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viewing 1 To 12 of 12 items
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GROB 657CD
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"'Arbeit' [in German, 'work'], the Frankfurt group of Marcel Daemgen, Oliver Augst and Christoph Korn (active in Blank last year, see GROB 538 and GROB 653) asked themselves this question in the scope of a project made possible by German Radio. What has remained unredeemed of the questioning of the revolutionary workers? Movement and its aesthetic intervention? What has not worn down in the course of time via the demoralizing strategy and party development discussions? What stands for a utopian-critical content, which points beyond historical material, that lifts [aufhebt] it in all three meanings of the word [annul, lift and compensate]? Daemgen, Augst, Korn and their guests do not deal with the material squeamishly, but rather bet on the necessary radicalism. Their music is brutish, noisy, nerve-racking and shrill, or the exact opposite of this: nearly inaudibly quiet. 'The International' sounds like a pop hymn, 'Off, off to fight' shudders with fear via an apocalyptic foundational tone, Franz Fanon is cited and Tony Cliff, a communist dissident. It is a matter of the construction, albeit in vain, of a better Germany, of the German Democratic Republic and of the (hidden) self doubt in all the pathos of construction. The band uses its musical means freely and sovereignly. They know the improvisations, the hard rock, the new music and the Frankfurt techno of the larger discos. But never does this freedom fall into any old way. Marx is hard, but still joyful work (sic!) on the material."
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GROB 653CD
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"Improvisation not a fetish, but rather as material, as an object of process, as a means to save past gestures, those hardly left in memory -- this is the musical procedure of the Frankfurt trio Blank. Blank consists of Oliver Augst (voice, no-input mixing board, harmonica, etc.), Christoph Korn (guitar, live electronics, melodica, and voice from time to time) and Rüdiger Carl (claviola, a small keyboard with rhythm functions, a little accordion, no clarinet this time around, but with voice, a world premier!). The Frankfurt-based group has been working together for seven years. Post is an exemplary expression of working antithesis. The music seems static and diverting at the same time; there are virtually no references and concessions on the zeitgeist, and yet Post is saturated with historical gestures -- punk, techno, the proletariat song tradition, trace elements of blues and new wave."
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GROB 656CD
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"In the last four or five years there has been a clear set trend towards stillness in improvised music. The classical parameters -- the forming of energy states, the spontaneous, dense communication -- are not relevant to this music, but rather the empty spaces, the disparate, non-dynamic, the recessed. Stillness. So these are the best prerequisites not to reproduce the 'cliché of stillness,' but rather to initiate a restful as well as very open and highly flexible improvising process. Stillness is not assumed here, is not a result and an purpose worth aspiring for, but rather it is a means to form. The strong rustling improvisation does not deplete itself, but rather brings forth new constellation of their playing together (also next to each other). It is slow, peaceful, very relaxed flowing music. But whoever listens closely will hear the tension and the exertion, the wrestling to create expression."
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GROB 649CD
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Günter Müller: selected percussion, MD's, iPOD, electronics. Norbert Möslang: cracked everyday-electronics. Recorded 21.10.2001 at the Loft, Köln. "Boom Box is one of the first recordings of Norbert Möslang after the break up of Voice Crack, his legendary Duo with Andi Gühl which lasted a good 30 years. On Boom-Box, Möslang also plays his cracked everyday-electronics, but their tonal surroundings is a different one. It is a wide, ethereal tonal ambience, the structures are lucid, the music is transparent. Again and again there are foregrounds and backgrounds, individual tonal configurations stand out clearly and distinctly, specific sounds are repeated, thus creating a scaffold through which other sounds are elegantly woven."
