The Azusa Plane (Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania, USA)
For all intents and purposes, Jason DiEmilio IS The Azusa Plane, a name derived from a place in Akira Kurisawa’s epic masterpiece, Ran. An avid music collector and fellow vinyl junkie, Jason (augmented on stage and occasionally in the studio by Jason Knight on guitar and Quentin Stoltzfus on drums) has been exploring (some might say torturing) the sonic textures emanating from his Fender guitar for the better part of the last four years. In this short period, the prolific DiEmilio has amassed a discography rivaling the encyclopedic output of fellow avant-absurdists John Zorn, Glenn Branca and Mark E. Smith, all of whose influences can be spotted within the Azusa Plane oeuvre. Not bad for a fellow so unsure of the reception awaiting his self-released debut 45, "Fall"/"Meander" (Dovetail/Colorful Clouds for Acoustics, 1995) that he gave more than half of the 500 copies away. Proving his inhibitions unfounded, the 7" now fetches more than $US20.00 on Internet auctions!
Azusa Plane completists face a massive scavenger hunt if they wish to own Jason’s entire back catalog. From these humble beginnings, there are now no less than 16 separate 7"s (some split with some of the finest purveyors of sonic sculpturing in the 90s: Grimble Grumble, Fuxa, Loren MazzaCane Connors, Roy Montgomery, Aerial M, Octal, Alphane Moon and Our Glassie Azoth et. al. – see separate entries for bolded artists), another 16 or so compilation appearances, 3 full length CDs, half a dozen cassette releases, 2 LPs and a couple of 10"s. Although Jason’s output has intentionally declined in the last few years ("I recognized that I was oversaturating the market with Azusa Plane product") and further live ventures are seriously in doubt (Jason Knight has relocated to San Francisco), we haven’t heard the last of The Azusa Plane. A new CD (on German imprint K-raak) is awaiting release, Jason contributed a track to the Sounds of Psychedelphia compilation on Lounge and Chunklet editor Henry H. Owings has co-released a live CD of Azusa Plane performances from the past two years (Result Dies with the Worker, Little Army/Colorful Clouds for Acoustics.)
We begin by discussing that debut single:
How exactly did that first release come about? I understand it was intended as the first in a series of ten 7" releases after which The Azusa Plane would cease to exist?
It’s something I always wanted to do, which stems from a lifetime passion of record collecting and listening to music. It goes back to the aesthetics of punk rock and the DIY movement and home recording. I had got myself a four track, done some recording and with the realization that, hey, with a little bit of money I can just put this out myself, and if it fails…it fails, but at least I had the opportunity to put the music out and it all started with that 7".
Is it true you actually gave away more than half of that initial release?
Yes! Basically, I had pressed the records and I had no idea what to do with them. I had 500 of them sitting in my basement, so with my extensive knowledge of all the labels out there, I sent about half of them to record labels, distributors, magazines basically just to get it out there and see what people’s reaction was. Mainly because I didn’t know what I was doing and I was just asking for help from anyone who could help out. That’s when it took off – with that one record, there was nothing but positive response. I didn’t expect it! A lot of people wrote back saying how much they enjoyed it. Which was great, because I was just living out this little dream I had of just recording and putting out music. I had no idea that it was possible and it was that easy!
Now the name Azusa Plane. Is that named after that little town outside Los Angeles?
No, it’s not. Although that’s what pops up if you do a search for it on the Internet. I actually got it from an Akira Kurisawa film called Ran. It was a movie I had seen when I was younger and it had a lasting affect on me and I was actually watching it around 1995 when I started making my first recordings and there it was – it popped up on the screen and I said, "That’s it. That’s the name."
Any reason you wanted to, not necessarily hide behind, but release material without using your own name? After all, you essentially are The Azusa Plane.
I guess it was from a pure interest factor: creating a strange identity for a band. It’s had an evolving lineup since the beginning and it sounds a lot more exciting to be The Azusa Plane than just Jason DiEmilio. It’s something out there that’s a little different.
I’m sure you made a lot of contacts at the Terrastock festivals. You’re one of the few artists who appeared at all three festivals. Do you follow the current music scene or do you listen mostly to older stuff?
I just have a horrible addiction to records. It’s everything: blues and folk music from the 20s and 30s, jazz, punk rock, 80s rock, 70s German psychedelic rock, indie rock. Even now, I’m getting into electronic music. So, if it’s out there I’m into it. Of course the problem is having all the money to purchase it, which would be the perfect scenario!
You’ve contributed a lot of music to many labels over the years. Do you have any input into the other artists that you’re coupled with, especially on the splits, or does the label decide, since it’s their money putting it out?
