By zkr director REINHOLD FRIEDL’s personal request now available on vinyl for the first time: zeitkratzer’s critically acclaimed interpretations of groundbreaking compositions by JAMES TENNEY.
JAMES TENNEY (1934 – 2006) was a composer, music theorist and pioneer especially in the field of microtonal music, being an influential part of the so-called New York avantgarde scene (CAGE, FELDMAN). Besides his compositonal work, TENNY was teacher at various universities with students like CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE, CARL STONE or CATHERINE LAMB, and a close friend with ELIANE RADIGUE. This album by zeitkratzer presents three compostions by TENNEY whose music has been part of zeitkratzer’s repertoire since their beginning:
# „Critical Band“ – TENNEY’s late classic – with maximum clarity and precision of bearing tone rhythms and microtonal tuning as light effect.
# the first recording of „Harmonium #2“.
Both works demonstrate the remarkable power and resplendent sharpness which TENNEY achieved with his microtonal settings.
# „Koan: Having Never Written A Note For Percussion“ (incl. in the download) is an orgiastic listening experience in the form of a huge crescendo on a tam-tam – from whispering to singing, culminating in shrill roaring and blustering – and it’s dark decay. zeitkratzer’s approach to TENNEY’s music as a sensual sound adventure, finally available on vinyl!
Tracklist: A. Critical Band, B. Harmonium #2, DL only track: Koan: Having Never Written A Note For Percussion
zeitkratzer: Frank Gratkowski clarinet Hayden Chisholm alto saxophone Matt Davis trumpet Hilary Jeffery trombone Reinhold Friedl piano, e-bow Maurice De Martin bowed marimba, tam-tam Burkhard Schlothauer violin Anton Lukoszevieze cello Ulrich Phillipp double bass Ralf Meinz sound
Credits: recorded live at Philharmonie Luxembourg, October 3rd 2009 mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz and Reinhold Friedl produced by Burkhard Schlothauer executive producer: Reinhold Friedl vinyl cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin
Italian sound artist GIULIO ALDINUCCI returns with his 4th album on KARL: “Real” is again a truly masterfully composed and sound-designed ambient masterpiece and a more than worthy follow-up to the critically acclaimed “Borders And Ruins” (2017), “Disappearing In A Mirror” (2018) and “Shards Of Distant Times” which all made it onto several year’s best lists.
With now his 4th album for Karl, the sound artist from Siena / IT has proved a steady and prolific artist on the label roster. And each time, GIULIO ALDINUCCI delivers a new ambient masterpiece that clearly carries his signature as composer / producer and yet reveals a slightly different approach to his modus operandi. ALDINUCCI’s massive layers of sound, built from field recordings and an array of electronic gear, blend droney ambient with heavenly voices / sacred music that create an atmosphere of a consolatory melancholy – alien, but with a graspable presence of human souls. And each album deals with a topic that ALDINUCCI came across in his observations of and reflections about today’s society. In the words of GIULIO himself: “The digital media we live with shape and define reality by filtering it, letting us run the risk of living without our personal and unique one. My new album expresses a need of something unmediated and authentic. “Real” is a reflection on the endless possibility of sonic transformation, the ability we have to create new realities transmuting the soundscape around us and the inner soundscape inside us, even only by imagining it. A (deep) real experience permeated by dreamy lyricism.”
Tracklist: A1. Deep Space Shelter A2. Come In Un Respiro A3. As The Horizon Disappears A4. Smoke Over The River B1. Mythological Void B2. Every Word, In Summer B3. Hyperobject A B4. Asymptotic Embrace
Credits: all tracks composed and produced by Giulio Aldinucci mastered & vinyl cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin artwork concept by Thomas Herbst layout & design by kaidoh cover photography by Giulio Aldinucci
By zkr director REINHOLD FRIEDL’s personal request now available on vinyl for the first time: zeitkratzer’s critically acclaimed interpretations of compositions by ALVIN LUCIER.
ALVIN LUCIER (1931 – 2021) was one of the most influential American minimalists. Some call him „sound physician“ as his compositions are often based on acoustic research settings. His pieces tend to turn inside-out the properties of space and instruments: poems based on acoustic settings! zeitkratzer worked with the composer in Dijon, France in 2008, and presented his music in various places. These recordings have been realized at Philharmonie Luxembourg that turned out to be the ideal space for this music. On this album you can hear how LUCIER enables zeitkratzer to create sounds a lot of people have never heard before. Ringing overtones, a singing piano, a thrilling concert triangle, pencils on little objects, and how irritating a violoncello, a viola and a piano can sound together creating shifting sonic interferences. Sound phenomenology, evoking a sensual listening experience.
