zeitkratzer director REINHOLD FRIEDL and his ensemble present new compositions, grounded on DOMENICO SCARLATTI’s piano sonata F-minor K.466. Commissioned by the dance company RUBATO and dedicated to Mario Bertoncini (1932-2019).
Little is known about Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). His music is, so to speak, left to its own devices: free, cheeky, playful, sonorous, surprising. Harmonically strolling again and again into unforeseen regions, the ear leads, not the theory; and also the fingers get their right: playful and haptic it goes. Scarlatti explained, „since nature has given me ten fingers and my instrument provides employment for all, I see no reason why I should not use all ten of them.“(1) Freedom, friction and listening pleasure instead of convention: „He knew quite well that he had disregarded all the rules of composition in his piano pieces, but asked whether his deviation from the rules offended the ear? He believes there is almost no other rule than that of not offending the only sense whose object is music – the ear.“(2) Reinhold Friedl applied this principle and composed the music for a choreography by dance company Rubato. Dance music drawn from Scarlatti, who was so inspired by dance music. The material of the piano sonata F-minor K.466 is twisted anew in all its richness, shifted back and forth, declined, frozen, noisified, sound structures extracted, floating. Those who know the sonata, will more than smell it’s shadows. Dedicated to Mario Bertoncini (Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza) who was particularly fond of K.466, on which all the music presented here is grounded. „Wild flowers“(3), Barbara Zubers had once called Scarlatti’s music. Let them bloom.
(1) Charles Burney, Tagebuch seiner musikalischen Reisen. Zweyter Band. Hamburg, 1773. Bey Bode., p 183f. (2) Charles Burney, Tagebuch seiner musikalischen Reisen. Zweyter Band. Hamburg, 1773. Bey Bode., p 183f. (3) Barbara Zubers, in: Musik-Konzepte, Heft 47, München, 1986, p 3–39.
Frank Gratkowski: clarinets, flutes Hild Sofie Tafjord: french horn Reinhold Friedl: piano Maurice de Martin: percussion Burkhard Schlothauer: violin, viola Ulrich Phillipp: doublebass Martin Heinze: doublebass
credits: all music composed by Reinhold Friedl drawn from Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata f-minor K.466 commissioned by Tanzcompagnie Rubato recorded Oct 13, 2021 by Klaus Dobbrick at Uferstudios Berlin mixed 2022 by Nik Hummer at minusgroundzero Vienna mastering & lacquer cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M Berlin layout: kaidoh
The 75 DOLLAR BILL – Power Failures preorder started on today’s bandcamp friday, shipping next week & there’s a summer sale throughout august as well & some small restock of Karkhana, Konstrukt & Otomo Yoshihide and the Konstrukt / Thurston Moore vinyl:
First ever, remastered vinyl version! The core duo plus guest collaborators expand its sonic palette of RICK BROWN’s elemental percussive patterns and CHE CHEN’s ecstatic modal guitar style to a new musical richness.
With some tape releases and their first album „Wooden Bag“, 75 DOLLAR BILL quickly introduced themselves as one of the hottest, most unique and essential groups at the heart of NYC’s underground – the following “Wood/Metal/Plastic Pattern/Rhythm/Rock” (2016) made the duo known internationally, and the 2019 double vinyl “I Was Real” turned out a major success at the critics and audience alike with the #1 spot in The Wire’s albums of the year list! Then came the pandemic, and in lack of opportunities to actually perform in public, the core duo of RICK BROWN and CHE CHEN released several bandcamp only albums in digital format, one of these being „Power Failures“. BROWN’s elemental percussive patterns (often simply played on a wooden box) and CHE CHEN’s ecstatic modal guitar style (often under the influence of his studies with Mauritanian guitarist JEICH OULD CHIGALY) are at the core of the tracks with guest collaborators like YO LA TENGO’s IRA KAPLAN (guitar), SUE GARNER (violin) or STEVE MAING (saxophone, guitar) expanding the sonic palette to a new musical richness. Trance-inducing psychedelia, “placeless, gripping grooves” (The Guardian), collaged rehearsal and field recordings, mantric percussion, microtonal guitar sounds – 75 DOLLAR BILL sound as deeply rooted in traditions as they sound fresh-of-today, a kind of future music from the past. Hard to grasp by words, and impossible to resist!
