From the world of laptops, here come at least two of my favourite players on the scene, although actually it must be understood as a John Hudak plus guest CD. On the first piece he plays with Jason Kahn and on the second with a guy named Bruce Tovsky. Of course Kahn is well-known as percussion players cum laptopist and for what he has being doing either solo or in combination with others, it seems to me that John Hudak is the most natural person to work with for him, almost like a twin brother. In their duo piece, performed on the occassion of Kahn's installation 'Winter' at the Diapason Gallery in New York, the winter becomes almost audible. Sounds come in like a icy winds blowing of the northpole and on top the sound of snowflakes is kindly processed into that of small stones towards the end. Gentle, minimal but with a nice edge to it. I never heard of Bruce Tovsky, but he and Hudak play guitar which is fed through a Max/MSP programming environment (in other words: it's fed through the computer to change the shape of the sound). It starts out minimal and nice, but it couldn't hold my attention throughout. Things were too minimal but also, strangely enough, too haphazard for me and towards the end the piece derailled, which broke the chain of sounds in a rather nasty way. Facit: the first piece is great, the second only partly.
>The Vital Weekly, Frans de Waard, 8.2004

New from Cut is an album which documents two rare live performances from John Hudak. His activity in the live setting has become quite scarce in the recent years, as he makes more of a name for himself through studio recordings and sound installations. For the Time Being is a marvelous opportunity to experience Hudak in two separate and different live contexts. The first piece is a drone and texture focused track, recorded at Diapason Gallery, New York with laptop musician Jason Kahn. The material gathered for this performance mainly consists of field recordings taken from Dobbs Ferry, near Hudak's home. While changing slightly over its 20 minute running time, this first piece fluctuates with minute strokes, brushing ever so softly on tiny changes and developments. Themes emerge then reemerge at steady intervals through a soft haze which blankets the rest of the oscillating cycle. At times it retreats into near silence, perking my ears, and straining my senses. High, smooth, piercing drones inhabit this performance with light and airy shuffles slowly broadening as the loops multiply. The textures gradually come to the forefront from its muted beginnings to an exhilarating density. The second piece is more upfront, with Hudak slightly plucking a guitar subtly contrasted with the processed playing of Tovsky, all of which is edited and arranged in real time with audio applications designed in the Max MSP programming environment. The piece, over 20 minutes long, is a constantly evolving universe of sound and morphing microcosmic shapes. It is formless, and relies on a more spontaneous energy, relative to the first piece. There isn't much more to say about this track since nothing much happens, which is a perfectly good thing in this case. After all, this is a sound piece, and should be appreciated as just that, and nothing else. It isn't necessarily minimalism, nor is it ever grandiose, but things are performed with such a classical virtuosity that it can hardly be called a sound installation; but rather, an orchestrated magnification of sound, and its many consequences. Whenever I put on For the Time Being, I get chills down my spine from its unbounded intimacy and urgency. It can be beautiful, or devastating, often depending largely when or where I listen to it. Though John Hudak drifts perceptively close to the background at times, he continually engages the listener, not with some distilled quality of mundane notes and drones, but rather with a mix of warmth and foreboding expansiveness, neither of which is minimal nor overdone.
>The Brain, Kevin Chong, 1.2005

"For the Time Being" zeigt Klangisntallateur Hudak in zwei Live-Situationen mit dem Progarmmierer Kahn und dem Gitarristen Tovsky. Das erste Stück verarbeitet die Klänge von fallendem Schnee zu einem entsprechenend filigranen Drone, während das Gitarrenduo Hudak/Tovsky ihren Instrumenten mittels digitaler Hilfe zu sehr schöne melodiöse Klänge und Atmosphären entlocken.
>Debug, 11.204