Tracklist: A1 Fideliotrio (1987) 12:10 A2 Violynn (2001) 9:50 B1 Music For Piano With Magnetic Strings (1995) 13:37 B2 Opera With Objects (1997) 10:59 Silver Streetcar For The Orchestra* (1988) 10:03 digital only, included in the download
zeitkratzer:
Burkhard Schlothauer: violin (A2), viola (A1), objects (B2) Anton Lukoszevieze: violoncello (A1), objects (B2) Ulrich Philipp: objects (B2) Reinhold Friedl: piano (A1, B1), objects (B2) Maurice de Martin: triangle (*), objects (B2) Frank Gratkowski: objects (B2) Hayden Chisholm: objects (B2) Matt Davis: objects (B2) Hilary Jeffery: objects (B2) Ralf Meinz: sound
credits: recorded live at Philharmonie Luxembourg, October 3, 2009 (A1, B1, B2, *) and at GreenHouseStudios Schwielowsee, Germany, June 2010 (A2). mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz and Reinhold Friedl produced by Reinhold Friedl vinyl cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin
The ongoing series / tradition of a KONSTRUKT release in august this time returns to the early beginning: the overdue double vinyl reissue of the Turkish free-formers’ studio meeting with the German Free Jazz titan PETER BRÖTZMANN from 2008. Remastered for vinyl by KASSIAN TROYER at D&M, Berlin.
As written in several info sheets before, the Istanbul-based collective led by multi-instrumentalist UMUT ÇAĞLAR (also member of KARKHANA) and reeds player KORHAN FUTACI has since its formation in 2008 created an impressive catalogue including collaborations / performances with significant musicians like KEIJI HAINO, JOE MCPHEE, WILLIAM PARKER, AKIRA SAKATA, MARSHALL ALLEN, EVAN PARKER, THURSTON MOORE, MICHAEL ZERANG, ALFRED HARTH or ALEXANDER HAWKINS – and PETER BRÖTZMANN. The German Free Jazz titan was invited to the Deneyevi Studio in the Turkish capital in november 2008 where they recorded „Dolunay“, an album that was released three years later on a small label in Turkey only. Back then a quartet with drums AND percussion, guitar, reeds but NO bass player, KONSTRUKT and their iconic guest took off on a session full of fire and fury: shrieking reeds, thundering drums andandand … Free Jazz of the wildest, most energetic and kathartic (afterwards) kind! Just as they did a few months before (may 2011) in a former church as documented on „Eklisia Sunday“ and then once more in february 2014.
Remastered for vinyl, „Dolunay“ is now finally available as double LP and also via regular distribution – and shouldn’t be missing in any proper jazz collection!
tracklist: A. Dolunay 10:26 Siyah 10:57 B. Kurtlar 10:16 C. Makinalı 13:18 D. Tepe 3:27 Nokta 9:18
credits: all music by Konstrukt & Peter Brötzmann recorded by Ergin Özler & Taylan Özdemir at Deneyevi Studio, Istanbul on 13.11.2008 mixed by Tansu Kaner & Özün Usta remastered & lacquer cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin woodcut by Peter Brötzmann layout & design by kaidoh
New album by the Berlin-based musician, composer and producer MIDORI HIRANO aka MIMICOF, entirely recorded using the EMS SYNTHI100 at Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade during an artist residency: contemporary electronic music / ambient for the advanced listener.
Midori Hirano is a Japanese musician, composer and producer based in Berlin. She started learning the piano as a child and later studied classical piano at university. Therefore the music she releases under her own name is based on the use of piano, but yet experimental and an eclectic mixture of modern digital sounds with subtle electronic processing and field recordings. So far, Hirano released 7 solo albums under her civilian name on labels such as Sonic Pieces and DAUW. Under the moniker MimiCof she explores the realm of more experimental music and detailed rhythmic patterns, combined with an idea of drawing melodic shapes and harmonies. As MimiCof she performed at prestigious festivals and events such as CTM, Heroines of Sound Festival, Boiler Room Berlin and L.E.V. Festival, and was selected by Frank Bretschneider for the first volume of the “Sichten” compilation series on his raster label.