„Hypnotic and excessive!“ Musikexpress
tracklist: A1 Power Failure #2 12:14 A2 Snow Jumper’s Harp 8:57 B1 15 (IRA) 11:25 B2 15 (YASI) 5:39 C1 Another Jumper’s Harp 10:08 C2 ∞WZN / Montreiul / Gcona / In The … 9:44 D … Noguchi Garden in Long Island City 19:42
credits: Rick Brown: plywood crate, maracas, cowbell, funnel horns, computer Che Chen: guitars, cowbells, temple block, tamborim, maraca, conga, flute, bass recorder, soprano saxophone, casio sk-1, digital delay, radio, microcassette, samples Sue Garner: violin and shaker on Power Failure #2 Ira Kaplan: guitar on 15 (IRA) Steve Maing: alto saxophone, guitar on Power Failure #2 Yasi Perera: Buchla/presence on 15 (YASI) Barry Weisblat: snare drum on Gcona Recorded and mixed by Rick Brown and Che Chen Editing and cover design by Che Chen Mastered by Steve Silverstein Remastered for vinyl and lacquer cut by Anne Taegert at D&M, Berlin
the third and closing chapter of the „raum“ trilogy by an moku and stefan schmidt – „raum im raum“ serves finely crafted ambient / soundscapes, and is the most intense and darkest album of the series.
as written in the previous infosheets, the „raum“-trilogy (named after and inspired by a sentence from david foster wallace’s unconventional bestseller novel “infinite jest”) is a child of the recent pandemic: when public life more or less came to a hold, dominik grenzler aka an moku, a sound artist and bass player based in zurich, contacted stefan schmidt (guitarist, composer and improviser from baden-baden) with the idea of collaborating. It turned out a fruitful idea and within just a couple of weeks they not only managed to craft “raum” but indeed had so many ideas that it was impossible to put them all in just one album, a trilogy was the logical consequence. this series now sees its 3rd and final part with „raum im raum“, maybe the most intense and darkest chapter of the trilogy that deals with the abstraction of a possible space within a possible space. grenzler and schmidt continue their adventurous sonic trip into abstract voids, crafted by finely processed sounds of different origins like synthesizer or fretless guitar, field recordings and a vast array of electronic equipment – like they did before, but without simpy re-cooking the approved recipe, instead adding new spices like a kalimba or saz (schmidt being a vituoso on many stringed instruments). the atmosphere is dark and alien, with references to hauntology and musique concrète, and yet organic, and rich of details.