Il cd su Cut documenta due performance live di Hudak risalenti allo scorso anno in collaborazione rispettivamente con Jason Kahn e Bruce Tovsky, e si discosta di gran lunga dalla media dei dischi che oggi invadono il mercato con registrazioni d'improvvisazioni live tra musicisti incapaci di andare al di là dello studio reciproco dei propri mezzi espressivi. La prima traccia è stata registrata presso la Diapason Gallery in occasione di una mostra di Kahn; intervenendo digitalmente sui suoni della mostra e su ulteriori field recordings effettuati da Hudak, i due danno vita a mezz'ora d'incanto, tra effetti percussivi raccolti, piccoli indugi, granuli sonori su cui s'innestano fasce ritmiche accentuate sui suoni bassi: una texture sonora colma di vibrazioni e d'ipnotici giochi di trasparenze. La seconda traccia, che vede Hudak e Tovsky alle prese con due chitarre, è risolta in punti sonori a tratti giocosi a tratti ossessivi, attraversati da impercettibili cantilene e lambiti da ondate distetse. Il ritmo poi varia e s'interseca a pattern più complessi e accelerati, accentuando i contrasti tra le diverse linee sonore.
>Blow Up, Daniela Casella, 11.2004

A better way of writing the artist list would be like this: John Hudak w/ (Jason Kahn, Bruce Tovsky.) Hudak is the common term to both pieces on the disc, on the first he collaborates with Kahn, and Tovsky he works with on the 2nd. Both collaborations were recorded live; the one with Kahn was at the Diapason Gallery, located anomalously near Koreatown in midtown Manhattan (the only Gallery I know in the immediate vicinity), and the 2nd at the Roulette Festival of Mixology. I remember putting both of these dates into my mental calendar, and swearing profusely when I realized that I'd forgotten both.
There's a type of experimental music that I haven't figured out how to categorize yet. Maybe "circular music"? The best way to tell is to put the suspected piece on repeat and listen casually; when you've been through it a few times, pay close attention for a few moments and try to figure out where you are in it's linear progression. If you can't really figure it out, than that loss of temporal referent in a piece of experimental music is what I mean by circularity.
I suspect that this sort of thing has its roots in Satie, but I find it to have taken its highest form in the work of Maurizio Bianchi. I'll quote a friend of mine, Jim Flannery, who wrote about this aspect of MB on an old post to DroneOn:
The evanescence of the experience had something to do with the composition (or "decomposition", as he called it) as well ... Bianchi's special talent was for draining any hint of perceptible goal-seeking out of the material: no tension/release, no elaboration/reaffirmation of pattern, no building to high pitch/volume, no satisfied settling back into a tonic, no triumph of consonance over dissonance (or vice versa), no drama, no program. No progress. No history. Just this block of sound.
Circularity has something to do with narrative, and the absence of linearity thereof. When it comes to Hudak and Kahn's duo laptop collaboration, the movement seems as such. When their half of the disc is on, the record sounds as though it could have easily started as few hours ago, and will end a few days henceforth. It likely has something to do with the sounds themselves; it is as though Hudak and Kahn are controlling interlacing clouds of sounds: slow waves of static hiss, pulsed sinewaves, clanking percussion samples, low drones. You can pick the layers out of you listen closely, but the blur is both vertically across the sound field as it is across time. The overall impression one gets is of days where the mornings aren't beginnings; look to college life when the days seem to be bracketed more by the writing of papers than by the rise and fall of the sun, where patterns and habits emerge and dissolve in quick succession, and life seems to move in overlapping, intersecting circles. Hudak and Kahn are far more poised in their execution of these sorts structures than students like me who stumble through it, but regardless, the logic seems about to be the same.
The 2nd piece on the disc, the collaboration of Tovsky and Hudak, however, is of no interest to me. Tovsky plucks iterative patterns on his guitar, treats them through his computer, loops them, speeds them up, and adds some more notes, while (from what I'm guessing) Hudak drones away in the background. I find their duo to be astronomically dull and a chore to listen to; the two layers have a tangential relationship at most, Tovsky's guitar seems to be entirely digital in it's output, most of its contribution occurs in the higher end of the frequency spectrum, whether by plucked notes, or glittery metallic sounds. Hudak makes sweeping, spacey guitar drones. I wouldn't want to say that there's nothing of merit on this section of the disc, only that whatever merit is there, I am deaf to.
>bagatellen, nirav, 12.2004

