1. What’s your biggest pleasure in improvised music?

The pleasure of play is when folks discover of their place, make connections,
negotiate, compromise, reevaluate, take possession of their house and their
actions. The anomaly of motion and response; the unknowability of
connection.

The pleasure of play is when belief is a alternative, and we select to belief.
Once we don’t take every different with no consideration. Once we are totally cognizant of
the potential for violence and cruelty, however we select to take compassion,
affinity, consent, want and company significantly.

2. What high quality do you most admire within the musicians you carry out with?

It’s not one factor for me. It’s by no means one factor. What you convey to the
stage is your humanity—messy, stunning, dysfunctional, joyous,
contradictory, mutable, cussed, insecure, fractious, but additionally empathetic
and compassionate.

Every musician is totally different, and every group is totally different. It’s good, I
suppose, to be delicate to who the group is, and what the group

may

be; to be open to what’s potential, however cognizant of the variations and
inequalities that exist in any ensemble.

3. Which historic musician/composer do you admire the most?

As we speak it’s Little Richard. (Ask me once more tomorrow.)

4. In case you may resurrect a musician to carry out with, who wouldn’t it be?

Sorry. I may solely reply that with a cautionary piece of science fiction.

5. What would you continue to like to realize musically in your life?

Over the previous couple of years, I’ve been looking for methods of refracting
improvisative play via narrative tropes, kinds and methods. I’d like
to see the place this takes me.

I’ve been looking for a form of poetic compression, perhaps; engaged on
kinds that journey from parallel docks to narrative theater or movie, perhaps.
I’m presently considering of methods by which improvisative play may change into a
form of performing—much less autobiography, extra embodiment, or a form of
personification.

And to seek out methods of doing this safely, with compassion and
sensitivity.

6. Are you curious about well-liked music and – if sure – what music/artist
do you notably like

Of the latest music that’s caught my ear, I really like the 100% distilled
virtuosic mischief of Nova Twins. After which there’s the punk-disco of
Gacharic Spin whose most up-to-date album, W, is technicolor nuclear sweet.

I’ve additionally been revisiting the Pet Store Boys. I’ve been struck by their take
on ‘Go West’ in explicit—an AIDS-era piece that’s concurrently candy,
triumphant and elegiac. It’s jogged my memory that political artwork, particularly in
troublesome occasions, is typically greatest introduced with earnestness.

By way of music that communicate on to my very own follow proper now, there’s
Sine (take a look at their tune ‘Don’t Know My Identify’ for starters). If I performed
in a rock band, that might be the sound I might be aiming for. Sine reminds
me just a little little bit of teams like Tackhead by way of perspective and vibe. I’m
stunned by how they handle to leverage studio-based methods into
their music whereas retaining a form of energetic jam-band sound.

7. In case you may change one factor about your self, what wouldn’t it be?

Aside from monetary stability? I must work tougher on ensuring that I
persistently and accurately, in my speech, gender non-binary folks.

8. Which of your albums are you most happy with?

Peculiar Velocities, I suppose, has a few of my greatest enjoying. Or, perhaps
higher: Catherine and Nick completely introduced out one of the best enjoying from me.
(Thanks!)

Juno 3: I can confidently say that it seems like nothing else on the market.

Of Life, Recombinant: A part of me continues to be stunned I managed to drag that
off, and that it really works as properly because it does.

9. As soon as an album of yours is launched, do you continue to hearken to it? And
how typically?

Very, very, very hardly ever.

10. Which album (from any musician) have you ever listened to essentially the most in
your life?

Michael Jackson, Thriller. (In all probability.)

11. What are you listening to in the mean time?

Lethal Stares by Mellowdeath.

Catherine Sikora’s All My Winters.

Obtain each. (Thank me later.)

12. What artist outdoors music conjures up you?

Numerous writers and film-makers. And more and more so to the purpose the place I
don’t know if my curiosity in narrativity is fueled by these artists and
their works, or if my compositional and improvisative issues are making
me search a deeper connection with fiction and the telling of tales.

I used to be studying China Miéville’s quick story assortment, Three Moments of an
Explosion, for instance, whereas mixing Peculiar Velocities. And I believe an enormous
a part of why I used to be capable of maintain give attention to the drama and messiness and
pleasure of Eris’ efficiency on that recording was as a result of I used to be taking
that journey with Miéville’s fantastical, twisted, darkish, deeply
affectionate humanism.

I used to be on a flight watching Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, and, at that
mid-point-turn within the movie, I knew—I knew instantly—what my subsequent piece
was going to be—its form and its type, and the supposed impact on the
listener. It took me a number of years, and a entire bunch of stuff on the slicing
room ground (and the tip end result owed as a lot to Lynch because it did to Bong),
however out of that got here Of Life, Recombinant.

And I used to be studying N. Okay. Jemisin’s The Metropolis We Turned whereas mixing Juno 3,
and her ebook—her voice and her writing type—grew to become a relentless supply of
inspiration throughout that course of. Sure methods of writing, say, the
means Jemisin evokes place and subjectivity and interiority (the folks and
locations in her ebook really feel so actual to me—like I know them
personally), would push me to do sure issues with the combination. Jemisin’s
ebook display to me what was potential, and the way I’d go about
attaining these results in sounded type.

Han-earl Park reviewed on the Free Jazz Weblog:

• Han-earl Park (박한얼) – Of Life, Recombinant (New Jazz And Improvised Music Recordings, 2021)
• Han-earl Park, Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky – Eris 136199: Peculiar Velocities (baf, 2020) ****
• Solo Guitar
• Jazz em Agosto, Day 8
• The newest from Catherine Sikora
• Han-earl Park, Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders, Caroline Pugh – Sirene 1009 (Buster and Pals 2017) ****½
• Catherine Sikora, Han-earl Park, Francois Grillot – Tracks in theDirt (Clockwork Mercury Press, 2013) ****
• 15 From 2012 Proper Earlier than 2013 (half 2/2)
• Catherine Sikora, Ian Smith, Han-earl Park – Cork 04-04-11 (Bandcamp, 2012) ****