Repetitive selective removal of one protecting group
A solo CD project containing twenty-one new compositions composed between 2002-2004,
released on ReR Megacorp (RERST2) .
Commentary (by SKT)
Reviews:
BBC
All About Jazz
All Music Guide
Complete album preview – all excerpts are in mp3 format:
01. Critical Path
02. Non-Crossing Partition
03. Restriction Fragment Length
04. The Mechanics of Hope
05. Ecology of Mind
06. Differential Motivation
07. Full Metal Jacket
08. Designative Codes
09. Napalm Democracy
10. Propagation Mechanism
11. Orderliness
12. Genetic Lottery
13. Quiet Approaching
14. Remnant Structures
15. Temporary Variables
16. Deprotection
17. Negative Entropy
18. Our Framework of Apocalypse I.
19. Our Framework of Apocalypse II.
20. Our Framework of Apocalypse III.
21. Deep-Freezed Chances
Repetitive selective removal of one protecting group - commentary
The cryptic title of this CD release is a torn out sentence from the study on genetic or biological topic – I don't really remember exactly, as once, surfing on the net I found myself in the related scientific environment. As I red carefully the above mentioned sentence, it immediately draw my attention, and after I alienated it from its original scientific context, the whole process sounded very familiar to me. Actually I identified the formula in my own process of composing. In my very case, the fastidious practice of composing goes exactly through the repetitive selective removal of one protecting group. The protecting group is, without any doubt the material I work with, as well as the whole aesthetic and ethical arsenal I acquired during many years, and at last but not least, all anthropological experiences closely connected to music we are surrounded nowadays. In one word everything which protects the material from the easy way advance and imposes some categorical imperatives embedded in the experience of our music history. Waging arguments - pro et contra - in the process of creating a musical material is a crucial point, where the repeatedly removal of any protecting group is a necessary and critical approach and shouldn't be taken easily. In the same time, it's a strategy of protection against artistic banality and “easy hand” solutions, omnipresent in today's music and art - not only in the “consuming society” one. Probably this critical approach postponed my solo debut on ReR label for eight years, as my very first solo material appeared as early as 1997, and since that time, it was completely rewritten on several occasions.
Techniques I employed on this CD are heterogenic in the broadest sense: live playing along with sequencing, sampling, massive sound processing, using some leftovers from previous Science Group recording sessions (mainly those of Chris Cutler and Bob Drake), rearrangements, re-orchestration etc. However the complete material – as usual - is completely written out; even when it sounds quite improvised.
Genetics and biology aren't only present in the accidentally found sentence/ title, but somehow, the spirit of all those new hopes and fears which are embedded in the progress of these sciences are interconnected with many titles on this CD. This is true for the artworks used in the booklet of this release. Laszlo Kerekes, Hungarian from Vojvodina as me, who left the country few years before the outburst of the civil war in our ex country and installed himself in Berlin, painted the cycle entitled Europa after his visit of the concentration camp in Dachau (five out of eight paintings were used on this CD). In those days the war in ex-Yugoslavia was at its peak , and in the some parts of the country similar camps were employed as well (although and “luckily” much less organized and effective than the mentioned one). Once you experience the war - especially the preparation of the same, which obligatory uses all the aspects of mass propaganda and technology - destruction and exile, you are marked with it for the rest of your life. The reincarnation of war and camps in Europe at the end of the twentieth century – after all those nice sounding “never again” promises – and in the same time, the acceleration of all kind of genetic manipulation techniques (some of them, uncomfortably resembling to the much sought after aim of Dr. Mengele) faces us again with the old fears of the dark side of humanity. Of course, would be really naïve to say that this music translates all these fears into musical notes, but it is very true that this music was born in the historic moment which is concerned with the undoubted great progress we face nowadays. The eternal unease is “who and how” uses that progress – until now, it was too many times in wrong hands and manipulated in concordance with the old Latin tag:” Homo homini lupus ”.
During my work on this material, as a homo moralis and not solely as a homo aestheticus , I was all the time aware and concerned with these old hopes and new fears, in the moment when the world enters in the realm of virtual and cloned, and where the significance of historical linearity and morality is slowly but surely wiped out.
Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer
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Released: 21st November 2005, BBC
Steven Kovacs Tickmayer
Repetitive Selective Removal of One Protecting Group
(ReR)
Drawing upon an arsenal of sonic devices, Tickmayer has created a kaleidoscopic world of random motifs, fragmented rhythms and bursts of brittle noise. However, the chaos is only on the surface. This is difficult music, but far from impenetrable. In fact, the scores for all twenty-one short pieces on this CD are written out, and Tickmayer imposes a rigorous, cerebral control throughout.