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GROB 543CD
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"In Vienna, Berlin and Tokyo musicians are working on stillness, reduction, non-expressivity and micro-differentiation. In Cologne, London, New York, Chicago, Paris, Warsaw, this music is performed and written about. But up to now the most exciting of this scene has been happening outside these large cities. For example, in Boston. That this city possesses a young and rather large improv scene including labels and venues is well known. There are even a few 'superstars' like the saxophonist Bhob Rainey and the trumpeter Greg Kelley, two musicians who have easily liberated themselves from established improvisation patterns. What has been missing till now is a recording that clearly exemplifies the Sound of Boston. Such a thing can hardly be forced, it always seems to happen casually, e.g. when one listens to a concert recording again and again and then suddenly discovers how definitive it is. Such a stroke of luck has arrived with The BSC -- Good. The BSC is a chamber orchestra from Boston led by Bhob Rainey. Joining him are Greg Kelley (of course), James Coleman (theremin), Howard Stelzer (tapes), Liz Tonne (voice), Vic Rawlings (cello, electronics), Mike Bullock (bass), and Chris Cooper (prepared guitar), with guests Axel Dörner (trumpet) and Andrea Neumann (inside piano). Good is a 37-minute, improvisation process recorded live, which creatively draws on the resources from the reduced parameters of this new improvised music. Despite all the stillness, the music is also surprisingly dense and tightly woven together. The music captivates via a noisiness radical maintained throughout the whole piece, and in spite of this (or because of it?), it is lyrical and surreal. The melody of metallic shimmering tonal colors can be heard from the very beginning."
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GROB 542CD
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"This CD is a sensation. We are not exaggerating and do not want to make any false pretenses. But one has to listen to it in order to understand what's really happening here. In November 2001 Carl and Johansson met in Johansson's Berlin studio, grabbed the bassist Joe Williamson and played a homage to New York. They interpreted a total of 13 standards, true to the original and full of respect. Recorded in two takes. For the first time we hear Carl play only piano on record, and Johansson sing only standards. And always when Sven hits his snare (and only his snare) with the brushes, there is in the middle of autumn an anticipation of the next spring. The cover art work is from Sven-Åke Johansson, David Grubbs wrote the liner notes: a reflection upon forbidden songs in the New York Autumn of 2001."
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GROB 538CD
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"The Frankfurt Trio Blank encounters classic improvisation with the sure-footed and subversive gesture of contemporary anarchism. They work on small forms; out of songs, elements of pop music, noise and theatrics (in the true sense of the word) they cut out strange miniatures of free improvisation. Their music is direct, dynamic, expressive, without thereby perpetuating once again the dead history that is inherent in the adapted cliches. They not only get the form into their music, but they re-liquefy it; they do not understand the citation as citation, but as material. In the fall of 2001, they met the American art star Raymond Pettibon in Cologne's Philharmonic concert hall. They worked with the otherwise so introverted artist on a group performance. And of course, everything ended up in a wild improvisation in which Pettibon played the animator and inspirer. This CD is really a full quartet recording! Pettibon did the cover work, and in addition, his notes and text fragments are printed."
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GROB 536CD
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"It has become quite commonplace that, since the solo albums from Peter Kowald, Barry Guy or William Parker, not only has the contrabass been emancipated, but also accepted as an equal instrument in improvisation, and recognized as a solo instrument. Nonetheless, solo bass recordings are considered unwieldy -- one is simply too accustomed to perceiving the bass as an accompanying instrument, responsible for the solid foundation of the groove. Living in Berlin, the young Canadian Joe Williamson is at the moment THE bassist of the European Improv and Free Jazz scene. He plays with Sven-Åke Johansson in Hudson Riv, and in the Candy-Trio. Joe Williamson is also an excellent soloist. The Ungrateful Carjacker is his solo debut. His entirely playful rich dark drones suddenly manifest themselves, as does a hidden groove, or a deep pulse that holds everything together. In the decisive moment, there are also suggestions of tradition."
