K-Space (band)
Encyclopedia
K-Space are a British
-Siberia
n experimental
electroacoustic improvisation
music ensemble comprising Scottish
percussionist Ken Hyder
, English
multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson
, and Siberian percussionist and throat singer
Gendos Chamzyryn. The trio was formed in Tuva
, Siberia
in 1996. They have played in concerts in Asia and Europe, and released three CDs, including Infinity
(2008), which was a new type of CD that is different every time it is played.
In a review of K-Space's second album, Going Up (2004), François Couture of Allmusic described their music as a mixture of "psychedelic shamanism
" and "the strangest Krautrock
you ever heard".
, co-founder of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow
, and Ken Hyder
, founder of the Celtic
/jazz band Talisker, first began collaborating in 1978. After one of Hodgkinson's concerts in Moscow
in 1989, Hodgkinson asked Hyder if he would like to play "all of Russia
". Hodgkinson, a social anthropology
graduate, was interested in making contact with rural Russian musicians and ritual
specialists. In 1990 and under the banner "Friendly British Invasion in Search of the Soviet Shamans", Hodgkinson and Hyder toured Siberia
and the surrounding regions, requiring a separate KGB
clearance for every city they performed in. They were the first British musicians to play in Vladivostok
since the Russian Revolution.
This was the first of a series of study trips Hodgkinson and Hyder made to Siberia to explore shamanic culture
. At the time shamanism had been suppressed by the Soviet
s but was still practised in secret by the locals. Initially little interest was shown in the duo, but soon they started to meet shamans and experience first hand shamanic rituals in which the shaman enters a trance state
using drum and voice. This had a profound effect on Hyder and Hodgkinson. What interested them was the improvisational and musical aspects of the ritual, because it raised questions as to whether the psychological state of a performer is more important than musical technique. They began working with shamans from Tuva
, Altay
and Khakassia
, and meet the musicians of Biosintes, "a kind of Tuvan Sun Ra
band" which included Gendos Chamzyryn. Chamzyryn, a shaman from Tuva, played a variety of traditional Tuvan instruments and used the deep-vocal Kargiraa
style of overtone-singing. Hyder and Hodgkinson invited Chamzyryn to join them on a tour of Altay villages in 1996. During this tour Chamzyryn took the unusual step of "shamanising" on stage, which had never been done before because the use of voice and drum by shamans is not primarily musical. But their performances were well received and the success of this experiment prompted the trio to form a group they called K-Space.
From 1999 K-Space began touring Siberia and later Western Europe
, which included concerts in France, Germany, Austria and Italy. In 2005 they returned in Tuva and performed with local musicians and shamans.
s of shamanic rituals, and manipulated and superimposed them on one another to produce a sound collage
of what Hyder called "total music". In 2008 K-Space broke new ground when they released Infinity
, a new type of CD that is different every time it is played. It was created with the help of programmer Andy Wilson, and uses software to remix
source material located on the disc to produce an "infinite" number of different musical pieces.
n astrophysicist
Nicolai Kozyrev
. Kozyrev believed that time was a channel for energy and built a device known as Kozyrev’s Mirrors
to prove his theory. When Hodgkinson and Hyder were in Akademgorodok
, the educational and scientific centre of Siberia, they experienced first-hand the effects of Kozyrev’s Mirrors
.
Hyder has said that their second album, Going Up (2004) was directly influenced by the "esoteric theories" of Kozyrev.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
electroacoustic improvisation
Electroacoustic improvisation
Electroacoustic improvisation is a style of music that incorporates aspects of both electroacoustic music and free improvisation.-Origins:Live electronics has been part of the sound art world since the 1930s with the early works of John Cage...
music ensemble comprising Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
percussionist Ken Hyder
Ken Hyder
Ken Hyder is a Scottish jazz fusion drummer and percussionist born in Dundee, Scotland, perhaps best-known for combining folk, ethnic and Celtic music with jazz...
, English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson
Tim Hodgkinson
Tim Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds and keyboards. He is best known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968...
