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Reviews that mention Annette Krebs

Various Artists

Echtzeitmusik Berlin
Mikroton CD 14/15/16

Pharoah Sanders

In the Beginning 1963-64

ESP-Disk ESP-4069

Pierre Favre

Drums and Dreams

Intakt CD 197

Connie Crothers - David Arner

Spontaneous Suite for Two Pianos

Rogueart R0G-037

Something In The Air: Multiple Disc Sets for the Adventurous

By Ken Waxman

Defying doomsayers who predicted the death of the LP, the CD’s disappearance appears oversold. True music collectors prefer the physical presence and superior fidelity of a well-designd CD package and important material continues to released. Partisans of advanced music, for instance, can choose any one of these sets. The only saxophonist to be part of saxophonist John Coltrane’s working group, tenorist Pharoah Sanders is celebrated for his own highly rhythmic Energy Music. In the Beginning 1963-64 ESP-Disk ESP-4069, a four CD-package highlight his steady growth. Besides Sanders’ first album as leader, very much in the freebop tradition, as part of quintet of now obscure players, the other previously released sounds capture Sanders’ recordings in the Sun Ra Arkestra. More valuable is a CD of unissued tracks where Sanders asserts himself in quartets led by cornetist Don Cherry or Canadian pianist Paul Bley. The set is completed by short interviews with all of the leaders. Oddly enough, although they precede his solo debut, Sanders’ playing is most impressive with Bley and Cherry. With more of a regularized beat via bassist David Izenson and drummer J.C. Moses, Cherry’s tracks advance melody juxtaposition and parallel improvisations with Sanders’ harsh obbligato contrasted with the cornetist’s feisty flourishes; plus the darting lines and quick jabs of pianist Joe Scianni provides an unheralded pleasure. Bley’s economical comping and discursive patterning lead the saxophonist into solos filled with harsh tongue-twisting lines and jagged interval leaps. With Izenson’s screeching assent and drummer Paul Motion’s press rolls the quartet plays super fast without losing the melodic thread. Sun Ra is a different matter. Recorded in concert, the sets include helpings of space chants such as “Rocket #9” and “Next Stop Mars”; a feature for Black Harold’s talking log drums; showcases for blaring trombones, growling trumpets; plus the leader’s propulsive half-down-home and half-outer-space keyboard. Sharing honking and double-tonguing interludes with Arkestra saxists Pat Patrick and Marshall Allen, Sanders exhibits his characteristic stridency. Enjoyable for Sun Ra’s vision which is spectacular and jocular, these tracks suggest why the taciturn Sanders soon went on his own.

Partially in reaction to vocifeous American players like Sanders, by the 1970s European innovators developed a spacious and subdued take on improvisation. This can be sampled via the solo work of Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre, a model of taste and restraint on Drums and Dreams Intakt CD 197 is. Overall it’s 1972’s Abanaba which is the defining masterwork, with 1970’s Drum Conversation and 1978’s Mountain Wind, the build up and elaboration of maturity. Favre has such command of the sonorous properties of his expanded kit that he can use approximations of tones from unusual sources such as guiro, conches, unlathed cymbals, thunder sheets plus a regular kit without bombast or showiness. A track such as Kyoto is a fascinating duet between kettle drum and tuned gongs, expanded by Theremin-like resonations; while “Gerunonius” is an essay in abrasion, as textures created by sawing with a bow on drum rims are integrated with shakes, pops and pulls. “Roro” fastens on triple sticking at supersonic speeds, producing ringing tones from log drums, cymbals and gongs, while the final track demonstrates how aggression can be paced as bell trees ping and snares sizzle. CD1 establishes a framework for juxtapositions, with silences integrated with kinetic paradiddles and ruffs. Sounding at times like multiple players, Favre’s distinctive sounds are likely to arise by twisting mallets on aluminum bars as from blunt whacks on oversized gongs. By 1978, his rhythmic palate had expanded so, that he could replicate the sound of a telephone bell ring, Chinese temple bell with equal facility and without any loss in power.

This mixture of delicacy and strength is expanded to its pianistic limits on Spontaneous Suite for Two Pianos Rogueart R0G-037 These four CDs capture an entire recording session beginning with the evocative acceleration from feathery chording to anvil-like kinetic pressure on CD1, track 1, and conclude with key-clipping near player-piano continuum on CD4, track 7. Anyone who follow dual keyboardist like Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia or Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson will be staggered by the work here. Completely improvised, the nine interlocking suites expose almost all variations of what can be extracted from 166 keys. Technical wizardry plus jazz inflections are apparent in the playing of Connie Crothers and David Arner, yet focussed reductionism as well as spontaneity is also on tap. Piano guru Lennie Tristano’s most accomplished student, New York-based Crothers has recorder with jazzmen like drummer Max Roach. Up-state New York’s Arner is associated with choreographers such as Meredith Monk. Playing side-by-side with layered chords, palindromes or in counterpoint, the two evoke many aspects of piano literature while creating their own. For instance “The Hoofer” which bounces and taps as a terpsichorean fantasia is followed by “Blues and the Moving Image”. Despite low-pitched glissandi, this blues is polyrhythmic, depending on a dusting of high-frequency tremolo to provide the necessary emotion. “The Reckoning” is meditative and linear, while “Density 88X2” moves from jocular patterns to blunt syncopation. An extended sequence like “City Rhapsody” may unroll staccatissimo with soundboard rumbles and ringing cadenzas in equal measures, but it never unravels or loses connectivity. Overall the real connections this duo exhibits is with their own histories. Basso notes on “Swing Migration” and “Fool” both unearth Tristanto-like themes among the cumulative cascades and pitch-sliding vibrations.

