Tristan Honsinger talks existence, total art, improvisation, and Cecil Taylor

Tristan Honsinger is a leading light of improvised music. He has lived in Berlin, Italy, and Amsterdam, among other places. Speaking from upstate New York, Honsinger ruminates on art and others who have inspired him, from Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle to fluxus artists to a fish. He also talks about his current and past music projects, including work with Cecil Taylor, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink, the Instant Composers Pool, and Blue Notes members Louis Moholo, Dudu Pukwana, and Johnny Dyani. Adam Reese interviewed Tristan Honsinger from Los Angeles on August 15th, 2022, and this discussion first aired on KXLU 88.9 FM Los Angeles on September 27th. To hear this interview in podcast form, check out The Pointed Nose (https://the-pointed-nose.simplecast.com/) Ofiɔ̃ Media's logo was designed by the artist Ratty GH, who works on a freelance basis and can be contacted at [email protected] 00:00 Intro 01:20 Tristan's influences and inspirations in making total art 02:40 Theater within music 04:26 Tristan's current project 06:58 The importance of humility 09:09 Street performing roots 12:04 Buster Keaton's artistry 14:23 Influence from Japanese theater 15:40 Inspired by a FISH 17:24 Is time a tomato? 19:50 Poverty, life and death 20:57 The artist as a conduit 23:02 Playing Monk's music 24:40 Multilingual Tristan 26:46 Performance style and the oneness of the human family 27:59 The role of conversation in Tristan's work 32:28 Different performance idioms 34:01 Connections to places (Japan, Canada, Berlin, Italy, Amsterdam) 36:42 Cecil Taylor 38:14 Toshinori Kondo 41:22 Louis Moholo, Johnny Dyani, and Dudu Pukwana 47:03 The ICP 50:07 Han Bennink and Michael Moore 51:49 Joël Grip 52:35 House of Wasps 53:38 Tristan Honsinger's Hopscotch