Ghost Trance Solos
Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music (GTM) repertoire was my entryway into performing Braxton’s music.1 After acquiring some scores in 20192 and barely coming to grips with the holistic "Tri-Centric" philosophy behind it, which uses GTM as a navigational tool to explore Braxton’s entire musical universe, I decided I simply had to try it out and explore its multi-layered possibilities.3 My intention from the beginning was to play this repertoire with a group of musicians, but for pragmatic reasons, I started out exploring it in a solo setting, using several looping devices to simulate the different "fields of activities" of the primary melody, secondary and tertiary compositions as well as Language Music improvisations all combined as if an ensemble was playing it. This simulation turned out to be a very effective way to navigate the GTM system, and instead of dismissing it as a first experimental phase towards a group interpretation, I pursued it further as a potential solo-platform for new GTM interpretations. I would pre-record some of the secondary and tertiary compositions as ‘samples’ to be introduced during a live performance in addition to two layers of live looping and added several ‘randomizing’ effects using Ableton Live to make the sampling even more unpredictable. The idea was to have these non-human agents respond almost like human collaborators would.
In June 2019, I had the opportunity to perform a solo concert as part of the Unerhörte Musik concert series in Berlin, an ideal occasion to put my new set up to a test and perform a first version of a Ghost Trance Solo. I performed Composition No. 193, a 1st species GTM piece. I decided to use a nylon string acoustic guitar for this performance, which proved to be challenging and I wasn’t satisfied with the result. But this concert provided me with the necessary experience and feedback to proceed in this direction. In October 2019, I had an opportunity to go to the USA where I met with Kyoko Kitamura from the Tri-Centric Foundation in New York City and visited the Tri-Centric archive in New Haven and met with Carl Testa. During this visit, I had another opportunity to perform a Ghost Trance Solo set, this time at Red Room in Baltimore. For this set, I switched to the electric guitar, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the result and continued to develop it, searching for practical solutions of how to deal with the many scores and combining different compositions. It wasn’t so much about the sounds I was making but about finding an organic flow in the music, which is so typical in many of Braxton’s own recordings of GTM, where composition (stable logics) and improvisation (mutable logics) really come together (synthesis logics). After exploring some practical solutions that allowed me to navigate the material in a more intuitive way,4 I gave another performance of GTM Composition No. 285 this time during the Articulate Research Days at the Conservatory in Antwerp on October 24, 2019. This was the first live performance where I felt I achieved what I was looking for. A recording of this performance can be heard in here.
Back in June 2019 on the train back from Berlin, I saw an open call for residencies at GMEA in Albi, France.5 Even though I wasn’t satisfied yet about the musical results at the time, I decided to apply, knowing a week-long residency could be an ideal occasion to further explore and record some of my GTM solo interpretations. Shortly after my performance in October 2019 at the Articulate Research Days, I received confirmation that I was selected for a residency at GMEA which took place from January 6 to 10, 2020. I met with GMEA director Didier Aschour and sound engineer Benjamin Maumus on the morning of Monday, January 6. We set up at the Grand Théâtre - Scène National d’Albi, a big theater venue where we could use one of the stages with good acoustics for the duration of the residency. I brought enough scores to spend the next five days immersing myself in GTM and recording what would become the Ghost Trance Solos album. The first day of the residency was spent setting up, soundchecking, and selecting scores for the recording session. I decided to record three GTM pieces representing three of the four ‘species’ of the GTM system: No. 255 (2nd species GTM), No. 284 (3rd species GTM), and No. 358 (accelerated whip GTM), none of which I had performed before. In addition to the fixed set of secondary compositions found in the back of each GTM score, the performer is encouraged to add tertiary compositions as well. For this, I compiled several pieces from Braxton’s "quartet books" (No. 40B, 40F, 40O, and No. 131), two of the so-called "pulse track" compositions (No. 108A and 108D), two duo compositions (No. 168 and 304), one additional GTM composition (No. 193)6, and the libretto of No. 171.