With the German capital now home to a mass of creative musicians, it takes 40 selections on three-CD anthology Echtzeitmusik Berlin Miikroton CD 14/15/16) to try to define the scene. Although currents of free jazz, notated music, punk-rock and all sorts of electronic programming are universally accepted, echtzeitmusik is defined differently by each innovator. For instance the long pauses and foreshortened breaths from Robin Hayward’s microtonal tuba and intermittent plinks from Morten Olsen’s rotating bass drum on “Deep Skin” may come from the same reductionist base as “Versprechen” which mutates piano strings strums by Andera Neumann with linear trumpet breaths from Sabine Ercklentz. But the studio collage that’s Annette Krebs’ “In-between”, mutating ring-modulator whooshes, music samples and layered voices has little in common except density with Antoine Chessex’s “Errances” which inflates a single saxophone’s tremolo timbres to near organ-like cascades. So what defines the sounds? The key may be “Blues No. 5” by Perlonex. Guitar feedback, turntable scratches plus drum smacks and electronic quivers reach an intensity that equals the emotionalism of a blues singer. Consequently honesty and innovation supersede musical forms. Echtzeitmusik Berlin allows the listener to sample and choose.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 18 #4

December 15, 2012

Annette Krebs/Anthea Caddy/Magda Mayas

Thread
Another Timbre at48

Spill

Stockholm Syndrome

Al Maslakh Recordings 13

During the past decade or so, Magda Mayas has established herself in Berlin as an inside piano specialist. A recruit to a variant of free-form exploration which threatens to become a sub-genre unto itself, the Münster native’s focal point is preparing the piano’s internal strings with tape, plasticine, metal and rubber objects and spending as much time manipulating them with hands and mallets as playing on the keyboard. Nonetheless, as these CDs demonstrate, Mayas’ improvising is most appealing not so much for how she prepares her instrument’s strings, but for the sound strategies she creates once the items are in place.

Thread knits her creations into a trio interface with similar harsh, extended techniques advanced by Australian-in-Berlin cellist Anthea Caddy and Köln-native, now fellow Berliner Annette Krebs, who uses a prepared guitar plus tapes and a mixing desk. Taking the Antipodean partnership still further and recorded two years later, Stockholm Syndrome is a duet between Mayas and the distinct percussion work of another Aussie expatriate, Tony Buck. Buck is best-known for his long-time membership in The Necks, while Caddy, who also works with people like bassist Clayton Thomas, has been in separate duos with both Mayas and Krebs. Krebs frequently worked with Andrea Neumann, another inside-piano specialist, while Mayas has also played with the likes of saxophonist Frank Gratkowski and trombonist Johannes Bauer.

However the only orally affiliated sounds heard on the trio disc are taped sampled of German and English, extracted and altered with granular synthesis by Krebs’ electronics. Tellingly enough, despite more of a literal multiplicity of voices, the trio interface is more minimalist and more severe than the interplay between the pianist and the drummer. Stretching the strand further and tauter without breaking it, Krebs, Caddy and Mayas interweave a sound garment whose foundation is the processed voices and blurred crackles from Krebs’ electronic arsenal, with the trimming consisting of Caddy’s frequent harsh, cat-gut scratches and Mayas’ plucked strings, pauses and key clips, often intertwined with sporadic guitar twangs. These timbres swell immeasurably by the 26-minute “Shore”, which reaches a contrapuntal crescendo. Caddy’s jagged sul ponticello lines move closer to Mayas’ staccato key palming at the same time as Krebs’ pre-recorded samples of bird cries, gashed wave form friction and German, French and English voices are warped, repeated, stretched, time-shifted and flanged. With silences bypassed, the three climax with chromatic, if often unaffiliated, cascades of collective textures.

Instructively, Stockholm Syndrome’s two extended tracks are more evenly balanced, as is the pianist’s work alongside the percussionist’s. As Buck vibrates various parts of his kit, adding chain rattling, gong smacks and the friction resulting from stroking his cymbals and drum tops harshly, Mayas’ voicing is similarly focused. Adopting a strategy that allows her to pluck individual strings as she applies pressure to the external keys, the mashed piano tones that result are sharper and tenser but also bond more with the drummer’s metallic whacks. The nearly 35-minute “Oslo” includes idiosyncratic sonic tinctures as Buck’s ruffs, drags and abrasions add a heavier percussiveness to the interface. So too do Mayas’ low-note keyboard rumbles and tension-affiliated string twangs. Again the agitated pianism is muted as Buck appears to be vibrating as many small implements on his drums as are attached to piano strings. Additionally chain rattling, subtle press rolls and cymbal strokes are even met with a few snatches of legato, near-swing passages from the pianist. Finally as tremolo piano tones envelop the drummer’s singular cymbal claps and clicks, a satisfying tonal dissolve is attained.

Unnerving and overly abstract for the uninitiated, each of these CDs does showcase what in some circles, are genuinely accepted, virtually commonplace keyboard strategies.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Stockholm: 1. Helsinki 2. Oslo

Personnel: Stockholm: Magda Mayas (piano) and Tony Buck (drums)

Track Listing: Thread: 1. Sands 2. Shore

Personnel: Thread: Magda Mayas (piano); Annette Krebs (prepared guitar, tapes and mixing desk) and Anthea Caddy (cello)

July 16, 2012

Sven-Åke Johansson/Annette Krebs

Peashot
Olof Bright OBCD29

Rant

Land

Schraum 13

Live noise minimalism stacks up against studio-tweaked avant pop in a comparison of these sessions which demonstrate improvised music’s particular allure to the adventurous. Even though both CDs feature duos with the same instrumentation, were recorded around the same time, in the same city, and are part of the same non-mainstream ethos, their differences are more apparent than their similarities.