„..soon, i loose the ability to distinguish between the two kinds of darkness. i can no longer tell if my eyes are open or closed. but as my eyes became used to the darkness, though, i began to pick out slight differences…“ – h. murakami
the musicians:: dominik grenzler (born 1977) is a sound artist and bass guitar player with a spot for experimental and ambient soundscapes. In 2008, after years of playing e-bass in several bands or being hired for concert tours, he began with the initial recording sessions for an moku. the literal translation of the japanese word “anmoku” is “tacit, unsaid, implicit” conveying that an idea or thought cannot be put into words but is subconsciously understood. inspired and animated, with this approach, dominik’s abstract, cinematic music gives the listener room for imagination and interpretation. his approach to ambient is highly personal, as he manages to generate tension with a hidden musicality, drowned in a miasma of organic, yet manipulated sounds. dominik’s primary interests lie in simplicity, repetition and the relationship between sound and art. privately, dominik grenzler lives and works in his adopted hometown of zurich where he co-owns a café with an artisan cake bakery section. www.anmoku.net
stefan schmidt (born 1974) is a guitarist, composer, improviser and teacher. he gathered his first musical experiences as a member of various punk bands and later studied classical guitar at the hochschule für musik trossingen with professor andreas higi and at the conservatorio juan josé castro in buenos aires with victor villadangos. while early projects (e.g. farang) and several collaborations put focus on distorted sounds and rhythms, recent works center on slowly evolving structures, sound design and free improvisation, giving more emphasis on his main instrument, the classical guitar, and the exploration of other stringed instruments such as tenor ukulele, fretless bass ukulele, fretless classical guitar, electric guitar, [d]ronin & ronin, stringed psalter, cello and baroque lute. www.musicforoverexposedcelluloid.com
credits:: all tracks composed and produced by an moku and stefan schmidt mastered by weldroid www.weldroid.net cover artwork by stefan schmidt modular, microphonic soundbox, bass guitar, obsolete recordings by an moku synths, saz, fretless guitar, kalimba, field recordings by stefan schmidt
„The event horizon gives the black hole its size; behind it hides the singularity. And the more extended it is, the more massive the black hole is. But the event horizon is also invisible; if matter or light passes through it, there is no turning back.“ (Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie)
EREIGNISHORIZONT is SCHNEIDER TM’s new and with a duration of over 80 minutes truly epic album: experimental guitar, technological innovations and excursions into musical territories beyond the usual.
Schneider TM is a multidimensional music project of Dirk Dresselhaus which oscillates extensively between adventurous electronic pop-music and experimental, sometimes improvised freeform music, while occasionally bringing these and other opposing elements together. Performed on (partly self-developed) electroacoustic guitars + effects through a stereo set of tube amps with sensibilities for the world of modular synthesis and a range of seemingly contrarian musical directions, the 8 tracks present transcendental micro- and macrotonal soundscapes and polyrhythms, a musical cosmology that appears to be located in a sort of idiosyncratic alternate or parallel universe where parameters are slightly shifted, which doesn’t necessarily mean something like ‘otherworldliness’ but certainly offer a view onto ‘reality‘ from a bunch of different angles. Since the mid-Nineties, he has been exploring unknown musical territory on practically each new release, solo or in diverse short- and long-term collaborations and projects with the likes of ex-Pan Sonic member Ilpo Väisänen (as die ANGEL), Zappi W Diermaier (Faust), Reinhold Friedl (zeitkratzer), Oren Ambarchi, Hildur Guðnadóttir, BJ Nilsen, Lucio Capece, Elena Poulou (ex-The Fall), Damo Suzuki (ex-Can), John Duncan (LAFMS), Einstürzende Neubauten’s Jochen Arbeit & Andrew Unruh, Günter Schickert as well as to numerous works in the field of film music, radio plays, (performance-) theater, contemporary dance and general studio production. Over the last years, Dirk has been moving SCHNEIDER TM in the direction of instantly composed freeform music, employing varying equipment like processed guitar & sound objects as well as field recordings, as documented on albums like ‘Construction Sounds’, ‘Guitar Sounds’ or ‚‘Con-Struct’, a posthumous collaboration with Conrad Schnitzler, all released on Bureau B. EREIGNISHORIZONT, SCHNEIDER TM’s new and with a duration of over 80 minutes truly epic album, sounds and feels like a soundtrack for a yet-to-be-made sci-fi movie and exposes the essence of Dresselhaus‘ artistic approaches, crafted here with a more pared-down set-up, an awareness of advanced musical techniques, the physicality of sound, and an improvisational spirit that is based on the experience that things are strongest when they happen first. The main tools on EREIGNISHORIZONT are two customized electroacoustic guitars:
# The „FireSchneiderTM“ has sound chambers featuring removable bakelite lids and piezo mics, that can be used as percussion tools, vocal mics, or filled with interesting sounding materials like screws, etc.