Auf dem schweizer Label Cut erscheint, was gerne unter dem Begriff der elektro-akustischen Improvisation subsummiert wird, und sich im Backkatalog unter anderem in Releases von Toshimaru Nakamura, Jason Lescalleet, Tomas Korber, Jason Kahn und Günter Müller niederschlägt. Die jüngste Veröffentlichung bietet zwei Livemitschnitte aus dem Jahre 2003, in denen John Hudak, live ein rares Ereignis, zusammen mit Labelchef Jason Kahn beziehungsweise Bruce Tovsky arbeitet. Die Basis für das erste Stück bilden Field Recordings von fallendem Schnee, die live mittels Laptop bearbeitet wurden. Das Ergebnis wirkt streng und konzentriert, wobei die monoton-reduzierten Segmente des zwanzig Minuten langen Tracks, deren visuelle Entsprechung durchaus im wunderbaren Coverartwork von Jason Kahn gefunden werden kann, ihre enorme Menge an feinen Details nicht ohne Zutun des geneigten Hörers preisgeben. Der folgende, knapp halbstündige Mitschnitt wurde mit zwei per Laptop verfremdeten Gitarren eingespielt, und gibt sich im sanften Wechselspiel von langgezogenen Drones und sprödem Gezupften weniger zugänglich, punktet aber in der Disziplin ?abseitige Schönheit'. Nüchterner Ambient für einschlägig Vorbelastete.
>echoes on-line, Tobias Bolt, 11.2004

Musicien de l'interstice de la latence, le trop rare New Yorkais John Hudak n'est jamais autant à l'aise que dans les moments les plus minimaux, où rien ne se passe, qui offrent un excellent contrepoint à ses compositions de silence et de lumière, ses architectures de verre vibraratiles.
On le retrouve ensuite dans un contexte plus chargé pour deux lives, en compagnie respectivement de Jason Kahn, comme lui au laptop, et de Bruce Tovsky, tous deux utilisant cette fois-ci guitare et logiciels. Nettement plus sombre, la première collaboration s'articule autour de masses grondantes et grises, tandis que la seconde voit Hudak retrouver sa grace aérienne alors que les guitares de délitent en textures répétitives. Excellent.
>D-Side, Jean-François Micard, 11.2004

Three composers, two tracks. John Hudak and Jason Kahn both take care of the first half of the album by using laptops. John Hudak has been releasing music since the first half of the 1990's. Hudaks current sound work focuses on the minimalism and repetition of sounds below the usual threshold of hearing, sounds that are filtered out or considered non-musical. These sounds are recorded, deconstructed and processed, their rhythms and textures being the basis for aural manipulations. Jason Kahn was born in New York, but lived in Los Angeles, Berlin and Zürich. Originally a percussionist, Kahn later began integrating live electronics into his playing. Kahn currently performs using only laptop, analogue synthesizer or combining these with percussion. He founded the CD label cut in 1996, counting to date eleven releases. The first track performs on the occasion of Kahn's sound installation called Winter. The piece builts up gradually, combining light static noise with a repetitive, returning high metallic pitch. The music gets more robust and organic after about six minutes, before the process starts all over again with deep rumbling, larded with fine-tuned peeps and crackles. The combination of harshness and lovely details can be considered excellent, creating a certain tension that keeps the listener stay tuned and interested for the whole track. The second piece, a cooperation between John Hudak and Brooklyn-based Bruce Tovsky, is completely different. Both musicians play guitar and used processing. The track is a tonal experience in which sparkling acoords play a major part. Dark mystic electronics have been added, but remain in the background. An album that shows that John Hudak is into completely different musical directions.
>Phosphor Newsletter, 12.2004