Adapting electronic programs and samples to her austere improvising, German guitarist Annette Krebs, whose usual playing partners are contemporary microtoinalists such as tubaist Robin Hayward and pianist Andrea Neumann, creates a fragmented sound collage in her duet with percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson. Recorded live in Berlin, Peashot also demonstrates that the then 66-year-old, Swedish drummer whose Free Music credentials go back to its 1960s beginning alongside saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, can hold his own with anyone of any age in terms of invention and interplay.

Meanwhile in another part of the city guitarist Torsten Papenheim and drummer Merle Bennett, frequently found in the company of bassist Axel Haller, but here assisted by engineer/co-producer Dave Bennett, spent studio time in 2009 and 2010 reaching Land. Bennett, also a music teacher and rock drummer, and Papenheim have come up with a session that is in parts lo-fi and spatial, and elsewhere swollen with overdubbed additional instruments and sound samples. Mostly though, it’s as if the straight-ahead beats of instrumental combos such as the Ventures or the Shadows are stripped down to the simplest guitar and drums formula. During unexpected interludes however, the interface gets more complicated as multi-tracked guitar, piano and harmonica licks appear. Field recordings are part of the mix as well. So a piece like “Luen” underlined with what seem to be the whoosh of highway traffic, the clank on trams tracks, and police sirens evolves as Papenheim picks cleanly and Bennett lays down a steady pulse. Pops and shuffles are the drummer’s strategy on “Bluhm”, while the guitarist’s chords are linear, as both react to contrapuntal input provided by a manic typist clanking away on an old-time manual machine.

Papenheim’s string snaps throughout range from harsh and isolated to convivial and folksy, while Bennett’s never neglects the beat. Pushing aside overdubbed guitar distortion, the final “Gees” gives full rein to the drummer’s paradiddles, rattles and bass drum beats until Papenheim’s ringing variations on the theme suggest pop hooks as well as improvisational intensity.

Guitar hooks and a steady drum beat aren’t present on the other CD, concerned as it is with unusual strategies from both instrumentalists. But the improvisations are still interrupted – or enhanced – by aleatory radio broadcasts that fade in-and-out of hearing range. Perhaps the weather reports in English had a particular resonance for the audience that day in April, but forecasts of cloudy and other inclement weather would probably be more appreciated if one didn’t understand English.

Extraneous resonance added to the duo’s improvisations appears more palatable when the flanges can be related to the sound of a tape-recorder running backwards, voices sped up to chipmunk squeaks, as well as intermittent buzzes. That way each of these sequences accompanies Johansson’s percussion invention. For instance he cuts off one snatch of conversation with drum top vibrations, wooden pops and affiliated thumps. Another time he pushes aside both the weather report and buzzing guitar string distortion for a subtle series of tap-dancing paradiddles, then intensifies the beat with kettle drum whacks. Occasionally what could be machine-gun fire disrupts the proceedings, making a bellicose point before the linked improvisations turn back towards slurred fingering from the guitarist and finally, in each case, a slow fade to silence.

For what they attempted to achieve and the fashion in which they attempted it, the Johansson and Krebs’ disc may be more notable in its audacity. Yet it also seems that whatever point the broadcast sequences were supposed to make is lost through repetition and uncoordinated response. In contrast, while Papenheim’s and Bennett’s dual narrative is less audacious from the get-go and was pieced together with studio additions over a longer time period, their program of 13 short and more clearly delineated experiments is a more holistic.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Peashot: 1. Speaking 2. Radio 3. Throwing

Personnel: Peashot: Annette Krebs (guitar and electronics) and Sven-Åke Johansson (percussion)

Track Listing: Land: 1. Stel 2. Radik 3. Rasch 4, Starrnh 5. Hunderer 6. Bluhm 7. Luen 8. Krupunder 9. Sterrnh 10. Resch 11. Rees 12. Orlando 13. Gees

Personnel: Land: Torsten Papenheim (guitar) and Merle Bennett (drums)

December 25, 2011

Ernst Karel/Annette Krebs

Falter 1-5
Cathnor cath 008

Kyriakides/Moor

Rebetika

Unsounds CD 20U

On the surface is may appear that there are similarities between these European CDs which pair an eclectic guitarist with an academically trained electronics manipulator for extended improvisations. But while both have much to offer the adventurous listener, they couldn’t be more unlike.

For a start, Rebetika is involved with the rearrangement, reassembling and deconstruction of nine rebetika tunes, using samples of the early 20th century so-called Greek blues as the base on which to perform electronically altered, re-compositions. Falter 1-5, on the other hand, deals with abstraction and pure sound, treating the reconstituted sonic properties of the one “real” instrument – the guitar – as a sound source no different from those created by objects such as a mixing-board, tapes and analogue electronics.

On the other hand, because the recorded material with which Yannis Kyriakides and Andy Moor work includes vocals by songsters with the aggressive timbres of Country Blues singers such as Son House and Charley Patton, the tracks are suffused with emotion. In contrast, Ernst Karel’s and Annette Krebs’ five improvisations are precise and clinical, only divorced from microtonal parameters at those junctures when triggered samples clash with simultaneously outlined electronic pulses.

Perhaps that’s to be expected. Cyprus-born, London-raised, Amsterdam-based Kyriakides teaches composition at The Hague’s Royal Conservatory of Music, is artistic director of Ensemble MAE and has composed in a wide variety of media. Concerned with traditional performance practices, digital media and sensory space, he has improvised with players such as London saxophonist John Butcher. Even more visceral in his creations, British guitarist Moor has been a mainstay of Dutch Punk-Improvisers the Ex since 1990, works with French sound poet Anne James Chaton, creates film soundtracks and improvises with the likes of drummer Han Bennink.

