Nonsemble

Concert program

Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke (2014) by Chris Perren

• Flora Wong and Samuel Andrews: violins
• Kieran Welch: viola
• Hannah Harley: cello
• Cara Tran: piano
• Libby Myers: guitars
• Hik Sugimoto: drum kit/percussion
   

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Program notes

Written by Chris Perren

Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke is a 30 minute work using the moves of a 1953 championship game of Go as stimulus for harmonic, rhythmic and melodic material. It’s an experiment in extracting musical ideas from abstract patterns and sequences, and allowing these ideas to develop intuitively into a large-scale work.

I’m drawn to the game of Go because it combines two of my major interests: Japanese culture, and complexity that emerges from simple processes. Go is played on a grid with small black and white stones, and operates on simple rules – basically, if your stones are surrounded by the enemy, they die. From this basic principle flows a great deal of complexity.

The compositional process was in two main phases: extracting musical  ideas from the go game, and intuitively developing those ideas.

Using the sequences, their positions, proximities, and relative danger or safety of the moves, I cooked up systems to translate them pleasingly into rhythms, melodies, or sequences of chords. From there I responded fairly intuitively to the materials which had emerged in this process, allowing their character to dictate the direction. The ideas slowly grew outward in an organic process of pruning and elaboration.

The work exists in its final form as three movements, each in a kind of ternary form, surrounded by a prelude and postlude. The first and last sections of each main movement are similar – sort of like variations of each other.

| Prelude (90bpm) |
| Ia (144bpm) | Ib (96bpm) | Ic (144bpm) |
| IIa (105bpm) | IIb (75bpm) | IIc (105bpm) |
| IIIa (80bpm) | IIIb (100bpm) | IIIc (90bpm) |
| Postlude (60bpm) |

Biography

Described by CutCommon as "fusing post-rock and minimalism to craft a monumental contemporary classic", you'll be left wondering how such an emotionally gripping experience is all based on an archived 1953 bout of the board game Go...

Nonsemble inhabit a space between contemporary classical and adventurous pop music, resulting in a diverse output that ranges from sprawling and evocative modern compositions to meticulously crafted chamber-pop. Since forming in 2012, they’ve released two critically acclaimed albums and an EP, played alongside Sigur Ros and Beck at Harvest Festival, were invited to play and talk at TEDxBrisbane, and have toured across Australia, featuring performances at Tasmania’s MONA and Sydney’s City Recital Hall.

A septet consisting of piano, string quartet, drums and guitar (plus the occasional blast of electronics), the group’s musical backgrounds are as varied as their output: classically trained instrumentalists, seasoned rock players, and electronic tinkerers, whose musical interests range from obscure electronica and instrumental math-rock to early baroque music. This unique setup and blend of influences provides for a wide palette of sounds. Olafur Arnalds-esque lushness meets Joanna Newsom jubilance, while the shimmering brightness of minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and John Adams rubs shoulders with the intensity of Godspeed You Black Emperor or 65daysofstatic. Nonsemble have a penchant for the rhythmically complex, but theirs is a music where the heart always wins—often in spite of heavy doses of heady conceptualism.

Over three albums and and two EPs, they’ve earned a reputation for meticulously unified, yet viscerally compelling long-form work. Debut LP “Practical Mechanics”, released on lofly records in 2012, distilled mid-century techno-optimism into a large-scale composition across 5 intricate movements. Their sophomore “Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke” was released in 2015 on London label bigo & twigetti—a 30-minute work constructed from patterns of moves from a 1953 game of Go, the album was hailed as “a monumental contemporary classic” by CutCommon. 2016’s Spaceship Earth EP, also on bigo & twigetti, saw the group side-step into the pop-song format, with five songs inspired by the failed modernism of the 20th century. Boasting guest vocals from prominent voices in Australia’s indie rock scene, the EP was described as “some of the most immediate and inviting indie-pop I’ve heard this year” by 4ZZZ’s Chris Cobcroft. 2017’s “CULTS” had the band celebrate their most loved reworkings of Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens and more. More recently, the group have also been exploring a more electronically-driven 5-piece formation, resulting in their latest LP, 2022's "Archaeopteryx".