# The next step in the long-term collaboration between Schneider TM and Deimel Guitarworks isthe „SPARK“: In addition to conventional magnetic and piezo pickups the guitar also has playable reverb springs, one of which is attached to the tremolo construction and can be tensioned. The different sound sources can be combined via a global selector switch and sent to an integrated electronic LesLee, which oscillates back and forth between the signals and is connected to CV In & Out sockets for integrating e.g. modular synthesizers via control voltage. The „SPARK“ can not only be played acoustically, electrically and electronically, but as an electro-acoustic sound object it also offers possibilities for playing techniques that are not typical for guitars.
The sci-fi feel of EREIGNISHORIZONT is complemented by the artwork by SEBASTIAN MAYER who, just a few weeks before Dresselhaus contacted him, got the opportunity to work as a betatester with some of the first available AI based image generators (for which Mayer himself prefers the name „neural network image generator“ because there’s no „intelligence“ – yet – in these networks). Dirk sent Sebastian some tracks of the new album with the note that he was thinking about this particular image when recording them. Mayer listened to his recordings and understood what inspired SCHNEIDER TM about these more-or-less artificial artworks: “there’s a crude weirdness to the image, it’s funny but at the same time a bit frightening, by topic and by style. It’s like an omen of what’s ahead of us in regards to AI – and not only about image generation but in a wider sense. AI will impact our society in ways we can not yet comprehend, and this image is a coarse yet deceptive harbinger for things that are yet to come – for better or worse.”
credits: All pieces instantly composed and performed with electric & electroacoustic guitars, effects & tube amps, recorded (2019-2022) & mixed (09/2022) by Dirk Dresselhaus at ZONE, Berlin Mastered 10/2022 by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin Published by Edition MirrorWorldMusic Digital artwork generated, composited, and processed 8-10/2022 by Sebastian Mayer Layout & design by kaidoh
11th album by the one-of-a-kind collective: psychedelia and free form jazz (not jazz) trigger a sophisticated excursion into weird textures with drastic turns. Dislocated dense music full of secret connections!
Kammerflimmer Kollektief – »Schemen« Before reason prevails, invoked by those who want everything to remain as it is, Kammerflimmer Kollektief disrupts the established supply chains of sound. It seeks more interesting ways to assemble them. Trusting in this, because of the fact that every sound that still comes out of a guitar, a bass, a harmonium, drums and electronic devices has already been taken into the common mangle of meaning anyway. Enough of all that. Here, nothing is explained. Here we speak in schemes. Polished and jerky. The images that Kammerflimmer Kollektief conjures up therefore happen not in the focus of consciousness, but rather in its outer realms. In those to which one does not give one’s full attention at the moment, but which are nevertheless perceived. For example, when a leaf falls from the ground back up to the tree in the corner of your eye, and for an instant you think this is possible, before you realize it was a small bird flying into the tree; it is in just such irritating moments between perception and realization that the art of the Kollektief also unfolds. On »Schemen«, familiar fragments float gently around their core – a Fender Rhodes tone, a bass figure, a guitar motif, a masterful drum shuffle, a moment of icy stasis borrowed from the harmonium playing of Christa ›Nico‹ Päffgen. Triggering brief associations, they slowly rush off in other directions through free jazz-informed editing work, whereupon such zones can also arise in which perception has a few tricks ready and earlier experience suddenly breaks into the now in a completely different way. Half suspected, half seen. Half-music like Can from Cologne – also masters of improvised editing – sometimes produced a few decades ago in their in-between moments. The first minutes of »Future Days« for example, which fade in gently, sketch a barely graspable figure emerging from all directions of the room. Kammerflimmer Kollektief also engages in similarly open moments of development. Loosely, it eludes the first formative impressions, keeping itself ready for moments that do not follow any logic of appointment. This looseness in handling makes Kammerflimmer