Classically trained, Berlin-based guitarist Krebs is more interested in reductionist sounds and their relation to the sonic impulses from objects and electronics. Over the years she has improvised with trumpeter Axel Dörner and harpist Rhodri Davies among others. Manager of Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab and the Film Study Center, Karel has researched the anthropology of sound; recorded, mixed and sound designed himself; has mastered and re-mastered CDs; as well as improvised on trumpet and/or analog electronics, most notably in the EKG duo with oboist Kyle Bruckmann.

Animated with chunky granular synthesis, radio-tuning static and undifferentiated drones, Falter’s five tracks are punctuated with samples of captured broadcast sounds –and silences. A definitive guitar lick appears on track one, but isn’t replicated anywhere for the remainder of the disc. Instead a contrapuntal intermix of impulses from both sources precede fortissimo explosions which seem to consist of scrubbed friction, shaking wave forms and samples of remote mumbling voices These tones slowly unroll until the staccato impulses are superseded by envelopes of abstracted ring modulator-like whooshes and clawing abrasions.

Layered and spiraling, the mercurial drones and mechanized sideband pulsations, cascade throughout before reaching a crescendo of intermingled pops, thumps and ruffled extensions during the 20 minutes of “Falter 5”. Grinding and inconsistently balanced flanges buzz motor-like and are mixed with split-second voice samples that squeal, burp and resonate as their properties are mixed down alongside snatches of music and synthesized, granular intermittent yelps and buzzes. Following a vigorous intermezzo that exposes refractive whistles, pressurized machine-gun-like fire and signal-processed sound leaks, plus additional novel tones that could come from a jackhammer or recording tape running off a reel, these timbres are finally superseded by strident, inchoate drones that in this context appear positively relaxing. Before a fade, the timbres resulting from each improviser’s strategy begin to mirror one another.

Crackles, buzzing and granular pulses also emanate from Rebetika’s nine tracks, but whether some of the dirty glitches result from processing or have been ground into the surface of 78 rpm discs during the past century remains moot. What Moor and Kyriakides do is to match the extended Country Blues-like growl of the original performers with oscillating references from a laptop plus Moor’s percussive strumming and near bottleneck styling.

Sharply picking his guitar strings, Moor’s vibrating chord structures mirror the original performances in intensity, with his snaps and runs toughened by Kyriakides’ vibrating chordal pulsations. Examples of this appear on “Haremi” and “A School Burnt Down”. On then later, Moor’s straight-ahead flat picking is only audible in snatches as the backing oscillations almost subsume guitar licks. Cutting through the computer program’s time-stretching, the guitarist eventually reappears with a broken chord reprise. As for “Haremi”, an aleatoric overlay of wiggling whistles, ramping pops and repeated grooves from Kyriakides finally manage to connect with Moor’s neck tapping and downward string splintering. This pulsing interface adds lyrical depth both to Moor’s playing and the original melody.

Then on “Five in Hell”, the two manage to mix ganularized software samples with the acoustically-recorded 78, in such a fashion that not only does the weight of the elderly needle create its own percussion line, but the distorted and refracted fiddle and guitar samples are also accompanied by accelerated pulses from the computer. Moor’s bass string thumps help the laptop pulsations create a pedal-point base for the initially recorded sounds, with the distinctive tune’s coda an unprocessed, old-time fiddle solo.

Using traditional and newly invented instruments and processes, both international duos have created distinctively novel electro-acoustic melding, neither of which owes anything to the others’ strategies. Preference for stark abstraction or melody glimmers will influence whether listeners appreciate one more than the other.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Falter: 1. Falter 1 2. Falter 2 3. Falter 3 4. Falter 4 5. Falter 5

Personnel: Falter: Annette Krebs (guitar, objects, mixing-board, tape) and Ernst Karel analogue electronics)

Track Listing: Rebetika: 1. Minores 2. Katsoros 3. Vamvakaris 4. All is Well 5. Haremi 6. Delias 7. A School Burnt Down 8. Sucker 9. Five in Hell

Personnel: Rebetika: Andy Moor (guitar) and Yannis Kyriakides (computer)

November 16, 2010

Annette Krebs/Rhodri Davies

kravis rhonn project
Another Timbre at15

Rhodri Davies/Gregory Büttner

3 Harp Treatments

Anthropometrics Antro 03

Quaint and endearingly fusty like a wind-up gramophone is how the sentiments expressed in the commercial of three decades ago, which asked listeners whether the performance they were hearing was live or on tape, now seem in the 21st Century. Today all sorts of electronic fill-ins and additions have been accepted as part of everyday musical life with many a pop diva lip-synching entire performances.

Situations are much different for improvised musicians, who have been experimenting with inventive forms of electronics reproduction since long before Elvis Presley discovered studio reverb. These notable CDs, both featuring London-based Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies, convincingly demonstrate that when it comes to Free Music, it’s the attitude not the gizmos which define success. The kravis rhonn project for instance, matches Davies’ improvisations on electric harp and electronics with those from Berlin’s Annette Krebs, whose tools include a guitar, objects, a mixing board and tape. Davies’ playing partner on 3 Harp Treatments is actually himself. For the three treatments were created by German sound artist Gregory Büttner. Büttner edited and digitally processed a single harp improvisation into three separate and diverse sounding results.

