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It may be tempting to describe Tiergarten, the first collaborative album by Katharina Grosse and Stefan Schneider, as a collaboration of an internationally renowned visual artist and an equally internationally renowned musician. Grosse's distinctive approach to non-representational painting has been the subject of exhibitions worldwide. Schneider's musical activities involve being a founding member of Dusseldorf outfit Kreidler and a longtime commitment as a member of Berlin-based trio To Rococo Rot. "Collaboration" seems inept in describing Tiergarten; It's a sort of almost telepathic understanding that has grown out of a long friendship. Tiergarten is an instrumental album of two performers on analog synthesizers interacting, communicating, contemplating, and complementing each other through their instruments and intuitions. They met in the late 1980s, both studying fine arts at Dusseldorf Academy. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, on their different trajectories, they stayed in touch. After a number of performances between 2008-2015, the two decided to record an album together. Over the course of two years, with a self-imposed limit of two players and a sparse set-up of just a few synthesizers, the two made recordings. They prepared for these recordings, but separately, and then, intuitively and listening to one another playing live, formed clusters of sound, an intensive conversation, as Grosse puts it, "without fixations". However, what these tracks evoke are not concrete, static images, but surprising, lively scenes. Analog synthesizers - at least the way Grosse and Schneider make use of them in a sense of personal as well as aesthetic trust - are in themselves reminiscent of living organs in the sense that they can be more than simply tools giving a linear output to straightforward input, instead drifting into unknown territory. There is no target they aim for, other than the formal parameters of an album. The nine tracks form a cycle in which certain motifs or soundscapes reoccur and subtly mutate - like sirens, dark rivers, gravel, a rippling water surface, cells multiplying, ice melting. With Tiergarten, Grosse and Schneider bring their very own, fresh approach to a short but significant tradition of pulsating analog synthesia dedicated to Berlin and its historic and aesthetic landscape. The album cover features one of Grosse's spray-painted works. The inner sleeve features photographs by Schneider. Includes a download code.
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