In terms of instrumentation, I used the same basic set-up as I did before when performing the first solo sets. My main instrument was the electric guitar. I used two separate looping devices for live looping and Ableton Live software to trigger pre-recorded samples. I applied several analog and digital effects both through Ableton Live (using a midi-pedal) as through my electric guitar set up. I added an acoustic guitar and a bass guitar, which allowed me to explore varying registers and timbre into the recordings. Lastly, I also used my voice in the recording of No. 255 and No. 358. No. 255 is a so-called Syntactical Ghost Trance Music composition, meaning it has a seemingly random line of syllables and numbers connected to the primary melody and secondary material, which can be interpreted by a singer or vocalist. I decided intuitively to sing some of these lines. In the recording of No. 358, I performed sections of the libretto of No. 171, which is a solo piano piece in which the piano player also plays the role of a park ranger giving a press conference about an imaginary natural park. The text, absurd as it might be at first sight, at the same time reveals a more profound commentary of Braxton’s philosophical ideas about music.7
As a general recording strategy, I spent one day on each main GTM piece, using the morning to practice and pre-record a selection of samples of secondary and tertiary material I was going to use for the recording. In the afternoon, I would do two or three extended takes of about 30 minutes with that composite material, never stopping to record smaller bits or do overdubs. Doing these long ‘one shot’ takes was important to translate the general philosophy of GTM and Braxton’s compositional intentions, which are all about spontaneity and intuition, to a recorded medium. The last day of the residency, recording engineer Benjamin Maumus set up a basic mix for the rough takes we had made. The takes used up to 14 individual tracks each, given the many different sound sources I was using. In the weeks following the recording session, I edited, mixed, and refined the different raw takes at home in Brussels. In this stage I used the possibilities of a digital audio workstation to create tracks of approximately 20 minutes for each piece by editing, cutting, or combining parts of the extended raw takes from the recording session. In doing so, I still made sure to keep the flow of a live performance, never using sudden cuts.
While editing and mixing the pieces, I was in touch with Mark Knoop from the London-based label All That Dust. This independent label, run by Mark, Juliet Fraser, and Newton Armstrong, carefully curates high-quality monograph recordings of composers associated with post-war Western art music. After having contacted several labels, some of which had shown interest in releasing this solo album, I was quickly convinced by the care and professionalism with which All That Dust had made its previous releases. The idea of having a Braxton-monograph recording appearing among releases with music by Morton Feldman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, seemd quite fitting to my own research purposes. They accepted to release my recordings and the album came out under the title Ghost Trance Solos on November 5, 2020 in the format of a CD and digital download. The release was accompanied by carefully written liner notes by musicologist Laura Tunbridge (see album cover above).
The release happened during the COVID pandemic and I wasn’t able to perform publicly during this time. Two previously scheduled performances had already been canceled (one in February 2020 as part of the EPARM conference in London, and one in June 2020 as part of the International Braxton Conference, which was originally scheduled to take place at ElbPhilharmonie in Hamburg) and when the second COVID wave hit in the fall of 2020, any prospect of performing live disappeared for the foreseeable future. Luckily, the BBC 3 radio program The New Music Show (hosted by Kate Molleson and Tom Service) picked up the album and played one of the tracks (track 2: Composition No. 284, which aired on February 27, 2021). Three live performances of Ghost Trance Solos still occurred afterward. I was invited by GMEA to perform at their annual Riverrun festival with a concert in Toulouse on September 30. On March 12, 2022, I performed at the Time Canvas festival organized by Champ d’Action in DE SINGEL, Antwerp. And lastly, on June 2, 2022, I performed a solo set at Citadelic at SMAK in Ghent for the occasion of the release of Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton.
Below are the three tracks from the Ghost Trance Solos studio album. The album is available for purchase here.
Ghost Trance Septet
While still developing the idea of a solo set, I also brought together a group of musicians to explore GTM collectively. Inspired by Braxton’s ideas of a trans-idiomatic approach, I wanted to bring together a group of musicians with different musical backgrounds, more specifically both in classical/notated music and in jazz and improvised music. I asked pianist Elisa Medinilla, with whom I had worked regularly in the context of the Nadar Ensemble, and violinist Anna Jalving, who was at the time doing a post-master in contemporary music with Ictus ensemble. With me included, the three of us were the ‘classical’ musicians in the group. During my studies at Manhattan School of Music in New York (from 2008 to 2010), I had met the Belgian saxophone player Steven Delannoye who was enrolled in the jazz program at MSM. We had kept in touch sporadically, but our musical paths never crossed again until I asked him if he wanted to play Braxton’s GTM. He immediately accepted. In 2018, I met drummer Teun Verbruggen, who had just opened a new venue and rehearsal studio in Brussels, Werkplaats Walter. As a drummer, Teun is a leading figure in the Belgian jazz and improvised music scene, keen on experimenting with Braxton’s repertoire he also accepted to join the band. At this point, I still wanted a brass instrument in the group, preferably low brass to add more low end. Teun recommended me to contact Niels Van Heertum, who I hadn’t met before. Niels, who plays the euphonium, is known for his distinctive playing style in free and improvised music.
