(Free Improvisation, Percussion Music, Experimental, Alrealon Musique) [CD] P.H.A.S.T.I. (PAS & HATI) - The Stages Of Sleep: A Metaphor For Torun - 2011, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

All tracks recorded 'live in the studio'
Recorded in Studio Sferax, Torun, Poland, April 17, 2010
Sound engineer: Bartek Jaworski
Mixed and edited by Will Connor, London, June 2010
Edited by R. Iwanski & R. Kolacki
Mastered by B. Jaworski
Design: Robert L. Pepper
In April of 2010 PAS, Brooklyn based audio/video project traveled to Torun, Poland to play on the 3rd CoCArt Music Festival organized by musicians of HATI in cooperation with Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu. On April 10th 2010, just before PAS embarked on their journey a terrible plane crash happened killing 96 people including Poland's former President Lech Kaczynski. The CoCArt Festival was canceled but PAS still traveled to Poland. During this time two bands improvised together in a studio and recorded these 9 tracks and a wonderful friendship developed between PAS and HATI. These special recordings are now offered in a limited cd and digital formats but the friendship will last forever in time. - alrealon.co.uk
"What they propose through is an improvisation that incorporates the concept freely. Listening to it I understand the whole process as a structuralist event that is produced by merging well thought parts. The use of many and different percussion along with found objects creates a sonic pluralism that dominates the recording." - M. Marios / More Mars Team
P.H.A.S.T.I. is the outcome of the collaboration between P.A.S. and Hati. "Post Abortion Stress", also known as P.A.S., is an experimental improvise Audio/video project from Brooklyn. We have already introduced them through their previous release "Pure Energy Output Sessions", check here . "Hati" is Rafal Iwanski's and Rafal Kolacki's audiovisual project from Poland. Their music "...is based on sound of ethnic instruments from all over the world as well as hand-made instruments or found objects". As they shelf titled their music this is "...a link between a personal interest in modern improvised and acoustic music with ritual and meditation". Their release "The Stages of Sleep - A Metaphor for Torun" includes 9 tracks with total time more than 50 min, nicely presented in a delux CD packaging.
In this release P.H.A.S.T.I try to cooperate using the stages of sleep as inspiration. With such a concept in mind I would expect something close to hypnagogic and ambient music. What they propose through is an improvisation that incorporates the concept freely. Listening to it I understand the whole process as a structuralist event that is produced by merging well thought parts. The use of many and different percussion along with found objects creates a sonic pluralism that dominates the recording. The structure of the tracks is backed up by the use of the various synthesizers, the Theremins and the keyboards. This cd will not help you sleep; on the contrary the chemistry between the two bands will keep you alert. M. Marios - moremars.org
It seems that when you bring two experimental music collectives together, it’s not just a matter of doubling the amount of experimental. Rather, it’s an exponential growth with endless possible outcomes. Brooklyn-based sound and video aritsts PAS traveled to Toruń, Poland for a music festival and there hooked up with two members of Poland’s HATI. When the festival was canceled due to a national tragedy, the teams took the studio, christened themselves P.H.A.S.T.I., and churned out The Stages of Sleep.
First things first: this is quite decidedly not for everyone. When a gear list includes found objects, a Casio sampling keyboard, a theremin and a fishing rod, it’s even money that we’re going unusual places, musically. There is a great deal of clatter, clamor and noise. HATI is, if their own gear lists are any sign, a percussion-based act, loaded up with drums, gongs, rattles, bells and cymbals, along with the occasional flute. Given all that, I went into listening to this disc already tucked into a protective fetal position. But what’s here, while firmly in the anti-music/improvised music zone, is no less accessible than, say, your average dark ambient CD. Sounds come at you from all sides in a disconcerting blitz and force you to defend your personal concept of music, but digging through the mire reveals hints of a rhythmic base that gives the brain something to latch onto. (You’ll need a lifeline back to normalcy when you’re in the thick of “Theta Waves.” It’s just that odd and mind-bending.) In places there’s even more solidity. Amber Brien’s bass walks confidently through the middle of “Sleep Spindle” and provides a point of familiar focus while the rest of the team just lob feedback bombs and assorted sonic assaults. Things take an interesting turn beginning with “Delta Waves” and ending in “Sleepwalkers” as the group move into a trance-like steadiness of tone and then shift it, largely without disturbing the mental haze they’ve induced, through percussion. In “Delta Sleep” HATI’s gongs come into play, ringing out and clashing against the hypnotic flow. They pull the listener back to semi-reality with the jazz-infused tones of “Dreaming,” which enters quietly and builds in smooth succession. Percussion is again a strong focal point, along with hesitant piano. P.H.A.S.T.I. then melt these elements down back into the experimental space and ride that to the end of the disc–passing through, let it be noted, a section with harmonica and what sound like party horns.
Stages of Sleep is not a disc I’ll return to often, but I’m glad to have taken this collaborative journey. My expectations of this round of experimental/improv music were shown to be unjustified while at the same time I felt I was opened to the kind of possibility and scope of thought that drive a project like this. Again, this is not a disc that most people will be able to just dive into and dig; it takes effort to work through it. But the music, and your response to it, just might surprise you. - Hypnagogue, pasmusique.net

PAS:
Amber Brien: bass with effects, percussion
Will Connor: percussion and found objects
Robert L. Pepper: keyboards, synthesizers, processed samples, fishing rod, found objects
Michael Durek: vintage Casio - SK1, theremin, found objects
HATI:
Rafal Iwanski: gongs, cymbals, bells, rattles, spring drum, pipe, zanza
Rafal Kolacki: gongs, bells, rattles, bass drum, ocean drum, flute