N.R.A.

All photos by Peter Gannushkin at:: www.downtownmusic.net

Nakatani. Rawlings. Arias
NRA is a multi-national, electro-acoustic, free-improvising trio comprised of Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion - Japan), Vic Rawlings (open-circuit electronics, amplified prepared cello - U. S. A.), and Ricardo Arias (bass balloon kit - Colombia). The trio creates a sound world that is simultaneously austere and excessive, static and explosive. Their performance practice is firmly based on a kinetic-physical approach to their respective instruments, yet it is devoid of the heavy-lifting trappings of commonplace physical music. The players have themselves created their own distinctive instruments and techniques, each bringing markedly contrasting sonic materials to the ensemble. Their compositional approach exploits the intersection of these disparate sounds within the confines of particular times and spaces.

NRA has released two recordings. "N.R.A.: untitled", on H&H Recordings documents a studio recording session that was the first meeting of the group. A self-titled release on the free 103.9 label (Audio Dispatch) documents a complete live set performed at the Assembled: Free Jazz + Electronics Festival.

(from left:"Untitled" from H&H / 103point9 Label)

NRA has performed at Shi Mo Tsu Ki: A Festival of Cross-Media Arts Collaborations (NYC, 2003); Assembled: Free Jazz and Electronics festival (NYC, 2004); at the tenth edition of the Vision Festival (NYC, 2005); at the Roulette Concert series (NYC, 2005); and most recently at the Festival Internationale de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville 2006.

PRESS REVIEWS
N.R.A - Recorded live at OfficeOps, Brooklyn, New York, June 26, 2004 as part of free103point9's "Assembled: Free Jazz + Electronics" (free103point9 Audio Dispatch, CDR)

From the Village Voice, Nov. 2-8, 2005
By Chuck Eddy
Judging from their CD (recorded live at OfficeOps in June, 2004 N.R.A. are a totally whacked-out yet beautiful noise-improv trio.

From Time Out New York
Nov. 3-9, 2005
This N.R.A. isn't much for gunplay. This ace free-improvising trio specializes in open-ended soundscapes that range from desolate to the violently active.

From Downtown Music Gallery newsletter
09.23.05
By Michael Anton Parker
This documents a 2004 session by the trio of Tatsuya Nakatani (floor tom, singing bowls, cymbals, rubbing and scraping implements, etc), Vic Rawlings (open-circuit electronics, prepared cello), and Ricardo Arias (balloon kit). It amuses me to report that I've found this recording to be by far the strangest and most impenetrable music I've ever heard from any of them. It's probably the most puzzling electro-acoustic improvisation I've ever heard, neither lowercase subtlety nor dense noise, but rather a complete avoidance of any common approach to improvisation...It's just a puzzle that might not have a solution...it's a rare and profound treat to be able to interact with sound and never be given answers about it's meaning to eventually become disillusioned by. A minor miracle.

From Vital Weekly (www.vitalweekly.net)
They sure like to play things loud, but they don't go for the endless stream of sound and being as free as possible. N.R.A. loves their quieter moments, thus letting their instruments breathe, take shape, and then letting them move on. When they burst out they do it well and loud, but it's not their main thing. A very fine disc of first class improvisation.

From Dusted Magazine
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2598
By Adam Strohm
The three extremely resourceful musicians who make up N.R.A. have numerous musical connections and like-minded tendencies, but it?s their inventiveness that?s the most appetizing facet of this meeting. Tatsuya Nakatani has made a name for himself with a cache of percussive elements and techniques that leaves conventional percussion, even within the context of free improv, far behind. Vic Rawlings? work as a cellist depends heavily on preparations and extended technique, though it?s his work with open-circuit electronics that more obviously engages the imagination. Ricardo Arias, a Colombian expatriate, is the least notorious member of the trio, though he?s the man with the most interesting instrument. Arias has been working for over a decade with what he terms balloon kits, essentially collections of balloons with a common physical anchor. Here, he utilizes the bass-balloon kit, holding down the bottom end of

N.R.A.'s improvisations.
N.R.A.'s music can be quite anonymous; though some sounds can be attributed to specific players, it takes merely an iota of imagination or a millisecond of confusion to find oneself unsure of who might be responsible for a jagged clatter or resonant thump. The elephantine whine of a manipulated balloon could just as easily be the sound of a bowed cymbal, and where one ear may distinctly hear Nakatani?s pattering, another surely identifies Rawlings making a percussion instrument of his cello. With the three musicians using such particular tools in their creation, this ambiguity is a surprise, but not an altogether unwelcome one.

Experienced in person, this set was likely bolstered by not only the cues to who did what, but the visceral visuals of the trio?s novelty instruments. On disc, the set can be rather impenetrable, but whether such difficulty breeds curiosity or disregard will depend on the listener, since both seem valid reactions.

N.R.A: untitled (HH-7 CD)

Bagatellen
Posted by Brian Olewnick on November 25, 2005 06:27 PM
N.R.A. (Tatsuya Nakatani, percussion; Vic Rawlings, open-circuit electronics; Ricardo Arias, bass-balloon kit) is heard in a raucous, lively 2003 performance. They tend toward the active, even rampaging as on the fine fourth track where Nakatani and Rawlings set off some blistering explosions that send the trio careening and ricocheting wildly. But the final cut, at a relatively sprawling eleven minutes, might actually be the most successful, more brooding and expansive, with Arias generating dangerous-sounding near-pops and the others producing more sustained tones with dark underpinnings, leading to a coda of furious sawing. A good, solid platter of noise, this one.