Both Davies and Krebs are involved with lower-case improvisation, numbering fellow experimenters such as saxophonist John Butcher and pianist Andrea Neumann among their associates. But the three unforced, silence-studded performances here are given added resonance by the electronic equipment. Moving from an undercurrent of aural chiaroscuro, depth and translucency are added to the grainy, grey-scale textures with sampled snatches of incomprehensible dialogue and signal-processed shrills and reverb. Among the gradually swelling timbres, replication of backwards-running tapes and flat-line hisses is the interjection of genuine instrumental pulses. Envelopes of wiggling and deconstructed tones that often accelerate to a solid drone share space with thick string thumps from Davies’ harp and thinner plucks from Krebs’ guitar.

Appearing to be motor-driven at points and with staccato interludes resembling wild-animal cries, the performance ends up being circular rather than cynosure. Depleting an entire repertoire of electro-acoustic variants, following a crescendo of timbres that resemble waves lapping at the shore, the two sound sources merge as a flat-line drone, then disappear

On the other CD, Davies’ 10-minute harp improv is renovated into tracks that run from a little more than 10 minutes, to almost 13 and almost 17. Büttner uses differing chunks of the original for granulation and re-conceptualization. “Glas” – the briefest – for example, is centred on a sonic Catherine’s wheel of superimposed blurred textures and shrilling static that suggests empty tape reels flopping as it completes its circular rounds. Straightforwardly percussive, “plok” matches what could be metal being gored by an unyielding object with marbles reverberating off taut strings as well as spinning impulses that sound like cymbal strokes and bass drum pounding. Eventually the individual pick-up signals are squashed into tunnel-echoing whirrs and a climax of repeated string strokes and smacks.

Lengthened to the greatest extent, “bow” builds up to a crescendo of nearly opaque textures as backwards-and-forward running vibrations expose intense, agitated sound fields. The track begins with a flat-line murmur that eerily foreshadows the final results, then synthesizes and reconfigures pitch-shifted and grainy wave forms so that the resulting dense tessitura becomes almost overbearing. Luckily wooden-sounding ratchets and leaking hisses puncture the distended sound envelope so that the results fade diminuendo.

Using exceptional source material or showcasing cerebral improvisers who know how to manipulate electronics makes the question of live verses pre-recorded creations moot on these sessions. Individual virtues of these CDs are as much as the result of invention as the equipment used.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 3: 1. glas 2. plok 3. bow

Personnel: 3: Rhodri Davies (harp and electric harp) and Gregory Büttner (digital process and editing)

Track Listing: kravis: 1. traguar 2. jailom 3. ssronck

Personnel: kravis: Annette Krebs (guitar, objects, mixing board and tape) and Rhodri Davies (electric harp and electronics)

March 29, 2010

Phosphor

Phosphor II
Potlatch PT-P109

Resolutely non-hierarchal as isolated basic tones abut cramped industrial grit, the unique textures spun out by Phosphor nearly hypnotize, but leave plenty of breathing room to shake up the six tracks with unanticipated timbral pirouettes.

Each of band’s seven Berlin-based members is an acknowledged originator striving for unexpected sounds from his or her chosen instrument. Trumpeter Axel Dörner has done so in the company of others such as reedist John Butcher; tubaist Robin Hayward has evolved a personal method of twisting and muting valves; working alone or in tandem with partners such as clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski or Hayward, Annette Krebs and Michael Renkel mostly recalibrate expected guitar sounds; Andrea Neumann’s mastery lies in exploiting prepared piano impulses; Burkhard Beins creates unusual percussion patterns solo or in groups with Neumann, Renkel and others; and Ignaz Schick’s turntable evolutions attain resonance which allows him to regularly collaborate with mystic composer Charlemagne Palestine. Most importantly each of the players fastens onto the transformative abilities of computers and electronics as expertly as18th Century dualists knew the capabilities of rapiers.

Nothing on Phosphor II is designed to be razor-sharp, although the cumulative interaction may be finely honed. Instead at points all sonic textures appear to be uncovered simultaneously, with raucous, spinning crackles, fluttering whooshes, swelling and diffusing air and jackhammer-like drilling, rubbing with fortissimo abrasions against one another. Other times engorged signal-processed drones subsume all else. Elsewhere individual node vibrations are heard and aurally defined as split-second guitar strumming, splayed percussion strokes, tongue stops or low-pitched breaths from the brass players.

Expanding connectively there are also sections where oscillated textures which sound like an accelerating cycle motors blur into computer-triggered clouds of drones and rebounds. Just as abruptly these sounds are replaced by trumpet spetrofluctuation as well as stops, slides and scrubs from piano, guitars and zither strings until an echoing tuba line appears then splinters into mercurial resonance and a final dislocated breath. Elsewhere flanged and backwards-running tapes share space with the launching of ramping signals until a finale of miniature percussion rattles and strokes plus atonal acoustic nylon-guitar runs.

Phosphor II’s climax arrived earlier however on “P11”. As lowing brass timbres and sul ponticello strings are patched together, they also blend seamlessly with separate layers of signal-processed currents. After dissolving into silence, a subsequent variant stacks the sounds of cavernous bass drum resonation, twisted valve constriction and tremolo brass puffs atop vibrating string sets. A retching growl disrupts the concordance with further spinning as sonic sequences ebb southwards to surface rubs.

