NRR225: BOB BELLERUE "No Hands" C70

Oct 2011 - i was employed at The Kitchen, and asked Sam the audio engineer who was working with me that day to stay late and record my rehearsal on an attempt at a new piece for piano feedback that i was developing.

I had been using piano soundboards for feedback performances since 2005, but those were ripped from the body of an upright, and dragged around in my van to noise shows around the western US (earning the name Fckin Piano by the end of the tour). I left it behind in LA when i moved to NY, and now i was employed by a venue with a Steinway baby grand piano (formerly owned by John Cage?). Thence became Damned Piano.

The session at the Kitchen resulted in a different realm of sounds than i had previously found within the piano feedback system, something closer to the sounds of machines on a hot bdsm date than the waves of resonant drone that i had played so many times before. Every piano has slightly different action with the feedback, but this felt more like bringing a beast to life. Sound blasted from speakers around the piano and the PA, and the first so-many minutes were capture only by the shotgun mic in the sound booth, bringing a tape-like quality to the intro which we had to really lean into for the mix

Side B was recorded Sept 2025 during rehearsals on another Steinway baby grand at the NYU SoundLab. This was more of an intimate setup, but full of rehabilitation methods to bring out the gnarly harmonics after many years away from the project, and create a soundtrack for my own reinvention.

Bob Bellerue - piano and electronics

Side A recorded at The Kitchen 10/16/2011 by Sam Crawford
Side B recorded at the NYU Soundlab 9/26/2025

Mastered by Vitoria Regia Studios and Bob Bellerue