Besides producing her own works, Hirano has composed music for dance performances, video installations and films which have been screened at Berlin International Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival and HongKong International Film Festival (among others) and remixed tracks by artists including Rival Consoles, Foam And Sand aka Robot Koch, Liars and Pascal Schumacher.
While the last MimiCof album “Moon Synch” (2017, Alien Transistor) was recorded on the Buchla analogue modular Synthesizer at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm, her latest effort “Distant Symphony” (the 4th as MimiCof) was created on a different synthesizer: the EMS SYNTHI 100 Synthesizer at Radio Belgrade. All sounds from this instrument were recorded as single sound samples at first, then mixed and modified into three long pieces of music, so that the audience can experience the machine’s uniqueness and versatility of sound. Hirano understands this work as a gesture of respect for the SYNTHI 100’s character: though a vintage instrument, it has never lost the beauty of its modern sound.
Tracklist: A Distant Symphony I (17:07) B Distant Symphony II (9:39) Distant Symphony III (7:05)
Credits: All tracks composed, recorded and mixed by Midori Hirano Recorded at Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade during an artist residency between May 31st and June 6th 2021, using the EMS SYNTHI100 synthesizer Edited & mixed between June and September 2021 in Berlin „Distant Symphony I“ was commissioned by Heroines of Sound Festival Mastered and vinyl cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin Photographs taken by Midori Hirano at Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade Cover Design by kaidoh
the 2nd chapter “zwischenraum”of the “raum“-trilogy by dominik grenzler aka an moku and stefan schmidt. finely crafted ambient / soundscapes using stringed instruments, synthesizer, electronics and field recordings.
when dominik grenzler aka an moku, a sound artist and bass player based in zurich, approached stefan schmidt (guitarist, composer and improviser from baden-baden) with the idea of collaborating, it turned out the initial spark for a fruitful process and artistic exchange. within just a couple of weeks they not only managed to craft “raum” (the german word for room / space), the duo also realized there was still a plethora of ideas to explore and that this first album wouldn’t be their last – rather, they conceived a full “raum”-trilogy, named after and inspired by a sentence grenzler had read in david foster wallace’s unconventional bestseller novel “infinite jest”: “die echte welt ist nur ein raum.” (“the real world is just a room.”). on “zwischenraum”, grenzler and schmidt continue their sonic trip into abstract voids, crafted by finely processed sounds of different origins like cello, field recordings and a vast array of electronic equipment. From the opener “yama” with its indian drone to the closer “sediment” the atmosphere is dark and alien, with references to hauntology and musique concrète, and yet organic, even harmonic. The future may be bleak, but there is still life.
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
tracklist:
01 yama 02 reflektion 03 capgras syndrom 04 tagundnachtgleiche 05 rabenaas 06 schwere see 07 anywhere at the end of time 08 sediment
credits:: all tracks composed and produced by an moku and stefan schmidt mastered by weldroid www.weldroid.net cover artwork by stefan schmidt synthesizer, tape recorder, electromagnetic microphones by an moku field recordings, synthesizer, cello, fretless guitar by stefan schmidt double bass on schwere see by adriano orrù
The new album by the Peruvian-born / Berlin-based experimental artist Ale Hop was conceived in a context of immobility and provides six sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience. In collaboration with Ana Quiroga, Concepcion Huerta, Daniela Huerta, Elsa M’balla, Felicity Magan, Fil Uno, Ignacio Briceño, KMRU, Manongo Mujica, Moises Horta, Nicole L’Huillier, Raul Jardín, Sukitoa Onamau, Tomas Tello.