While concentration may be required to fully appreciate Phosphor II, the participants validate the premise that first-class electro-acoustic improvisation isn’t limited to small combos.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. P7 2. P8 3. P9 4. P10 5.P11 6. P12

Personnel: Axel Dörner (trumpet and electronics); Robin Hayward (tuba); Andrea Neumann (inside-piano and mixing board); Annette Krebs (guitar, objects, electronics and tape); Michael Renkel (prepared acoustic nylon string guitar via computer); Burkhard Beins (percussion, objects, zither and small electrics) and Ignaz Schick (turntable, objects and bows)

December 2, 2009

Robin Hayward-Annette Krebs

Sgraffitio
Cdr-x 3

Unconventional textures become normative and acknowledged in this fascinating essay in dual improv exploration from British tubaist Robin Hayward and German table-top guitarist Annette Krebs who also manipulates objects, a mixing deck and tapes.

Within self-defined parameters and over the course of four lengthy tracks, the two confound instrumental recognition with extended techniques. Snippets of garbled pre-recorded voices, crackling and buzzing oscillations and the occasional string thump define Krebs’ contributions. Yet no creation would be complete without the wet burbling, rotating valve pressure, and air redirection from Hayward’s instrument, reconfigured with clipped-on valve caps plus blocked tube apertures, and often played using circular breathing.

Merging foreground and background sounds into a crepuscular opaqueness, these microtonal improvisations proceed in minute strokes with timbres that resemble dog yelps, bloated air leaking from a balloon or what could be caused by scraping metal against the recording mikes. Intermingled are split-second bursts of radio sounds, silences, buzzing drones and choked hisses. Any time the air leakage accelerates to fortissimo cascades it’s then splintered into sound fragments as tiny as the circumcised syllables of the sampled radio voices. Alternately, should undefined, motor-driven pulses threaten to upset the balanced resonance, connective tuba lines or blustery brass ejaculations assert themselves to break up the dense mass into manageable sonic particles.

“Please play at a quiet volume” are the instruction on the back cover of the CD package. More sagely, dedicated auditors can gain something from the set by careful listening at any volume.

-- Ken Waxman

-- MusicWorks Issue #103

March 23, 2009

MAWJA

“Live One”
Chloë 008

MAWJA

Studio One

Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 07

Various Artists

Beirut-Ystad

Olof Bright Editions OBCD 16-17

Tom Chant/Sharif Sehnaoui

Cloister

Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 05

Despite the political instability and sectarian violence that continues to disrupt the country, improbably enough the nascent Lebanese Free Music movement seems to progress from strength to strength.

Not only does Beirut’s annual festival of improvised music attract major Free Music stylists from overseas, but Lebanese improvisers are starting to travel and make an impression elsewhere. This situation is reflected in this set of impressive CDs. Just as importantly, it also confirms the universality of improvisation. Reductionist and electro-acoustic, the results heard from the locals are no more stereotypical Middle Eastern than others’ improvisations reflect Continental Europe or the United States.

To move from the general to the particular, Beirut-based trumpeter and cornetist Mazen Kerbaj’s two CDs with Massachusetts-based cellist Vic Rawlings and New York state-based bassist Michael Bullock as MAWJA, were recorded at four different gigs the brassman played with the two in the United States. British saxophonist Tom Chant’s duets with guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui were recorded in Paris; while Beirut-Ystad, which was recorded in an art museum and studio in Hammerhög, Sweden, features seven Lebanese improvisers collaborating in different formations with12 of their European counterpoints from Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands

In common with many 21st Century improvised music sessions, the Lebanese-plus creations can be divided into acoustic and electric CDs. For example, both MAWJA discs focus as much on Rawlings’ surface electronics and Bullock’s electronic feedback as the instruments’ unvarnished timbres; whereas Cloister is all acoustic. A two-CD-set, Beirut-Ystad showcases ad-hoc new groupings on nearly every track, with the players using a combination of electronic and acoustic instruments.

When it comes to the Kerbaj/Rawlings/Bullock CDs, there’s almost no difference between how the three approach a live or a studio session. However “Live One” appears more animated, perhaps because the two performances – although only slightly lengthier than a couple on Studio One – seem to gain additional energy and new ideas from the surroundings. On the nearly-30 minute Washington D.C. performance for instance, the metallic buzz and motor-grinding never masks unique, individual textures. Expanded spectral interaction includes bubbling mouthpiece assertions, dog-like yaps and slide-whistle-like interjections from the cornetist; full frontal slaps and pats plus sul ponticello scraping from the stringed instruments; and percussive pulsations that range from ring modulator pulsing to what could be electric shaver action and marbles being rolled in irregular patterns. Inchoate and suggesting crossed wire interference and intermittent AC/DC pulsations, the backing oscillations ratchet through the undertow to expose an intermezzo of jagged, fortissimo whines, which finally subside into rough, connective timbres.

Woody belly-and-waist reverberations from the cello and bass plus flutters and puffs from Kerbaj as well as fungible, contrapuntal modulations from a variety of electronic add-ons are present on this CD’s other track as well as on all of Studio One. This isn’t surprising since both discs were literally recorded within days of one another. However the improvisations seem to be most expressive when the traditional instruments’ properties can be isolated from the envelopes of concentrated jackhammer pressure, dense band-saw-like buzzing and woozy feedback.

Thus a single clear brass note or an emphasized deep breath from the trumpet or gentle rubs or fortissimo snaps from the strings provide more of a context for the lengthening knob-twisted sputters and drones surrounding and sonically replacing these timbres as the six tracks evolve. Flanged resonations, wire-in-socket shrills and triggered, spacey wave forms pitch-slide from background to foreground , while double-tongued, brass flourishes, wood rubbing or spiccato plucks are also stripped to their spectral nodes. The resulting echoing flanges, sideband clanging and stretched tonal twitters reveal themselves as being directed by humans, making the cumulative interface that much more impressive.