Kollektief so fluidly audible, even when dissonant peaks and free playing arise. What Karlheinz Stockhausen is to Can’s understanding of composition, the recordings of The Cocoon are to Kammerflimmer Kollektief. The Cocoon, a meeting of garage psychedelics from the Hannover area with free jazzers from the Galaxie Dream Band, whose album »While The Recording Engineer Sleeps«, recorded in 1985 in unguarded moments, operates in a very similar way with decentralized perceptual ambivalences and only appeared more or less secretly four years later on Wilhelm Reich Schallspeicher. Other traces of »Schemen« lead to the debut album of Quicksilver Messenger Service. The guitars of Gary Duncan and John Cipollina, which refer to themselves in an unforced manner, are instructions to let go. They don’t want to be traced in every note as a solo, but they give their music a sense that the essential takes place off center, in the mutual and intuitive gift of loving attentions. Consciousness-free. Loving turns like the little guitar phrase that, like a kind of leitmotif, is repeatedly ghosting more or less unchanged through all of the Kammerflimmer Kollektief albums. A Coricidin induced, very catchy slide idea filtered out of ancient Æther, which – who knows – maybe even centuries ago found its way from somewhere to America – the old, the eerie – and from there wafted on through the ages to southern Germany, to a smoky studio in the Upper Rhine lowlands. A memory of which even the memory no longer knows what it once reminded. Unsaid, then forgotten. In Kammerflimmer Kollektief you will also find a friend of slowly building, unhurried music, which probably would have been appreciated by the old Franz Mesmer, who 200 years ago, after tranquilizing treatments, sometimes used to play for his patients ambient melodies on the enormous glass harmonica. However, in order not to surrender completely to the flow of one’s own life energy, as Mesmer had in mind with his therapies, Kammerflimmer Kollektief occasionally adds hectic tensions, gently embraced by the droning of a sine wave generator, as if a trance could briefly refesh. This old analog sine wave generator is new in the Kammerflimmer assortment of sounds. So, the art of the Kollektief likes to dock occasionally in modern times, yet with the past in mind. Mental states begin to flicker between imagination and certainty, between culture-bound art expression and coincidences: A cawing and scraping can always just be a cawing and scraping with Kammerflimmer Kollektief, the way Andy Warhol’s mushroom eater just eats a mushroom. Heike Aumüller’s cover works, which illustrate all the Kammerflimmer Kollektief albums, additionally act as amplifiers of unexplained refractions. Her style consists of eye-corner art that remains so, even when looked at directly. Her shots remain disquieting because they do not jolt themselves into a reassuring order, even in retrospect. Rather than evading the fear that arises when looking at them by trying to impose some irrational rhyme or reason, that fear must simply be endured. This strategy of endurance is equally applicable to the music. The trick is to let parts be parts without compulsively seeking delusional patterns that lull us into a false sense of security and in doing so, possibly delude ourselves. In this context, freedom means not having to anxiously attach a fantasized superior meaning to everything. »Schemen« has an conspiracy disintegrating effect. – Werner Ahrensfeld
Tracklist face A Erstes Kapitel [verschliffen] 8:17 Zweites Kapitel [ruckartig] 8:09 face B Drittes Kapitel [ungesagt, dann vergessen] 3:25 Viertes Kapitel [bewusstseinsfrei] 4:48 Fünftes Kapitel [kreuzweis] 0:28 Sechstes Kapitel [herausgewunden] 5:07 Siebentes Kapitel [verflochten] 4:08 Letztes Kapitel [halb vermutet, halb gesehen] 1:47
Gruppo Heike Aumüller: harmonium, synthesizer, sinusgenerator Christopher »Giga« Brunner: drums Johannes Frisch: double bass Thomas Weber: electric guitar, loops, feedbacks
Credits Production, arrangements & collage: Thomas Weber Studio: Kinda real cloudy, Karlsruhe, may 2018 – july 2022 Musick: Thomas Weber & Heike Aumüller, publisher: Future World Mastering: Anne Taegert, D&M Berlin Cover artwork: Heike Aumüller, deep in the woods Stills: Iris Drögekamp Graphic realization: kaidoh
Modular synthesizers / electronics + a drum kit enhanced with triggers and sensors: on its self-titled debut album, the duo hÄK / Danzeisen creates a sonic energy that oscillates between high-precision rhythm patterns, analogue sounds and frenzy climaxes.
