Label run by Burnt Friedman.
Nonplace can be grasped as the antithesis of commonplace. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts. In this respect, Nonplace is the counter-programme to the ubiquitous striving for higher redundancy (localization, simplification by digitalization, coding and administration).
In the early 2000’s Friedman established this idea as a concept for his label, Nonplace and embarked on the defining solo project of his career as Burnt Friedman. It’s as Burnt Friedman he joined forces with Jaki Liebezeit, the legendary drummer for the penultimate avant-garde rock group CAN for five albums as the Secret Rhythms series before Liebezeit’s untimely passing in 2017. Using a universal numbering system rather than track titles, the music was laid bare with little by the way of subjective influence from the artist informing the listening experience. The music is free thus to exist in its nonplace, not even bound by the identity of the artists involved.
Friedman: “Recording clearly stops the process of change. Musicians will always prefer the live situation I would say—you can present something that you are really concerned with at that moment, unless you are The Rolling Stones playing the same program over and over. You could argue that that isn’t even music, as it denies that natural dimension of motion.
People today refer back to our amassing archives as if it was real, live music. Of course, any recording’s playback sound is, technically speaking, real, no matter how terrible your speakers may be. What has gone missing by making recordings, or by taking samples, is the dimension of continuous motion—a motion that should naturally evolve, containing different information with each following performance, new interpretations, new versions, and so forth.”
Friedman’s live-and-studio project with Jaki Liebezeit, must be viewed as intermediate phases in an on-going process. They are not finalized, completed pieces that permit no furthe