Following her explorations on music’s inherent fixation to geographic space and time, be it through the longing of home („Apophenia“ 2019) or scientific magnification of invisible worlds („The Life of Insects“ 2020), Berlin-based Peruvian-born experimental composer Ale Hop’s fourth album, „Why Is It They Say a City Like Any City?“, was conceived in a context of immobility. During the lockdown months, she started a process of remote collaboration, by sending messages, posted from various cities along a South American trip, to thirteen musicians from around the world. She journaled her impressions upon these places to an intimate fictional character while reflecting on matters of time, sound, space, cosmology and colonial memory. The thirteen musicians dialogued with this voice by taking upon the challenge of responding to the messages with sound collaborations. Field recordings, mouth drumming, drone cellos, electronic loops, arrhythmic rhythms and voices came back from this experiment. Ale assembled them, by layering, twisting and turning, into sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience, making it the first time she’s set her guitar aside. Expect no answers to the album’s title question, but an innermost psychedelic rumination. „Despite the technological resources that appear to dilute distances, the simulation of closeness mirrored on the digital space is an emptied body, a state of precarity, a flat surface; unable to withhold an experience of exchange,“ Ale states. „So, I began this project by asking myself, how can we escape from the reduced experience of the virtual? The idea behind this experiment was that my messages and the places they describe could drive the composition, be a catalyzer, a score. Thus, to use geography as a tool to remember and imagine, to allow new soundscapes to emerge.“ „Memory, diffuse and divergent, sometimes reaches out to the future in its search for form, taking shape from the reflections and echoes that come back … like throwing a rock in a pond and having a rock thrown back at you.“
The release of „Why Is It They Say a City Like Any City?“ is accompanied by a 50-min audiovisual installation that will premiere at CTM 2022 Exhibition in January, which was created in collaboration with the Mexican technologist and artist Moises Horta. For this piece, an Artificial Intelligence multi-modal neural network was fed with readings of the messages written by Ale, synthesizing them into free-flowing images. The visual imagery resembles the way memory works when triggered by words, by traveling freely through mental images unfolding them into openended assemblages of spaces and temporalities.
Ale Hop is the moniker of Alejandra Cárdenas, a Berlin-based, Peru-born artist, researcher, and experimental multi-instrumentalist that began her career in the 2000s in the underground scene of Lima, where she had several pop, punk and electronic bands, and continually collaborated with filmmakers, musicians, and artists. In her solo music project, she finely blends and crafts a complex repertoire of unorthodox guitar techniques, with psychedelic drones that become visceral and breathtaking live performances. Her studious approach to the subjects covered in her albums and pieces is constantly influenced by her background as a researcher. Cárdenas completed a BA in Art History, her master’s in Sound Studies, further studies in History of Science and Technology, and is currently a doctoral candidate at Berlin University of Arts. She has edited two volumes of the publication „Border-Listening/Escucha-Liminal“ on decolonial, non-western, and Latin American perspectives on sound and listening, and is co-curator of the Berlin-based festival Radical Sounds Latin America.
The 5 LP / 5 CD box set „Electroacoustic Works“ celebrates the 100th anniversary of IANNIS XENAKIS (on May 29th, 2022), one of the most influential 20th century avantgarde composers. All tracks have been newly mixed by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered by RASHAD BECKER and finally reveal their full sonic range and dynamics. Booklet with English / German liner notes by REINHOLD FRIEDL (zeitkratzer) and rare photos from the Xenakis archive.
IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001) is one of the most important composers of the 20th century avantgarde whose influence on music can be traced to the present day – not only in the world of conservatory-trained composers but also in various streams of current non-academic underground aesthetics such as experimental electronic music, noise and industrial. After he arrived in Paris in 1947, XENAKIS not only studied composition with MESSIAEN and later became a member of the famous GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales), he also worked as assistant to the famous architect LE CORBUSIER and realized a.o. the Philips Pavilion for the World Exhibition in Brussels 1958. His compositions often are based on mathematical principles which give his music an unprecedented aesthetic and “shocking otherness” (The Guardian). Although XENAKIS also composed for orchestra (his most famous works are “Metastasis“, “Pithoprakta” and “Terretektorh”), electronic music became his way for exploring new ideas and concepts and to develop new techniques like a graphic interface for sound synthesis or later, when computers were easier accessible, his so-called „stochastic synthesis“ (Gendy 3, S.709 > Disc V, Late Works).
XENAKIS’ first electroacoustic pieces (Disc I) like “Diamorphoses” or “Bohor” turned out groundbreaking works while the latter even caused, as MICHEL CHION put it, the “greatest scandal of electroacoustic music” on the occasion of its performance 1968 at the GRM in Paris. His so-called „Polytopes“ (Discs II – IV) were overwhelming multimedia performances with especially designed architectures, laser and light shows etc. where sometimes up to several hundred loudspeakers were used to move the sounds in space. For example his most famous composition “Persepolis”, commissioned by the Persian Shah, premiered in 1971 in Shiraz- Persepolis (Iran) as a performance including light-tracks, laser beams, groups of children walking around with torches and 59 loudspeakers to project the music in an open-air situation.