Many times when someone comes to me like that, they usually know in advance what they’re gonna do. They’ll come to me and say, "We’re gonna do a split and Grimble Grumble’s gonna be on one side and we’d like to have a track from you." You’ve mentioned I’ve had so many releases. I’ve really pulled back in the last year. My output is down. I still receive a lot of offers, but it was oversaturation with all the music. It’s hard to say no to people, but I’m kinda slowing it all down to try and get my bearings straight.
It’s really a combination of (1) I did a little too much, too fast and definitely oversaturated the market and (2) a lot of what I set out to accomplish with The Azusa Plane, I’ve accomplished, which was creating this ambient, psychedelic guitar music. Basically, if you follow the CDs, the first one on Camera Obscura [Tycho Magnetic Anomaly and the Full Consciousness of Hidden Harmony, 1997] was a straight up ambient guitar record.
The next record I put out which was the double CD, "America is Dreaming…," was more on the experimental freeform noise side. Those were the two major focuses of starting The Azusa Plane to explore that kind of music. So I said, "Where do I go now?" I think I covered that kind of territory. I’m working on a new record now which is for a record label in Germany [K-raak] which is really stripped down. Just guitar, very sparse, real minimal. It’s not even guitar playing, so it’s as abstract as you can get. Over those three CDs I will be covering the gamut of the guitar music that I want to make.
Now you’ve also released a record on your label, Colorful Clouds for Acoustics as The Spires of Oxford. Was that to vent your acoustic side or was that actually an electric guitar on there?
It’s an electric guitar, but it was stripped down of a lot of the effects. That record came about in just two nights. I had just starting releasing a lot of material on other labels and I felt a lot of pressure to come up with some interesting material. Relatively speaking, it was only a small amount of pressure, but I felt it and so over two nights I sat down and plugged directly into my four track and just played straight up improvisational music. Up until that time, everything was somewhat structured. Even that first CD, all those chord progressions were laid out. This was the first time I sat down and started playing without thinking of chords and notes and structure – just freeform playing.
Now to this other thing here – this double CD, America is Dreaming of Universal String Theory. It seems to be that this record was born out of a lot of anger. You've referred to it as "the most hated of all Azusa Plane releases."
This record was all plotted out in advance. It was recorded over a few week period and it was pretty much straight up free form playing. It basically came at a point when most of what I was hearing from other people and what I was seeing in reviews categorized me as this spacerock, generic, really lifeless type of musician. I went into this record taking a lot of the other things I was listening to at the time like the free form noise music from New Zealand. And I went into this with the feeling of making a really pure, hard, emotional record that I would fully enjoy. So it was a combination of that and of anger at not being taken seriously…. Even now I feel the music is not taken seriously by a lot of people and it’s really the brunt of a lot of critics. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of the best things I’ve heard about it…probably the best criticism I’ve received was someone who said to me, "It’s a very human record. You can really hear [me] playing the guitar." So, to hear that, I feel I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. But even while I was recording it I was saying, "People are gonna hate this. They’re gonna be thinking of that first record and they’re gonna put this on and they’re gonna say, ‘This is horrible.’" But I didn’t want to go in and make another record that everyone would like. I didn’t want to make a record that was "nice."
When you say that people have called it a very "human" record – I can hear that. It almost sounds as if it wasn’t edited. There are times when I can hear you plugging your guitar into the amp and just fiddling around trying to come up with something. Did you record this live, or did you actually go back and overdub it and assemble it?
The tracks were assembled later, but the tracks were essentially me booking a day at the studio and Jason [Knight] would put on the tape recorder and hit "Play" and I’d walk in and what ever happened, happened. There’s actually about three CDs worth of material. We edited it down later on and then sequenced it.
I heard you mention some of the criticism that’s been directed towards The Azusa Plane. Yet, at the same time, since you essentially ARE The Azusa Plane – you write and play all the material, you edit your own work and you have your own label to release it, it seems like you don’t care what the critics think of the material. You’re gonna release it the way you want . However, I still sense a bit of disappointment with the reaction your music has received. There seems to be a bit of a contradiction there.
That’s about right. The only negative thing that comes out of this is that when I started out I had nothing but good intentions. But I’ve found out that people are using The Azusa Plane as a way to validate their own hipness by saying, "This is terrible. I’m above this. It’s time to move on." It’s very much a personal attack instead of listening to the record. There are a lot of people out there who have very harsh opinions of The Azusa Plane and put them in print simply to say, "As a critic, I am above this. I am beyond this." That’s the main problem that I have. It drives me nuts.
I wanted to touch upon your live release, Result Dies with the Worker. Is that some sort of reference to pensions or something like that?