, and Siberian percussionist and throat singer
Overtone singing
Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the resonances created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out the lips to produce a melody.The partials of a sound wave made by the human voice can be...
Gendos Chamzyryn. The trio was formed in Tuva
Tuva
The Tyva Republic , or Tuva , is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders with the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and with Mongolia to the...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
in 1996. They have played in concerts in Asia and Europe, and released three CDs, including Infinity
Infinity (K-Space album)
Infinity is the third album by British-Siberian experimental music ensemble K-Space. It was released in the United States in August 2008 by Ad Hoc Records, an affiliate of Recommended Records, and was a new type of CD that is different every time it is played."Infinity" will not work in a standard...
(2008), which was a new type of CD that is different every time it is played.
In a review of K-Space's second album, Going Up (2004), François Couture of Allmusic described their music as a mixture of "psychedelic shamanism
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
" and "the strangest Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
you ever heard".
History
Tim HodgkinsonTim Hodgkinson
Tim Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds and keyboards. He is best known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968...
, co-founder of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
, and Ken Hyder
Ken Hyder
Ken Hyder is a Scottish jazz fusion drummer and percussionist born in Dundee, Scotland, perhaps best-known for combining folk, ethnic and Celtic music with jazz...
, founder of the Celtic
Celtic music
Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...
/jazz band Talisker, first began collaborating in 1978. After one of Hodgkinson's concerts in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1989, Hodgkinson asked Hyder if he would like to play "all of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
". Hodgkinson, a social anthropology
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
graduate, was interested in making contact with rural Russian musicians and ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
specialists. In 1990 and under the banner "Friendly British Invasion in Search of the Soviet Shamans", Hodgkinson and Hyder toured Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and the surrounding regions, requiring a separate KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
clearance for every city they performed in. They were the first British musicians to play in Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
since the Russian Revolution.
This was the first of a series of study trips Hodgkinson and Hyder made to Siberia to explore shamanic culture
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
. At the time shamanism had been suppressed by the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
s but was still practised in secret by the locals. Initially little interest was shown in the duo, but soon they started to meet shamans and experience first hand shamanic rituals in which the shaman enters a trance state
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
using drum and voice. This had a profound effect on Hyder and Hodgkinson. What interested them was the improvisational and musical aspects of the ritual, because it raised questions as to whether the psychological state of a performer is more important than musical technique. They began working with shamans from Tuva
Tuva
The Tyva Republic , or Tuva , is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders with the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and with Mongolia to the...
, Altay
Altay people
The Altay or Altai are an ethnic group of Turkic people living in the Siberian Altai Republic and Altai Krai and surrounding areas of Tuva and Mongolia. For alternative ethnonyms see also Teleut, Tele, Telengit, Mountain Kalmuck, White Kalmuck, Black Tatar, Oirat/Oirot.The Uriankhai people were...
and Khakassia
Khakassia
The Republic of Khakassia or Khakasiya is a federal subject of Russia located in south-central Siberia. Its capital city is Abakan, which is also the largest city in the republic...
, and meet the musicians of Biosintes, "a kind of Tuvan Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
band" which included Gendos Chamzyryn. Chamzyryn, a shaman from Tuva, played a variety of traditional Tuvan instruments and used the deep-vocal Kargiraa
Overtone singing
Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the resonances created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out the lips to produce a melody.The partials of a sound wave made by the human voice can be...
style of overtone-singing. Hyder and Hodgkinson invited Chamzyryn to join them on a tour of Altay villages in 1996. During this tour Chamzyryn took the unusual step of "shamanising" on stage, which had never been done before because the use of voice and drum by shamans is not primarily musical. But their performances were well received and the success of this experiment prompted the trio to form a group they called K-Space.
From 1999 K-Space began touring Siberia and later Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, which included concerts in France, Germany, Austria and Italy. In 2005 they returned in Tuva and performed with local musicians and shamans.