One must imagine hÄK / Danzeisen as a man-machine apparatus. A collection of cables, resonating bodies and restless limbs that together question all routines. Who overthrow conventional role of instruments and explore the possibilities of a new sound language. Bernd Norbert Würtz alias hÄK operates modular synthesizers, self-soldered circuits and control knobs. Philipp Danzeisen plays a drum kit enhanced with triggers and sensors. These two poles are connected to an interdependent whole in which a constant musical dialogue takes place. The dependencies within this system have been meticulously defined by hÄK / Danzeisen: Drum rolls and sound modulations are interconnected in such a way that there is no contradiction between the strict technological structure and the creative outburst that is possible at any time. What drives hÄK / Danzeisen is the basic idea that the contrast between acoustic drums and synthetically produced sounds must be overcome in order to create a new experience. Würtz, Danzeisen and their combined instrumentation simultaneously rub up against the same edges, finding a single, piercing voice. Ideal manifestations of this approach are the duo’s live performances: raw energy that oscillates as precisely as it surprises between drones, abstraction and noise attacks, driven by an impudent take on jazz. Constantly oscillating between the registers of „composed“ and „improvised“, each performance by hÄK / Danzeisen ultimately becomes one of a kind. (Arno Raffeiner)
hÄK alias B. Norbert Würtz Norbert is a Berlin based composer, producer and experimental electronic musician working primarily with DIY circuits, modular synths, and found sounds. The music he writes and performs could be placed stylistically somewhere between electroacoustic, noise music and cut up, musique concrète. Besides improvising and performing experimental electronics under the moniker hÄK he produces music for other artists, as well as composing and designing sound for films, visual media and installations. Norbert has enjoyed successful collaborations with a range of musicians and artists including Marc Teitler, Ayu Okakita, VOOV-Systems and Sayoko Paris (Dosage). He has scored numerous shorts, films and videos for directors such as Yves Geleyn, Alexander Herzog, Peter Dörfler and Luc Besson, and has been commissioned to create original works for institutions such as La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris and the Royal Opera House in London. In 2004 he co-founded the hÄnschenKlein Experimental Music-VideoProject with his longtime friend, the director Alex Herzog. Their works have been screened in numerous festivals such as Impakt Festival (NL) and European Media Art Festival Osnabrück (DE). After living for ten years in Paris where hÄK was a regular in the experimental scene, releasing music on underground labels (KommaNull (,0), Exhibitronic), he returned to Berlin in 2018 and soon after co-founded the duo hÄK/Danzeisen with Philipp Danzeisen on drums and himself on his “Molekular Synthesizer”.
Philipp Danzeisen Born in Essen / Germany, Philipp grew up in Frankfurt Main / Germany. Raised in a family of actors, he developed an interest in combining theatre, dance, and music early on. In 1994 he moved to New York to study drums at the New School University and received his BFA in 1998. 2006 he received a scholarship for the Sound Design program of the Theater and Dance department at UCSD where he studied for one year. Philipp is based primarily in Berlin. Performing credits include appearances in pieces by Einar Schleef, Jan Fabre, William Forsythe / Ballett Frankfurt, Meg Stuart, Rabih Mroué / Dance On, Tom Kühnel / Schaubühne Berlin, and Walter Fischbacher (New York). In addition, he has designed and performed several of his own sound projects; for example, a piece at the Artaud exhibition at the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. He has also worked as a sound designer and musician for fashion shows like Costume National in Milan. In 2005, Philipp toured his project „Ur Jazz Sonate“ in Europe and was invited for the Kurt Schwitters exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. In 2015 he peformed at the ZERO exibition at the Gropius Bau in Berlin. In Januar 2018 he was performing with the Duo SHARPA (Elektro-Postrock/Pop). Since 2019 he has been the drummer of the duo hÄK / Danzeisen.
credits: Philipp Danzeisen: drums, percussion B. Norbert Würtz alias hÄK: modular synth, electronics all music by hÄK/Danzeisen recorded by Ingo Krauss at Candy Bomber Studios, november 2021 edited by B. Norbert Würtz Kurve / Aufwärts mixed by Ingo Krauss Abwärts / Ungerade mixed by B.Norbert Würtz mastered & lacquer cut by Ruy Mariné at D&M, Berlin cover photo by Beat Halberschmidt artwork concept by Thomas Herbst layout by kaidoh
After several years of intense performance activity, the Italian sound artist and vocalist SARA PERSICO releases her debut EP “Boundary”, to be followed by a full album.