The results can be playful, even to the point of evoking a Carl Stallings/Looney Tunes universe of pratfalls and silly walks. Other compositions combine processed hyper-piano, icy, ethereal strings or cathedral organ for a more austere and sometimes pensive quality.
Tickmayer's cleverness is beyond dispute, but what really elevates this CD is the emotion behind the parlor tricks. The composer is a citizen of the former Yugoslavia, and perhaps not coincidentally, most if not all of the music on this CD has something other than gamesmanship at its core. This is perhaps best illustrated by the truly ominous "Quiet Approaching" or the three-part "Our Framework of Apocalypse," although everything on the disc resonates with heightened awareness.
Reviewer: Bill Tilland
(source:http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/z64h/)
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All about Jazz:
I have no idea what's going on here, but I kind of like it.
Steven Kovacs Tickmayer is a Hungarian multi-instrumentalist and composer from Yugoslavia who now lives in France, but mostly he appears to be a musical provocateur. This album features 21 short, weird pieces that combine jazz, avant-classical, ambient, rock, and electronic musics, jumbled all up together so that you can't tell what you are hearing. Some of it is old (Tickmayer was a founder of Science Group), most of it is new, all of it is out-as-hell.
One might think this would be a prescription for disaster, but that's not the case. It's actually pretty damned great in its own way. “Differential Motivation” is emblematic: it combines bebop walking bass figures, Eno-like quasi-Afrobeat guitar, shuffling, stuttering percussion explosions, wild battalions of organs that turn into accordions, shattering glass, and violins deployed like saws. It's a mess, to be sure, but a mess with a purpose; it never loses the frenetic beat, it never gets old (the advantage of a 1:59 running time), and it's creative and fun.
See, fun creativity is what can turn boring old assembly-line avant-jazz into great, wonderful, bizarre listening. The track called “Orderliness” makes its title sound like a lie, with continual breakdowns of its crazed flailing beat and impossibly fast multitracked synth pulses, until you realize how much work must have gone into every second of it, and how orderly it all is after all, and how “order” itself is massively important and massively overrated at the same time. It's a brisk two minutes in this universe, and then we're off into the John Zorn / Kronos Quartet / Husker Du / P-Funk mashup that is “Genetic Lottery.” It's impossible, but it's adorable, but it's chaotic and hard to listen to, but you just can't stop listening to it anyway.
The drones are harder to deal with than the pileups, but the best pieces—like the drum-n-bass plus Steve Reich times death metal equals hilarity of “Deprotection—are the ones that go fast and end up in five different blind alleys at once. The most “serious” piece is a doom-und-grind thing called “Our Framework of Apocalypse,” which is made up of two unpleasant screechy movements and one cute sci-fi one. I think Tickmayer is better when he sticks to fragments, though.
It occurs to me that I haven't described the music very precisely. Well, that's on purpose. If this review hasn't set you screaming back to your precious Bix 78s yet, then try to give Tickmayer a shot. You won't believe what you're hearing, and that will be a good thing.
Reviewer: Matt Cibula
(source :http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19952 )
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From AMG Review
Half genius, half madness, Repetitive Selective Removal of One Protecting Group is probably THE most difficult avantprog release of 2005. Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer is finally back in his role as the meticulous composer going impossibly berserk in the most orderly fashion. Each one of the 21 selections on this disc is a mindboggling combination of styles, compositional techniques and moods. Instruments? Name your preference: keyboards aplenty, strings, guitars, drums, miscellaneous objects, all represented in various acoustic, electric and electronic forms. Some passages rely on spedup drumming from Chris Cutler, while a beatbox reigns in other sections. At times, the music sounds like Bob Drake recording from within a computer instead of his old haunted barn ("Restriction Fragment Length"). Ragtime piano, menacing B3 and Cageian prepared piano are featured in various places, along with what sounds like scores of uncredited guest musicians sampled or featured only for a few seconds at a time (the press release mentions that Tickmayer has used sessions from the latest Science Group album, featuring Cutler and bassist Bob Drake, but that leaves a lot of almostrecognized contributions unaccounted for). Tickmayer composes in sections, each piece sounding like a clever assemblage of segments that keep changing their minds about their identity or purpose in the grand scheme of things. The listener bounces back and forth between Latin outbursts ("Differential Motivation"), nursery rhymes ("Designative Codes"), alien folklore ("Designative Codes" again) and a mixture of Frank Zappa's orchestral and synclavier works (the threepart suite "Our Framework of Apocalypse"). After a first listen, you will feel that the music contains way too much information. After a second listen, the level of organization of that information becomes palpable but it's still too much information. That feeling of something bigger, insanely well structured looming from above gets stronger every time, yet never diminishes the level of exhaustion and the amazement every listen triggers. Recommended, but only if you know what you are doing
Reviewer: François Couture, All Music Guide
(source :http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:x95f8qzcbtn4)