Recordings
K-Space's first CD, Bear Bones (2002) contains recordings made by the trio between 1996 and 2001. For their next CD, Going Up (2004) they took K-Space performances recorded in Siberia and Europe, plus field recordingField recording
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product...
s of shamanic rituals, and manipulated and superimposed them on one another to produce a sound collage
Sound collage
In music, montage or sound collage is a technique where sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage, the use of portions of previous recordings or scores...
of what Hyder called "total music". In 2008 K-Space broke new ground when they released Infinity
Infinity (K-Space album)
Infinity is the third album by British-Siberian experimental music ensemble K-Space. It was released in the United States in August 2008 by Ad Hoc Records, an affiliate of Recommended Records, and was a new type of CD that is different every time it is played."Infinity" will not work in a standard...
, a new type of CD that is different every time it is played. It was created with the help of programmer Andy Wilson, and uses software to remix
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
source material located on the disc to produce an "infinite" number of different musical pieces.
Name
K-Space is short for Kozyrev-Space and refers to a space/time warp supposedly created by the late RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n astrophysicist
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
Nicolai Kozyrev
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Kozyrev was a Russian astronomer/astrophysicist.-Biography:He was born in St. Petersburg, and by 1928 he had graduated from the Leningrad State University. In 1931 he began working at the Pulkovo Observatory, located to the south of Leningrad...
. Kozyrev believed that time was a channel for energy and built a device known as Kozyrev’s Mirrors
Kozyrev Mirror
A Kozyrev Mirror is a device made from aluminum spiral shape surfaces, which, according to a hypothesis, suggested by a famous astro-physicist N.A. Kozyrev, are able to focus different types of radiation alike to magnifying glasses, including the types of radiation coming from biological objects...
to prove his theory. When Hodgkinson and Hyder were in Akademgorodok
Akademgorodok
Akademgorodok , is a part of the Russian city Novosibirsk, located 20 km south of the city center. It is the educational and scientific centre of Siberia...
, the educational and scientific centre of Siberia, they experienced first-hand the effects of Kozyrev’s Mirrors
Kozyrev Mirror
A Kozyrev Mirror is a device made from aluminum spiral shape surfaces, which, according to a hypothesis, suggested by a famous astro-physicist N.A. Kozyrev, are able to focus different types of radiation alike to magnifying glasses, including the types of radiation coming from biological objects...
.
Hyder has said that their second album, Going Up (2004) was directly influenced by the "esoteric theories" of Kozyrev.
Members
- Ken HyderKen HyderKen Hyder is a Scottish jazz fusion drummer and percussionist born in Dundee, Scotland, perhaps best-known for combining folk, ethnic and Celtic music with jazz...
– drums, vocals, amplified ektara, sampling, electronics - Tim HodgkinsonTim HodgkinsonTim Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds and keyboards. He is best known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968...
– lap steel guitar, clarinet, electronics, alto saxophone - Gendos Chamzyryn – vocals, percussion, amplified doshpulur, piano, cello
Discography
- Bear Bones (2002, CD, Slam Records, U.K.United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
) - Going Up (2004, CD, Ad Hoc Records, U.S.United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) - InfinityInfinity (K-Space album)Infinity is the third album by British-Siberian experimental music ensemble K-Space. It was released in the United States in August 2008 by Ad Hoc Records, an affiliate of Recommended Records, and was a new type of CD that is different every time it is played."Infinity" will not work in a standard...
(2008, CD, Ad Hoc Records, U.S.United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
)
Further reading
- "Improvised Music and Siberian Shamanism". An essay by Tim HodgkinsonTim HodgkinsonTim Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds and keyboards. He is best known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968...
. - "The Road to Erzin". One of HodgkinsonTim HodgkinsonTim Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds and keyboards. He is best known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968...
and HyderKen HyderKen Hyder is a Scottish jazz fusion drummer and percussionist born in Dundee, Scotland, perhaps best-known for combining folk, ethnic and Celtic music with jazz...
's trips to Siberia, including their experiences with Kozyrev’s Mirrors.