Born and raised in Naples, Berlin-based sound artist / vocalist SARA PERSICO cut her teeth experimenting on the fringes of Naples’ fiery underground experimental/noise scene, developing a technique that would integrate her voice with analogue electronics, field recordings, and samples. PERSICO holds a BA from the Conservatory of Napoli and a Master’s Degree from the Conservatory of Bologna and gained several residencies and scholarships like Temp Studio, Lisbon (2018), Amplify Berlin (2021), Sonoscopia, Porto (2022), Sardegna Teatro – V2 Unstable, Argentiera (2022). She presented her work in festival and events like Ballroom Blitz Beirut, CTM Festival, Ortigia Sound System Festival/Bosco Colto, Codex Club, Documenta Fifteen, Dancity Festival, Radical DB, Life Libertas Festival, among others. As improviser and performer, she has collaborated with a wide spectrum of artists, joining EVELYN SAYLOR’s vocal ensemble for CATERINA BARBIERI’s acclaimed “light-years” show at Rewire Festival and London’s Southbank Centre, and worked on projects alongside THE EX’s ANDY MOOR, TONY ELIEH (KARKHANA), LUDWIG WANDINGER, DIRAR KALASH, ELVIN BRANDHI, RECORDAT, and many others. She’s also a fearless DJ who’s able to straddle vastly different worlds, offering just as much attention to abstract electronic sounds as she does bass-heavy club music, noise, and vocal experiments. She is currently a resident on Bethlehem’s Radio Alhara. All this energy and experience radiates from her solo debut “Boundary”: PERSICO’s expressive vocals play a central role, but her command of precisely sculpted electronic textures and dynamic rhythmic structures is just as crucial to the overall experience. Deconstructed beats, experimental voice, harmonic music, distorted rhythms craft a dense introspective work that explores intimately the boundaries of the self. Identity rupture as a survival technique, a voice-research climax with an unconventional approach – multi-faceted ideas melt in a heavy-aesthetical 6 track solo EP that brings together different styles like noise and clubby sounds.
Tracklist:
Fugace
Boundary
Exit
Terra Mala
Under The Raw Light
Umbilical
Credits: All tracks written by Sara Persico Produced by Koenraad Ecker and Sara Persico Mixed by Koenraad Ecker Mastered by James Ginzburg Baritone saxophone on Exit by Sofia Salvo Artwork by Mothanna Hussein
Electronic music legend and head of Editions Mego, Peter Rehberg, teams up with zeitkratzer mastermind Reinhold Friedl. 3 side-long pieces melting electronic / contemporary avantgarde. Uncompromising.
When Peter »Pita« Rehberg and Reinhold Friedl first met each other, they did not like each other »at all,« as Friedl emphasises with a hearty laugh. The two would however eventually bond over the years thanks to a mutual respect for each other’s music. In the summer of 2021, they entered the studio together for the first time. Their joint album for Berlin’s Karlrecords is a faithful document —no editing, no overdubs—of their improvisations during two recording sessions shortly before Rehberg’s sudden and untimely passing on July 22nd of that year. The three pieces see Rehberg working with electronics and Friedl with his inside piano, proving that they had indeed managed to find a common ground—up to a point where it at times becomes hard to tell who plays what on this record. Friedl ran into Rehberg in Zbigniew Karkowski’s tiny Tokyo apartment in 1999 while organising the first edition of the Off-ICMC that was set to take place in the following year. »I came uninvited and slept a night at Zbigeniew’s before Peter arrived and I had to move out,« remembers Friedl, who ended up inviting the Mego founder to perform at the Off-ICMC even though he found it hard to relate to his music. »We had very different backgrounds: he came from industrial and I had roots in classical music and improv, a high-brow prick!« After having met several times at different concerts without ever really speaking to each other in the following years, a concert in Vienna in the late 2010s marked a turning point in their relationship (or lack thereof). Playing their sets back to back and loving every second of what the other was doing, the two finally clicked on musical level.