I guess it’s a combination of two things. The idea that I do all this music on the side but I’m stuck forever in my day job of poverty and you feel like it’s all for nothing. Also the fact that when you go out and do live music, which is what’s captured on that CD, when you’re playing, it’s great, but when you finish, everyone goes home and its all over. That record was compiled mainly by Henry Owings who puts out the magazine, Chunklet. He recorded a lot of those shows on his handheld DAT machine and he always loved our live shows. He thought it was something that didn’t come through in the recordings. And he compiled all these fun shows that we did and it was like, the result DIDN'T die – it was right there. So, it’s a combination of the music dying and just being yesterday’s news – just another show in another town. And also the idea that this is something that I’d like to do but it’s just not financially possible. We’re all stuck working in our day jobs.
Now, your live setting has essentially been a three piece, but you've also performed as a seven piece. Is that correct?
Yes. You have to remember that when we started out playing live, the idea was for me, Jason and Quentin to just make this massive guitar wall of sound. And we did that. We had about a 40 minute set and we just wanted to create this loud, in-your-face onslaught of guitars. Now we’re at the point of "Where do we go from here?" So I'll invite some of my friends, Chris Rush and others who have a terrific sense of music to play together. We’ve done that a few times with different people. It comes from having accomplished what I set out to do, so we’re deciding where we go next.
Do you perform any of your recorded pieces live or is it basically improvs?
It’s a combination of improvs and ideas from the recorded pieces. We always perform about 20 minutes of the last piece on "Tycho Magnetic" ["Armonia Aphanes Phaneros Kreisson."] There’s always some ambient piece, some free form jazzy stuff and there’s always some psychedelic guitar rock all thrown together. A lot of it’s improv, but a lot if it is general "feel." We’ll just get together before we go on and just say, "Let’s start with this mode, move into this and end with this until we’ve filled up a 40 minute set."
Why have you chosen to do all your recordings by yourself, rather than using Jason and Quentin?
The whole idea at the beginning was to just record my vision and my sound. I’ve been in bands before where everyone has their input, but I wanted this to be just me, not diluted with other people’s ideas. I just wanted this to be my output, my success or my failure.
To flip the coin then, why the need to augment yourself on stage?
I’ve seen a million bands in my life and the last thing you want to be is just another band in another bar on another night. We just want to be really good and really entertaining and we want it to be a powerful band on stage, not just one person. I want to go out there and entertain people and have them say, "Wow. That was great!" I think you need a whole band to do that. It’s just a different setting. You can get into the ambience and the artistic side of music as art on stage and in a bar and that’s great. But I think when people are out at a club they want to see a rock show.
Moving along to your label. You’ve released material by Tranquil [Paul Chavez], Omit, K-Group [Paul Toohey from Surface of the Earth], A.M.P. [Richard of AMPs solo project] and Michael Schumacher [Fidicin Drones] and Ian Nagoski [Warm Coursing Blood.] And you also released your drummer, Quentin Stoltzfus' side project, Mazarin?
Yes, Mazarin will be the first release on Victoria Records, which will be a subsidiary of Colorful Clouds, but it will be its own label because it will be exclusively a pop/rock label and Colorful Clouds for Acoustics will remain an experimental label. Quentin was in the studio recording this record about 4 or 5 months ago and I heard it and I couldn’t believe it. I was totally blown away. He wrote great songs and he sang and played everything himself. Everyone I made copies for and sent it to were also blown away by it. Rocket Girl released it in Europe. I’m pretty excited by it. I think people are really gonna be blown away by it and be pretty surprised when they hear it!
How do you usually decide what artists you want to put out on your label? Is it usually people you’ve already heard or do people come to you and tell you they’ve got something and ask if you want to put it out?
A little of both. It’s a very slow process. It’s difficult to really get a hold of the stuff you really want to put out. One thing I don’t want to do is put out something by somebody who’s got like 20 or 30 releases out already. I want to do things that people haven’t heard. Michael Schumacher has two other records out, but he’s not that well known and Ian Nagoski hasn’t put anything out before. But stuff that I really like, stuff that I come across that people have already done or are shopping around or I’ve heard about them from other places, I’ll get in touch with them. I’ll feel it out and try not to be too pushy.
At some point do you plan on releasing any more 7"s?
You mean on my label? Yeah, definitely. It’s just a matter of finding somebody to do the split with, the track they want to use and having the money to do it. Because 7" always lose money. You’re bound to lose money on it. The label’s tough - it’s been a struggle since the beginning. My hope is to keep it going indefinitely, but it’s difficult.
Is economics one of the reasons you’re so open to contributing tracks to other labels? Other people come to you and offer you money to give them a track and then you can funnel the money back into the label?
Actually, I haven’t been paid any money. Most of the stuff I’ve done – 7" – have been with companies that don’t have any money. I usually just get 5% of the pressing – they’ll send me, maybe 50 copies of the record. I honestly have never been paid for anything!
In the beginning, I gave my songs to anyone who asked for them. At this point, I’m actually more picky about what I’m doing. I’m thinking that, since I’m not seeing any money, I should just put it out myself rather than giving it away for free.
How do you decide that a particular track is going to go to XYZ company as opposed to appearing on the next Azusa Plane CD or on one of your own 45s?