In a similar fashion Beirut-Ystad helps to define and expand this electro-acoustic divide. Interestingly enough though only six of the 17 tracks feature electronics. Even the most highly electric ones such as “CH/JH/JR” and “JH/JR/PS” create a rapprochement between the two approaches. On the later piece, Per Svensson, one of the major figures in Swedish noise music, displays chiming guitarist runs and flat-picking to counteract the grinding input and output signals plus lap top extensions and flanges from Danish laptopper Jakob Riis and Lebanese electronic manipulator – and philosophy teacher – Jassem Hindi.

In contrast, on “JH/JR/PS”, in spite of the arena rock feedback, watery sputtering and twittering wave forms from Riis and Hindi, Beirut’s Charbel Haber’s guitar is only rarely masked. And that happens only when crackling circular pulsations reach a nearly painful aural threshold. Droning simultaneously the two seem to suck up most of the sonic impulses.

On the other hand, despite the robust whooshes and rondo wiggling vibrations from the laptop of Sweden’s Lise-Lotte Norelius on AS/CS/LN” and “CH/LN/MG”, the spiccato scrapes of Hammerhög resident Amit Sen’s cello are clearly heard. Intermittent trills and reductionist timbres from Paris-based Christine Sehnaoui are also plainly audible, while the characteristic yelps and growls from Sweden’s Mats Gustafsson’s baritone saxophone demonstrate how he has been able to overpower not only electronics, but not be intimidated by veteran Energy players such as saxophonist Peter Brötzmann.

Combining the properties of acoustic styling and electronics, the four plectrumists on “Guitars” produce the only other track that could be termed full-out electronics. Yet here the typewriter-like clinking, triggered wave forms and motor-turning coexist with plucking and ringing standard string tuning. Berlin’s Annette Krebs and Stockholm’s David Stackenäs – a sometime Gustaffson collaborator – use table-top guitars, while Haber and Beirut’s Sharif Sehnaoui – a member of the group Rouba3i with Kerbaj and Christine Sehnaoui – strum their guitars in the usual manner.

Providing linkage not only between acoustic and electronic interface, but also between Free Jazz and Free Music plus Europe and the Middle East, is veteran percussionist Sven Åke Johansson. Swedish-born, but a long-time Berlin resident, Johansson, who played with Brötzmann and others in EuroJazz’s infancy confirms his support for young improvisers by joining Rouba3i for one improv and partnering Christine Sehnaoui in two other groups – one completed by Gustaffson and the other by Dutch crackle box inventor Michel Waisvisz, who was in a trio with the percussionist in the 1970s.

That track plus the ones with the three young improvisers provides some of the most emotionally profound sounds on the two-CD set. “Roubait3i+Sven Åke Johansson” finds the drummer linking the tick-tock rolls, conga-like hand beats and cymbal scrapes of Free Jazz with the near-reductionist ethos of the other three. Kerbaj contributes mouthpiece kisses and reverberating gargling; C. Sehnaoui abrasive aviary cries and irregular vibrato, while the most physical of the trio, guitarist Sehnaoui squeezes out undulating electronic flanges. Johansson adds brush swipes and drum-top reverberations.

On the other track, because Waisvisz’s primitive electronics are so lo-tech, the snaps and wiggles he produces successfully destroy any fourth wall that exists between his instrument and C. Sehnaoui’s and Johansson’s acoustic ones. A three-sided Catherine Wheel, the resulting miasma finesses altissimo screeches, hollow body tube blows, accordion-like bellows, rustles and floor scrapes and what sounds like backwards running tape flanging. Each player’s high pitches bond for the finale.

With acoustic instruments paramount, the most notable of the other tracks are those in which the minimalist fare developed by the Lebanese musicians is given a boost into expanded overtones with the harsh baritone saxophone honks and tongue slaps from Gustafson. Otherwise the Middle Eastern musicians – who also include bassist and video artist Raed Yassin –zigzag through a diminishing timbre collection of horn-pressured growling striations and choked parlando; string pulses that encompass tangling, untangling and shifting parameters; plus concussive or distracted percussive scrapes.

More representative of the cross-Continental exchange though is the meeting of Krebs’ table-top instrument and the bass clarinet of London-based, Lebanese bass clarinetist Bechir Saadé. Almost an object lesson in the potential rapprochement between east and west available, this acoustic and electronic interface evolves over 10½ minutes. During the course of the performance it’s buoyed as much by Krebs’ suddenly interjected sound samples plus intermittent on-and-off buzzes as Saadé’s unforced, tongue-stopped and split-tone reed output. Combining barking shouts, harmonica-like wheezing and linear body tube gusts, the reed output balances the scattered, triggered and crackling string pulses. Harmonized, the sound is gradually drained into silence.

Although individual pitches and tones are exposed, a similar strategy evolved about 18 months earlier on three long improvisations recorded in his Paris apartment by guitarist Sehnaoui with British soprano saxophonist Tom Chant, known for his work with drummer Eddie Prévost.

Gradually becoming comfortable with one another’s idiosyncrasies, each subsequent improv is longer than the proceeding one and fascination results from observation of the two pulling apart and knitting together pulses and tones. Sehnaoui, who spends as much time picking beneath the bridge of his acoustic guitar as near the sound hole, and who rubs and slaps his strings as often as he picks, also introduces arpeggios and jetes that could only result from using a bow. For his part Chant vacillates between watery trills, spittle-encrusted slurps and in continuously breathed phrases.

As Chant’s glottal punctuation becomes more wonky and striated – bringing the ligature and alloy of the horn into play as much as the reed – the guitarist treats his instrument as an idiophone with rattles and friction used as sound sources.