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GROB 431CD
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"The music is that of a guitar quartet (more exact: three guitars and an electric bass). The names of the musicians, Martin Siewert, Burkhard Stangl, Taku Sugimoto and Werner Dafeldecker, speak for themselves. In the last five years they have fundamentally influenced the (post) improv scene. The way they deal with silence, the emphatic avowal to precision -- precision in the articulation of sounds as in the processing of music in the studio -- the intimate knowledge of new music, the farewell to the 'wild,' 'ecstatic' improv attitudes, without letting the music sound aseptic and unfeeling: these characteristics are what the participants have achieved. Their meeting, which was two years ago (they took their time with the post-production), is a stroke of luck. But even more: they present here their meeting not in a documentary way, but rather as if they had played together for years. If that were true, they would represent a group that has existed forever, but only comes together to play after long periods of time. And then they concentrate so much on their common sound, that every (of course, improvised) sounded as if it were played for eternity."
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GROB 318CD
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"In the last few years, the Swiss duo Andi Guhl and Norbert Möslang, a.k.a. Voice Crack, a.k.a. 'The Godfathers of Glitch' (Phil Durrant) have searched out cooperation with other artists: there have been recordings with Günter Müller, Jim O'Rourke, Eric M and Otomo Yoshihide. The cooperation with Lionel Marchetti and Jérome Noetinger is doubly different on Double_Wash. On the one hand, both Frenchmen work, musically, in a similar field; to a large degree, they also use found objects in their electro-acoustic improvisations. On the other hand, the recordings made in the Winter of 1998 are not a pure documentation -- they were re-mixed in the Summer by Marchetti above all, but also by Möslang. What's being released is a CD that is committed to improvisation as well as to electro-acoustic music. This can naturally be traced back to the participation of the French. Marchetti and Noetinger see themselves in the tradition of the now classic musique concréte, and as owner of the label and distribution Metamkine, Noetinger has released, for example, compositions from Jim O'Rourke or Luc Ferrari, and Marchetti has cooperated, as a composer, with Ralf Wehowsky, among others. Both see musique concréte, however, not as sacred territory to be preserved at all costs -- they have developed an open, punk-like attitude to this sound aesthetic; they infiltrate the music with improvisation and a D.I.Y. attitude. Little need be said about Voice Crack and their cracked everyday electronics. For over 25 years, they have been developing, beginning in Free Jazz, then becoming a harsh noise group par excellence in the 80's and extending our listening habits with breath taking sound layers: just as brute as subtle and always resourceful. Double_Wash brings this dialectic of formal variety and monochromatism, of willingness to exchange and of unmistakable handwriting to its conclusion."
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GROB 315CD
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"Over two years after Steamboat Switzerland hit the (post-) improv and (post-) noise scene with their Live CD, only now do the long awaited follow up CDs appear. If the debut CD presented a patchwork of improvisation, own and foreign compositions and rock pieces, Budapest and ac/dB [Hayden] are compact, integral and equally imploring monolithic works. And yet the two CDs couldn't be more different. Budapest is the result of a purely improvised concert they gave in Danube metropolis in the Fall of 1999. The noise and prog rock roots have been compressed so much that there are no more clichés nor more citations, only tension that bursts asunder. The CD was mixed and co-produced by Stephan Wittwer, who contributed the intro, a little gem about the state of being chopped up. The grunge track that the band played following their improvisation, as an encore, is also a composition from Wittwer. The liner notes to this CD were written by Dietmar Dath."
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GROB 101CD
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"Olaf Rupp and Götz Rogge, both from Berlin, play live electronic music. They have hidden beats meet droning melodies, while destroyed guitar chords meet acoustic entropy and wild activism. Everything is constructed within and on top of everything else. Overlapping is not considered by them to be provocation however, but the last means of perceiving the world. Beastieshopbeach improvise. Their technical means are modest -- a beaten wooden board in place of a drum machine- but their imagination has no limits. Götz Rogge works as a filmmaker, while Olaf Rupp is an established guitarist and electronic musician (solo guitar, plus collaborations with Wolfgang Fuchs, Harri Sjöström, Paul Lovens, Thomas Lehn, Butch Morris)."
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