Label: TAL

素晴らしい内容!!自作楽器とエレクトロニクスを用いた奇怪な実験録音!!南アフリカのケープタウンを拠点とするアーティスト兼ミュージシャンであり、1985年以来、先住民コイサンの知識に基づいた創作楽器の製作に取り組んでいるGarth Erasmus。長年の活動期間を経て漸く出版となった初のソロ名義タイトル[Threnody for the Khoisan]。前衛音楽及びフリージャズに興味を抱き、自作楽器、フィールドレコーディング、様々な電子音楽デバイスを駆使して作り上げた独創ミニマリズムの数々。その音の強度に引き込まれます。











Garth Erasmus is an artist and musician based in Cape Town, South Africa. 'Threnody for the KhoiSan' is his first album under his own name. Since 1985 his artistic interests have broadened to include music-making, designing and making his own instruments based on indigenous KhoiSan knowledge. From 1999 to 2012 he was a member of the South African First Nation activist group Khoi Khonnexion. In the past couple of years Garth Erasmus has also been a pivotal part of various international performance pieces and exhibition projects which brought him regularly to Europe. Most of these activities were developed and performed in collaboration with the Hamburg based band Kante and his band Khoi Khonnexion. In April 2024 Garth Erasmus will be part of the group exhibtion 'Oscillations' at Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

His works in music are predominantly characterized by a restless quest for alternative forms of expression and materials including self build instruments, field recordings or various electronic music devices.
In this context the music on 'Threnody for the KhoiSan' takes on a primal and metaphorical meaning. Rather than a formal, physical initiation, this process is more spiritually inclined, yet it is a spirituality which is consistently put into action.. “Ever since I was an art student I have experimented with alternative materials to release me from the Western education values I received. When I started to make these instruments in the 1980s, my intention was to create art objects but when I discovered the sound they made, it unlocked a door that transported me deeper in my quest in the realization that I was on the right path.
In fact all instruments which appear on 'Threnody for the KhoiSan' are products of a process of discovery starting from square one. All this is based and founded on the beauty of simplicity and minimalism as symbolized by the single string Khoisan musical bow and arrow as trance musical instrument. In this sense it soon became manisfest for Garth Erasmus to combine the bow instruments with various electronic instruments. Besides developing his own unique language in music he also shared an expressed interested in experimental sound aesthecis, Avantgarde composition and Free Jazz. However, his non - academic approach towards sound and music was always fueled by the desire for a reconnection to the land and to the idegenious knowledge of the KhoiSan, whose struggle for First Nation status continues.