because much of what I listen to is either upcoming Erstwhile projects, or Erst-related material. So the question I’m answering here is "What are the last five commercially released records that you listened to that you derived some degree of pleasure from?"


X-ecutioners - Scratchology (Sequence) (a compilation CD featuring many early seminal scratching tracks)
Max Neuhaus - Fontana Mix-Feed (Alga Marghen)
Pere Ubu - The Shape of Things (Hearthan) (a live recording from 1976)
San Agustin – The Expanding Sea (Table of the Elements)
Loren Connors - The Departing of a Dream (Family Vineyard)




Erstwhile Records Website