For the Time Being presents two very different extended pieces featuring John Hudak. First up is a 20-minute performance with Hudak and Cut label owner Jason Kahn on laptops. Recorded live at Michael J. Schumacher's Diapason Gallery in March of 2003, the piece hovers delicately in mid-air, like an installation– there to be enjoyed and scrutinized for a while, then left on its own, then scrutinized again. Kahn's soft tones and Hudak's quiet manipulations make a fine match, but the piece is not striking or distinctive. Both artists have more personal material out (in Kahn's case, his solo album Miramar released on Sirr a few weeks before this CD came out). If this first piece is slightly bland, the second, 30-minute track is definitely worth your time and money. Recorded live at the Roulette Festival of Mixology, in June of 2003, it features Hudak and Bruce Tovsky on guitars and processing. And the guitar is at the center of the performance, fully recognizable. There is a soundscaping guitar, its wails setting a dark mood and offering a source of processed feedbacks and moans. The second guitar starts with single plucked notes and builds up to a delicate music box-like theme that, through processing, will get increasingly frantic, passing through a playful phase before turning into digital madness. The result is very dynamic (the piece is in constant progression), attention-grabbing and downright beautiful in its own way, ranking among Hudaks best recorded performances, even though it is significantly more eventful than his usual output.
>All Music Guide, François Couture, 10.2004

Zwei New Yorker Performances der Klangkünstler Hudak, Kahn und Tovsky aus dem Jahr 2003 präsentiert diese liebevoll in der mehrfarbig bedruckten Kartonage verpackte CD. Das erste Stücke arbeitet ausschließlich mit prozessierten Sounds aus dem Laptop und kreiert eine unheimliche und zugleich meditative Klanglandschaft. Track 2 verarbeitet dagegen Akkorde zweier Gitarren, die sich schichtweise überlagern. Auch hier bleibt das Spektrum weitgehend harmonisch und allenfalls ruhig-melancholisch. Beide Stücke entwicklen sich über ihre lange Laufzeit und garantieren eine eingehende Beschäftigung mit ihren Strukturen. Sanft-experimentelles Deep-Listening, das durchaus auch Coil- oder Craniocalst-Fans gefallen könnte, wenn hier auch der reine Sound im Mittelpunkt steht.
Das in Zürich ansässige Label Cut wird von dem Musiker Jason Kahn selbst betreut und bietet noch zehn weitere Kleinode der zeitgenössischen Klangkunst auf CD.
>Ikonen, MaNic, 9.2004

Il y a peu John Hudak s'était rappelé à notre bon souvenir en publiant un énième album « Room With Sky » (Spekk). Aujourd'hui c'est entouré de Jason Kahn et de Bruce Tovsky que notre homme sort ces deux longs morceaux enregistrés en public, l'un au Diapason Gallery de New York, l'autre pendant le Roulette Festival Of Myxology dans la même ville. Les performances live de Hudak étaient devenues suffisamment rares pour que ce disque soit un petit événement que l'on soulignera dans le petit monde quelque peu fermé des musiques électroniques expérimentales et improvisées. Rendez-vous compte, coup sur coup Hudak produit deux live en deux endroits différents et avec deux personnes tout autant différentes. La première pièce interprétée avec Jason Kahn est une espèce de bloc minimaliste et résolument sombre. Ce morceau est comme une sorte d'errance sans fin dans laquelle il apparaît assez difficile d'en sortir. Une musique chuchotée agrémentée de drones inquiétants et presque autistes.
Le deuxième morceau est plus « expansif ». Cette performance réalisée avec le concours de Bruce Tovsky est un peu moins synthétique que la précédente. Les deux hommes ont en effet utilisé et joué de la guitare lors de ce concert en parallèle d'un défilement d'applications sonores électroniques. Toujours aussi fidèle à ses principes John Hudak, avec la complicité de son comparse ne sort pas de son minimalisme qu'il chérit tant. Pour autant cette seconde intervention live est certainement plus riche en variations sonores. L'emploi des guitares y est pour beaucoup. Celles-ci offrent des oscillations moins monolithiques et plus chaleureuses même si on accorde une bonne froideur sur l'ensemble de la réalisation. Quoi qu'il en soit John Hudak et ses deux amis nous ont fournis ici deux pièces fortement contemplatives qui se complaisent dans une sorte de lenteur polaire et d'une beauté sans âge. Si on se donne l'envie de se prendre au jeu on pourra trouver tout au long de ce disque une intensité et une force qui font tout l'intérêt de ce « For The Time Being ».
>Liability, 12.2004