»We met for dinner on each of the three following nights!,« remembers Friedl. The two would go on to become good friends, meeting regularly to discuss music and everything else while both were living in Vienna just a few minutes away from each other. Rehberg put out Friedl’s collaboration with Eryck Abecassis, »Animal Électrique« on his Editions Mego label in 2020 and eventually they entered the studio twice for sessions that were completely improvised with no prior preparation. »Caciara,« »Chiasso,« and »Clamore«—named retrospectively after three Italian words for »noise«—capture the spontaneity of two artists who had always been outliers in their respective fields finding a common ground in sprawling dynamics and sonic intensity as well as enabling each other to expand their individual sound palettes. »Peter gave me cover,« explains Friedl. »I had the feeling that I was able to do things I otherwise wouldn’t play.« If there is one thing that united them, Friedl adds, it was listening, and throughout these roughly 64 minutes, you can indeed hear them listening closely to each other, giving each other space and reacting to what the other is doing. Even though they unfortunately never managed to get together for a planned third session, these recordings—carefully mixed by Dirk Dresselhaus, but otherwise virtually untouched—perfectly encapsulate the energy unleashed by two free spirits coming together over a shared love for pushing the envelope of improvised noise music, unlocking the sensory potentials of it. It is quite fitting that this veritable onslaught of noise would end in the most understated way: »The computer says stop,« quips Rehberg. »That’s enough!« The rest is laughter. (Kristoffer Cornils)
tracklist: A Caciara [21:14] B Chiasso [19:58] C Clamore [23:01]
credits: Peter Rehberg: electronics Reinhold Friedl: inside piano recorded july 2021 at Studio Aichhorn, Vienna mixed by Dirk Dresselhaus at ZONE, Berlin mastered & lacquer cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin cover concept by Thomas Herbst layout by kaidoh
Cello player and electronic artist Martina Bertoni returns with her 2nd album for Karl: Hypnagogia delivers six new, masterfully crafted tracks between experimental ambient, drone and modern composition.
Cellist and composer Martina Bertoni started playing the cello at a very young age. Classically trained, her career further developed around experimental and film music, for which her cello has been featured in numerous records, works and soundtracks for films and series. After two EPs and her debut full length All The Ghosts Are Gone (2020), Bertoni joined the Karl roster where she released Music For Empty Flats in January 2021 to critical acclaim (a.o. one of the Top Ten drone albums of 2021 / Acloserlisten.com). On her new album Hypnagogia she continues to explore the sonic possibilities of her cello which she uses as primary source for composition and sound processing through reverbs, feedbacks and sub-bass frequencies, thus crafting sonic sculptures, rich of atmospheres and frictions, fed by ambient as much as drone and modern composition. In the words of Martina Bertoni: „The six tracks that constitute Hypnagogia have been written during 2021 and partially inspired by the reading of Stanislaw Lem’s book Solaris. The title refers to a transitional state of consciousness from wakefulness to sleep, during which one might experience sensorial hallucinations and lucid dreaming, and can tap into the pristine structures of the subconscious. Hypnagogia portraits an imaginary cosmic journey of the Self that crash ends into a blinding sun.”
Tracklist:
Inversion
Collided
From E To W
Orchid
Hemisphere
Your Sun
Credits: Martina Bertoni: cello, electronics, voice all music composed and produced by Martina Bertoni mixed by Boris Wilsdorf at andereBaustelle Tonstudio, Berlin mastered & cut by Ruy Mariné at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin cover painting by Ted Berglund artwork by kaidoh