I organized a brief two-day residency which took place at Werkplaats Walter in July 2019. We worked on No. 246, a second species GTM composition which was easy to sight-read and as such a good starting point. I divided the group (at this point a sextet) into two subgroups or trios which were each assigned two of the secondary compositions. We also worked on Language Music improvisation and fairly soon added several tertiary compositions as well, mostly from the quartet books (23H, 40B, 40O, 69Q), the pulse track composition No. 108A and duo compositions No. 304 and 305. Even though many of the musicians hadn’t met each other prior to this residency, it was remarkable how quickly we found a common ground in how to navigate Braxton’s GTM concept. On the second day, we were able to set up some mics and record two sets of No. 246. Without a clear idea of what to expect beforehand, these two days of music-making and the resulting recordings served as a profound confirmation to me of the incredible potential inherent in this repertoire.
In February 2020, I was able to bring the band back together for a mini-tour of three concerts in Belgium, this time also joined by bassist Frederik Sakham, turning it into the Ghost Trance Septet.8 We performed our first concert at Post X in Merelbeke (Ghent) on February 1. We then played at Madame Fortuna in Antwerp on February 7 and then the next day at Werkplaats Walter in Brussels where we shared a bill with saxophonist Evan Parker. There was no time for additional rehearsals prior to these concerts, so we met for the first time since the July residency on the day of the first concert at the venue in Merelbeke. I brought composition No. 284 (third species GTM) for these concerts, a piece I had performed solo, but never with the group. For the tertiary pieces, we used the same pieces as we played in the July residency. Without any additional rehearsal time we pretty much navigated through the material ‘in real time’ during the first performance. Whether you are an experienced improviser or a musician who is used to playing score-based music, this presents quite the challenge, but it’s exactly the kind of situation Braxton wants you to be in, to respond creatively in the moment and in your own voice. It forces you as a performer to step out of your comfort zone and accept for unknown things to happen. These concerts proved to be an incredible formative experience. I learned from these collective performances that for GTM to work, it is not so much about playing the ‘right notes’, but about being able to trust each other and to allow each individual's input to determine the course and the common experience of the performance.9 Any GTM performance is as much a social process as it is a musical one.
Shortly after the septet mini-tour, Lydia Rilling, who was then working for the Philharmonie in Luxembourg, contacted me with the incredible proposition to program the septet in a double-bill concert with Anthony Braxton himself as part of their annual Rainy Days festival. The concert was scheduled for November 2020, and I planned ahead to make a high-quality recording of this concert with the idea of a future CD release, as a follow-up to the Ghost Trance Solos album. Unfortunately, the pandemic happened, and the concert had to be postponed to 2021. With this new time window, I changed plans and decided to make a studio recording of the Ghost Trance Septet instead. I applied for a project subsidy in Flanders and found an interested label, el Negocito Records (eNR), to support the project. The label eNR is known in Belgium for a wide range of releases mostly linked to experimental and improvised music. I initially still envisioned recording an extended version of one GTM composition as if it were a live concert, but the label convinced me to make it a double LP. So, I decided to record four tracks, one for each side of an LP, representing all four ‘species’ of the GTM system.
I scheduled five days of studio time from August 30 to September 3, 2021, at Werkplaats Walter in Brussels and decided to keep the overall recording process very similar to the Ghost Trance Solos session in Albi: We spent one day on each piece, using the first part of the day to go through the material we wanted to record that day, and then spent the afternoon recording two to three extended ‘one-shot’ takes, as if it were a live set. In terms of scores, I chose several of the same compositions that were on the Solo album, with No. 255 and No. 358 as well as No. 193, which appears as a tertiary piece in the Solo record. As a fourth piece, I decided to add No. 264. With the exception of No. 264, I had played or recorded versions of all of these pieces, but with the rest of the group, we hadn’t performed any of them before the recording session. I made a wide selection of tertiary material, which, in addition to the pieces we had played before, also included compositions No. 6F, No. 34, No. 48, No. 58, No. 101, and No. 108C.
We started with No. 264, a third species GTM composition. I assigned two subtrios for the secondary material and, for the tertiary material, a duo violin-piano to perform sections from No. 101, another duo guitar-sax to add No. 304, the "rhythm section" of drums, bass, and euphonium on No. 108A, and lastly No. 40B and 40O to be performed by the whole band. Everyone in the group could, at all times, add Language Music improvisations as well. Since we had to take our time setting up and going through the material, we only had time for one full take of No. 264 on the first day. So, on the second day, we started with another full run of the same piece before switching to the next piece, which was No. 255, a secondary GTM composition. I reassigned and changed the subtrios for the secondary material in No. 255 and added tertiary material No. 34 and 40F for the whole band, as well as duo No. 168 for sax and guitar. As in the solo recording, I sang parts of the vocal line, here also joined by Frederik Sakham. We were able to go through all the material and add two full takes of No. 255 by the end of the second day.