Sonic experimenter John Hudak is the common denominator in the two long tracks of "For the time being". The first sees him flanked by Jason Kahn, both armed with laptops working on field recordings and sounds of snow falling taken from "Winter", an installation by Kahn. Combining thick post-nuclear winds and gentle taps plus captivating - if a little hermetic - blankets of undefined electronic matter, the artists gradually focus our sense of perception without making noise, remaining consistent throughout a very interesting and finely tuned composition. Hudak is joined by Bruce Tovsky in the second piece, a sort of neo-minimalist approach to guitar manipulation that's equally satisfying and even tranquilizing. The nicely chiselled string tapestries are moved in various speeds and forms through a Max MSP program, depositing beautiful prints and luminescent images wherever they decide to land, while the resonance of the surrounding treatments opens and closes doors upon doors of delicate anxiety and child-like curiosity.
>Touching Extremes, Massimo Ricci, 10.2004

15 Maart 2003. In de New Yorkse Diapason Gallery concerteren de geluidskunstenaars John Hudak en Jason Kahn met twee laptops. Het basismateriaal voor hun improvisatie wordt gevormd door het geluid van vallende sneeuwvlokken. De witte ruimte van de galerij deint uit tot uitgestrekte sonore sneeuwlandschappen waarin heuvels en dalen zich enkel laten aflezen in haast onmerkbaar verglijdende grijstinten. De blik wordt geen enkel ankerpunt gegund. Zich aan zach schuifelend overgeven, is de enige mogelijkheid.
25 juni 2003. John Hudak en Bruce Tovsky concerteren met twee gitaren en twee laptops. Minimalistisch gitaargepingel omringd door zoem-, fluit- en sistonen. Op zoek naar de binnenkant van het geluid, en de tolerantiedrempel van de toehoorder.
2 mei 2003 George W. Bush verklaart dat de oorlog in Irak voorbij is. 'For the Time Being'. Hypnotiserende texturen en audiieve verkenningstochten voor 21e-eeuwse neuroten met dissociatieve verlangens. Zalig zijn de armen van geest.
>Gonzo Circus, 12.2004

Zwei Limeimprovisationen des diskreten Klanginstallateurs und Mikrobruitisten Hudak. zuers im Laptop-Duo mit Kahn in der Diapason Gallery in New York als Bestandteil von Kahns Klanginstallation "Winter." Der Titel überzieht unwillkürlich die Hörlandschaft mit knurschendem harsch, kristallinem Frost und pulvrigen Schneeverwehungen. Jedes andere Reizwort hätte die Imagination anders gesteuert. Die konkrete Geräuschwelt selbst breitet sich mikrominimalistisch abstrakt vor dem inneren Auge. Im zweiten Teilstück hört man Hudak zusammen mit dem Multimediakünstler Bruce Tovsky auf dem Roulette Festival of Mixology ebenfalls in New York. Die beiden operierten hier mit Gitarren und Processing. Der blinkende Klingklang, von Dröhn- und Rauschbrisen sanft umweht, suggeriert eine träumerische Atmosphäre. Nach etwa 11, 12 Minute zieht das Tempo an. Infragiler Geziertheit beginnt ein Getänzel vor einem zunehmend unruhigen, schwarzromantischen Horizont. Der Tanz wird immer schotischer, zappeliger, ein überdrehtes Gewirbel unter der Peitsche des teuflischen Getrillers und Geklimpers einer ETA Hoffmann'schen "Kreisleriana." Hudak und Tovsky exekutieren ihr dramatisch eskalierendes Kabinettstück mit marionettenhafter, traumischerer Präzision. Gefesselt bangt man dem finalen Moment entgegen, in dem der Tanzautomat zerspringen muss.
>Bad Alchemy, 12.2004

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