In terms of the track, it’s not really that big a deal. I do it as I go along. I just say, "OK. I’ve promised this label a track, let’s sit down and do it this weekend."
I’d like to go back to the first CD release, "Tycho Magnetic Anomolies" on Camera Obscura. Did you and Tony [Dale, owner of C.O.] meet at the first Terrastock festival [in Providence, Rhode Island in April, 1997] or had you communicated before that?
We had communicated by e-mail to set this project up. We did meet at Terrastock before the CD came out, but this project had been set up before that. It was all done with e-mail.
Were you familiar with his stuff beforehand?
No, because nothing had come out. Just the first release [Stone Breath’s A Silver Thread To Weave the Seasons] and mine which came out about the same time. I worked with Tony because he’s such a great guy and had great ideas.
Well, this is one of my favorite pieces of yours. It could be, as you have said yourself, "an ambient guitar piece," but I don’t hear it in the terms that Eno used to describe "ambient" music. Especially with the quotes you use in the liner notes – all quotes from Joachim-Ernst Berendt’s book, The Third Ear, about how the listener hears or perceives the music. It seems to me that it could generically be called "ambient," but not in the sense of elevator music. Was it your intention to have something that somebody could just put on in the background and forget about it?
It’s definitely not just something to throw on in the background. When I went in to that record, it was completely written in advance – all the chord progressions and different tones. So if you put it on and you really pay attention, it’s very much a "mind" record. It moves through your head. The changes all move together. I remember when Tony first listened to it he said to me, halfway through he had to turn it off and have a cup of coffee because his head was just spinning! That was the goal of that record: to just get into your head and just float through. And if you do pay attention to it, you can hear the things interweave and connect and move around.
I’d like to touch a little more upon The Spires of Oxford. You put out the one CD and a split single with Daffyd’s groups Our Glassie Azoth and Alphane Moon on his Oggum Records out of Wales. You said that Spires of Oxford will continue to record and will release another product in the future?
Yes, it’ll be in the vein of that, as in the straight up acoustic guitar. There’s a track with the Badaboom Gramophone magazine #4 that’s really good. That’s my personal favorite of what I’ve been doing recently – just acoustic guitar tracks in a Derek Bailey kind of vein.
Oh, that’s great! You’ve already contributed a track to "Badaboom" Vol. #3 that was a collaboration with Simon Joyner. What was that collaboration like?
It was great. Simon’s a great guy. He actually sent me a tape of his song with just acoustic guitar and his vocals and I just basically played over that. Just put a little hiss behind it all. I didn’t do much to it, it was a great song to begin with.
I hear a lot of influences of other artists in your work, such as Bruce Russell with Dead C, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and Vini Reilly and his Durrutti Column releases, especially in some of your singles, such as "An Acoustical Triumph" and "Beyond Infinite." Oh, and Dave Pearce, I’m sure was a big influence?
Oh, most definitely. I can remember being in college when I first heard Flying Saucer Attack when the first record came out. Just playing it for my friends and everyone was going "WHAT IS THIS???" It was pretty radical at the time. You don’t realize: Flying Saucer Attack basically started a whole revolution of just ambient guitar, almost "Casey Jones" stuff. Even though it’s been done before, in terms of the underground, he really brought it all back.
Moving on, there’s a live track on Result Dies with the Worker that actually has some vocals on it. Is that you?
Yeah. It’s myself, Jason Knight, Ian [Nagoski] all singing together. That’s actually a cover of a Bongwater song!
Also, that particular piece reminded me a bit of the Swans, Michael Gira’s old band, especially in the way it just builds and builds to a crescendo. Were you a fan?
Oh, yes. Thanks a lot. Swans were just amazing. An incredible band! Really amazing stuff!
There’s a piece on this "Comparative Receptions" single, the Moog piece: "32 Keys of Polar and Bipolar Oscillations" that reminds me of Silver Apples and Beaver & Krauss!?
Yeah, right. That’s an electronic track. I don’t think there were even any guitars on that track, which is a stretch for The Azusa Plane.
What are your future plans?
Well, right now the live Azusa Plane is on hold and there are no full length releases planned on the Colorful Clouds for Acoustics label. I’m still trying to track down the next record and I have the Victoria label with Quentin’s first record. That’s what I’m focusing on right now.
Jason can be contacted via email at cloudytalk@aol.com. His web site is http://colorful-clouds.hypermart.net/.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING: Tycho Magnetic Anomaly and the Full Consciousness of Hidden Harmony (1997), Camera Obscura; America Is Dreaming of Universal String Theory (1998), Colorful Clouds for Acoustics; Result Dies With The Worker (1998), Little Army/Colorful Clouds for Acoustics; [as The Spires of Oxford] The Spires of Oxford (1998), Colorful Clouds for Acoustics.