The most radical aspects of sound can be found in Xenakis‘ late work and its merciless reduction to harsh, almost ruthless sound synthesis. In the early nineties, he devoted himself to the concept of a composing machine: a machine that designs everything independently and calculates the finished piece, the algorithm is the work.
For the first time, the complete electroacoustic works of XENAKIS are now available on record – the truly overdue testimony and legacy of a restless investigator and explorer of sound. Years of source studies and comparative research by zeitkratzer director REINHOLD FRIEDL, in collaboration with sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST, made these critically reflected stereo mixes possible, which were appropriately mastered by RASHAD BECKER and which, in addition to the aspect of fidelity to the source, put the listener in the center. Xenakis‘ adventurous music can now finally be enjoyed in its full sonic range and dynamic.
To quote The Wire’s review from May 2018: “This is the definitive Persepolis“
New album by Canadian multi-instrumentalist AIDAN BAKER and his first solo release for KARL after the critically acclaimed collaboration albums “Invisible Cities” and “Invisible Cities II”.
AIDAN BAKER is a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist using the electric guitar as his primary instrument – applying alternate methods of playing the guitar, along with various electronic effects, the Berlin based artist creates music which generally falls within the ambient / experimental genre but draws on influences from (post-)rock, electronic, classical, and jazz. A highly prolific artist, Baker has released numerous recorded works, both solo and with various group projects (NADJA, CAUDAL, NO PLACE TRIO et.al.), on such independent labels as GIZEH RECORDS,MIASMAH, IMPORTANT RECORDS, ALIEN8 RECORDINGS, and his own imprint, BROKEN SPINE PRODUCTIONS. Baker is also the author of several books of poetry. A regular live performer, Baker has toured extensively around the world, including appearances at such international festivals as FIMAV, SXSW, Incubate, Unsound, and Mutek, among others. “Seeing Past What Things Seem” delivers four finely shaped ambient / drone pieces, crafted with electric guitar, bass, flute at BAKER’s home-recording studio in Berlin, the title referencing the American artist and author EVE BABITZ.
credits: Recorded March 2021 at Broken Spine Studios, Berlin Instrumentation: electric guitar, bass, flute Titles paraphrased from Eve Babitz Cover photo by Thomas Herbst
After PORYA HATAMI and SABA ALIZADEH, we are excited to welcome the 3rd Iranian musician on KARL: the sound and new media artist ARASH AKBARI.
ARASH AKBARI is a musician, sound, and new-media artist, based in Tehran, Iran. His interest in dynamic art systems, human perception, nonlinear narrative, and the co-existence between physical and digital worlds compelled him to explore the fields of generative systems, interaction design, and real-time processing. He explores the relationship between human, technology, space, and the environment, and examines the ways interactive cybernetic systems, natural emergent behaviors, and phenomena can evoke meanings as well as social and emotional responses. Akbari directs his experimental practices into audio-visual performances and installations, interactive applications, and multisensory experiences. His compositions investigate experimental approaches to sound generation, field recordings, acoustic instrumentation, digital synthesis, DSP, and noise to create immersive sonic environments that explore the agency of autonomous systems, indeterminacy, memory, and the perception of time and space. His works have been exhibited in different festivals and exhibitions around the world, such as Athens Digital Arts Festival, Simultan Festival, New Media Fest, 3D Web Fest, Cinnamon Colomboscope, and Graphical Web Conference. He has released albums on Flaming Pines, Unknown Tone Records, Taalem, and Soft Recordings among numerous other labels. “Fragments Of Yearning”, AKBARI’s latest solo work, is a finely crafted sonic journey into ambient soundscapes, centered around the topics of yearning, memory and humanity. In his own words: “Some moments linger in us, buried in time but molded the eternity. The dusty echoes from the past, yet are vividly unraveled. The irreplaceable momentary fragments of being human.”
Credits: Composed, recorded, mixed by Arash Akbari (fall / winter 2020-2021) Mastering by Lawrence English at Negative Space Artwork by Arash Akbari Layout and design by kaidoh