Paris Transatlantic Review. February, 2006 ? Dan Warburton
Tatsuya Nakatani / Vic Rawlings / Ricardo Arias
N.R.A.
H&H Production
In the same line-up you might be forgiven for expecting a fun-filled happy hour of red-nosed wacky toybox improv...this is uncompromising, often nasty stuff...All three musicians go out of their way to put themselves in dangerous situations, and the results are consistently compelling, sometimes downright thrilling. Check it out.

LIVE REVIEWS

Vision Festival X - Day Five, June 18, 2005 (Part 1)
Posted: 2005-08-28
By John Sharpe
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=18592
The unconventional instrumentation was contradicted by a rather sober appearance, like three bank clerks. The single improvisation was predicated upon extended technique, focused on extracting and merging long tones varying in pitch and volume.
Arias tortured an array of balloons of various sizes to produce sustained squeaks by incessantly rubbing them with polystyrene or pulling strings across them. Nakatani's contribution to the sonic landscape entailed scraping cymbals across drum heads, bowing pure tones from metal bowls and even blowing raspberries against his drum skins. Rawlings scraped and tapped his cello and at one point applied a tuning fork to the cello body, but avoided any conventional note making. His electronic washes provided a unifying thread holding the performance together. The piece progressed through high pitched squeals, creaks, wails, susurrations, whinnies and gratings, punctuated every so often by a bang as one of Arias? balloons gave up the unequal struggle against his frottage.

The Vision Festival, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Sleep In The Subway Station
By Lars Gotrich
http://www.opuszine.com/blog/entry.html?ID=1240
...the trio improvised a hour-long set of haunting noise well-suited for a horror movie with a creaky house.

Tatsuya Nakatani (Percussion) Originally from Kobe and Osaka, Japan, Tatsuya Nakatani has resided in the USA since 1995. He had been based in New York City for four years, but now resides in Easton, PA. He has been recognized as a key player in New York's ever-burgeoning creative music scene. His music often defies category or genre and is broadly influenced by various cultures as well as improvised music, experimental music, jazz, free Jazz, and rock.
An intense freedom combined with impeccable sensitivity and depth of thought characterizes his approach. He is widely recognized and sought out as a solo and ensemble performer. His elements of percussion are drum set, gong, cymbal, singing bowls, pieces of metal objects, various sticks and bows. In addition to live performances, he provides sound design for television and film, and collaborates regularly with dancers and visual artists. Nakatani has established an independent record label and recording studio “H&HPRODUCTION” from where he dispatches his music creations to the rest of the world. He has been a recipient of the New York, Bronx Art council individual artist grant.

Vic Rawlings (prepared/ amplified cello, surface circuitry) is active as an improviser, instrument builder, and educator. His performances focus on the meta-musical potential of unstable sounds and silences, and he has developed instruments that are specific to this compositional aesthetic. As an instrument builder he specializes in modifications of existing instruments, and has developed extensive cello preparations. He also continually develops an electronic instrument from extant circuitry, producing, in effect, a modular analog synthesizer with a highly unstable interface. This electronic instrument is paired with a flexible array of exposed speaker elements, chosen for their often unpredictable and idiosyncratic acoustic qualities. As an educator he has given workshops on collective improvisation in diverse venues ranging from Harvard University to elementary schools, as well as music festivals in Texas, Maine, and Washington state.
He performs regularly as a soloist and with NRA, undr quartet, the BSC. He performs in duo, trio, and quartet ensembles with Michael Bullock, Greg Kelley, Sean Meehan, Bhob Rainey, Jason Lescalleet, Laurence Cook (Laurence Cook Disaster Unit), James Coleman, James Fei, Nate Wooley, Howard Stelzer, and Tim Feeney. Collaborators have included such diverse musicians as Donald Miller, Daniel Carter, Jaap Blonk, Masashi Harada, Eddie Prevost, and Stephen Drury. His work has been presented on the following labels: Grob, Sedimental, Emanem, Boxmedia, Chloe, HH Recordings, and free103.9: Audio Dispatch. He has performed as a soloist/ composer with Nicola Hawkins Dance Company and has also composed scores for films.

Ricardo Arias (Balloon Kit) Ricardo Arias was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1965. He has lived in Barcelona, The Hague, and currently resides in New York City. He studied composition and electroacoustic music with Chilean composer Gabriel Brncic at the Phonos Foundation in Barcelona and flute with Hiroshi Kobayashi and Joan Bofill, also in Barcelona. During 1995-1996 Arias studied computer music at the Institute of Sonology in ThaHague. He holds a BA in Anthropology from Hunter College in New York City. Most of Arias' music is improvised and made in collaboration with other musicians. Apart from occasionally playing the flute, he uses nconventional instruments and found objects as sound sources. He has performed with a shifting array of small found objects, amplified with piezo-electric transducers. Since 1992 he has focused almost exclusively on the balloon kit, a number of rubber balloons attached to a suitable structure and played with the hands and a set of accessories, including various kinds of sponges, pieces of Styrofoam, rubber bands, etc.. Arias has been artist in residence at Harvestworks (New York City, 1999) and at Engine 27 (New York City, 2003) and was a fellow at the Civitella Ranieri Center (Umbria, Italy, 2004). Arias has published essays in Experimental Musical Instruments (Vol. 13, #2, 1997), and Leonardo Music Journal (Vol. 8, 1998 and Vol. 12, 2001).