When we came together on the first day of the recording session, we hadn’t performed together as a septet since our last concert on February 8, 2020, a year and a half earlier. With no additional rehearsal time, we pretty much jumped in and kept the tape rolling. Given the combination of structured scores and radical openness of interpretation, it was very difficult to assess the quality of the resulting takes. The general dynamic of recording with a group was obviously very different than when I recorded solo. In a group with seven players, it was much harder to keep track of whether any given take was good enough. What was potentially a very stressful situation, with a lack of rehearsal time and a big gap between the last time we had performed together, was much assuaged by a generally very relaxed and supportive attitude in the studio by all the musicians involved, as well as by recording engineer Nicolas Rombouts, who captured the sound of the group very skillfully. We took a recording break on the third day, and I used the time to listen back to the different takes we had done so far. I was incredibly surprised and thrilled by the result of what we had achieved in just two days of recording, often exploring Braxton’s material in real-time as we had done in our live shows.
With newly gained confidence, we went back to the recording studio on the fourth day to record No. 358, a so-called "accelerated class" GTM composition. This species of GTM is the last of the GTM compositions Braxton wrote and are notorious for the rhythmic complexity in the primary melody. Nowhere is there any sense of a stable beat, nor in the beautifully colored graphic scores of the secondary material. To contrast the highly irregular nature of the primary and secondary material of No. 358, I added a few tertiary pieces with a more stable and easily recognizable rhythmic flow, such as the "pulse track" composition No. 108D, and, even more so, the straightforward marching rhythm of No. 58, originally featured on Braxton's legendary album Creative Orchestra Music 1976.10 Apart from the rythmic complexity of No. 358, the overall sound of this recording also stands out a little bit, with a more acoustic focus without electric guitar and bass.11 On the fifth and last day in the studio, we went back to the very early stages of GTM to record No. 193, a first species GTM composition. These early GTM compositions are seemingly the most accessible of the four different species, with their continuous stream of notes played in the same steady beat. But the radical trance-like beat of the primary melody also makes it difficult to deviate from it and move towards secondary or tertiary material, or to improvise. Here I contrasted this repetitiveness with tertiary pieces that were more irregular in their form, notably No. 108C and the early quartet piece No. 6F. I also added the meditative Webernian atonal quartet piece No. 48.
After this five-day session, I now had two extended continuous takes for each of the four GTM compositions. I cut and edited these long takes down to four tracks of about 23 minutes, much in the same way as I did with the solo recording, still maintaining the liveness and spontaneity of the live set.12 There were no overdubs or additional takes added. I met with Nicolas Rombouts in December 2021 for two days of mixing. The mastering was done shortly after that by Uwe Teichert. With the label, we agreed on a release date on June 2, 2022. The artwork for the eventual album featured Braxton's graphic titles of the four compositions, printed on the front, back, and inner cover of the CD/LP edition (see page banner photo). Timo Hoyer contributed with elaborate and insightful liner notes.13 I also added two quotes, one from an interview with Hugo De Craen, to whom this release is dedicated, in which Braxton talks about his use of these graphic titles. The second quote is from Braxton's own liner notes to the album Quartet (GTM) 2006. The complete LP insert and CD booklet can be downloaded on the left here.
After the recording session, the Ghost Trance Septet performed at Rainy Days festival in Luxembourg on November 13, 2021.14 Braxton was scheduled to play with his Diamond Curtain Wall trio (with Susanna Santos Silva and Adam Matlock) right after our set. Shortly before we went on stage, we were told Braxton would be in the audience, but only for the first 15 minutes or so, as he had to prepare for his own set. We played an hour-long set with No. 255 as our main composition. Braxton ended up listening through the whole set.15 Later that evening, we had dinner together and established a lasting contact. The rehearsal process and concert at Rainy Days were filmed by Kobe Wens. Afterwards I used this footage to make a mini documentary which can be seen in the Event Space. The entire concert can be seen there as well.
The Ghost Trance Septet performed again in June 2022 for the official release of the double LP, first on June 2nd at Citadelic, a concert series at the contemporary art museum SMAK in Ghent, and then three days later at DESINGEL16 as part of the event "Anthony Braxton’s Gambit" where I also performed a set of Creative Orchestra Music with students from the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and Braxton himself performed with his saxophone quartet (also featuring James Fei, Ingrid Laubrock, and Chris Jonas). A more detailed report of this event can be found here. A recording of this concert is available in the Event Space.
The Ghost Trance Septet came together one more time in December 2022 for a three-day residency as part of the event Visitations organized by Sound In Motion which took place at Rataplan in Antwerp. We played four sets spread over two nights, playing all four GTM compositions from the album. These live sets were recorded as well and can be listenend to in the Event Space.
Below are the four tracks from the Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton studio album. The album is available for purchase here.
Underneath are more photo's from the CD and LP versions of the album, as well as from the septet performances at Rainy Days in Luxemburg and at Rataplan in Antwerp. Click on the arrow on the lower-right of the photo to go through the slides.