Eventually rasgueado pressure and string-hammering are emphasized by the guitarist to such an extent that it sounds as if he’s triggering electronic wave forms. Accordingly, the more-than-24½ minute final variation becomes an exercise in dissonance. Chant outputs ragged honks and windpipe narrowed breaths, while Sehnaoui becomes more percussive with slurred fingering leading to highly rhythmic agitato runs and arco-impersonating buzzing resonations. With Sehnaoui’s fingers propelling an orienteering race on the strings, the saxophonist’s irregular vibrato turns to whippoorwill-like caws echoing inside the horn’s body tube. Mixing spetrofluctuation from Chant’s horn with actions that sound as if Sehnaoui is detuning his strings as he plays, the finale includes a protracted bass string thump and dissolving irregular reed cries.

Much more successfully musically than any equivalent political meeting between Middle Eastern residents, Europeans and Americans, there’s a wealth of memorable improv to experience on these sessions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Studio: 1 S1.1 2. S1.2 3. S 1.3 4. S1.4 5. S1.5 6. S1.6

Personnel: Studio: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Sept 05: WNUR Chicago, IL 2. Sept 05: Warehouse Next Door, Washington DC

Personnel: Live: Mazen Kerbaj (cornet and objects); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Beirut: CDA: 1. Roubait3i+Sven Åke Johansson 2. CS/MW/SÅJ 3. JH/JR/PS 4. Lotta Melin invites 5. AK/BS CDB: 1. Guitars 2. CS/MG/SÅJ I-II 3. DS/MG/MK/RY/SS I 4. DS/MG/MK/RY?SS II 5. BS/JR 6. AK/CS/MK I 7. AK/CS/MK II 8. AS/CS/LN 9. CH/LN/MG 10. CS/MG/MK/RY 11. CH/MG 12. CH/JH/JR

Personnel: Beirut: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet and electronics); Bechir Saadé (bass clarinet and flute); Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone); Mats Gustafsson (tenor, slide and baritone saxophones); Sharif Sehnaoui and/or Charbel Haber and/or Annette Krebs and/or David Stackenäs and/or Per Svensson (guitar); Amit Sen (cello); Raed Yassin and/or Joel Grip (bass); Sven Åke Johansson (percussion, voice); Michael Waisvisz (crackle box); Lise-Lotte Norelius (laptop); Jessem Hindi or Hanna Hartman (electronics, miscellaneous little instruments); Jakob Riis (laptop) and Lotta Melin (conduction/dance)

Track Listing: Cloister: 1.Us Three 2. Four Sputnik 3. What About Seven

Personnel: Cloister: Tom Chant (soprano saxophone) and Sharif Sehnaoui (acoustic guitar)

February 19, 2008

Various Artists

Beirut-Ystad
Olof Bright Editions OBCD 16-17

MAWJA

Studio One

Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 07

MAWJA

“Live One”

Chloë 008

Tom Chant/Sharif Sehnaoui

Cloister

Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 05

Despite the political instability and sectarian violence that continues to disrupt the country, improbably enough the nascent Lebanese Free Music movement seems to progress from strength to strength.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Studio: 1 S1.1 2. S1.2 3. S 1.3 4. S1.4 5. S1.5 6. S1.6

Personnel: Studio: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Sept 05: WNUR Chicago, IL 2. Sept 05: Warehouse Next Door, Washington DC

Personnel: Live: Mazen Kerbaj (cornet and objects); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Cloister: 1.Us Three 2. Four Sputnik 3. What About Seven

Personnel: Cloister: Tom Chant (soprano saxophone) and Sharif Sehnaoui (acoustic guitar)

February 19, 2008

Tom Chant/Sharif Sehnaoui

Cloister
Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 05

MAWJA

Studio One

Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 07

MAWJA

“Live One”

Chloë 008

Various Artists

Beirut-Ystad

Olof Bright Editions OBCD 16-17

Despite the political instability and sectarian violence that continues to disrupt the country, improbably enough the nascent Lebanese Free Music movement seems to progress from strength to strength.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Studio: 1 S1.1 2. S1.2 3. S 1.3 4. S1.4 5. S1.5 6. S1.6

Personnel: Studio: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Sept 05: WNUR Chicago, IL 2. Sept 05: Warehouse Next Door, Washington DC

Personnel: Live: Mazen Kerbaj (cornet and objects); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Cloister: 1.Us Three 2. Four Sputnik 3. What About Seven

Personnel: Cloister: Tom Chant (soprano saxophone) and Sharif Sehnaoui (acoustic guitar)

February 19, 2008

MAWJA

Studio One
Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 07

MAWJA

“Live One”

Chloë 008

Various Artists

Beirut-Ystad

Olof Bright Editions OBCD 16-17

Tom Chant/Sharif Sehnaoui

Cloister

Al Maslakh Recordings MSLKH 05

Despite the political instability and sectarian violence that continues to disrupt the country, improbably enough the nascent Lebanese Free Music movement seems to progress from strength to strength.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Studio: 1 S1.1 2. S1.2 3. S 1.3 4. S1.4 5. S1.5 6. S1.6

Personnel: Studio: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Sept 05: WNUR Chicago, IL 2. Sept 05: Warehouse Next Door, Washington DC

Personnel: Live: Mazen Kerbaj (cornet and objects); Vic Rawlings (cello and surface electronics) and Michael Bullock (bass and feedback)

Track Listing: Cloister: 1.Us Three 2. Four Sputnik 3. What About Seven

Personnel: Cloister: Tom Chant (soprano saxophone) and Sharif Sehnaoui (acoustic guitar)

February 19, 2008

ALESSANDRO BOSETTI/ANNETTE KREBS

Alessandro Bosetti/Annette Krebs
GROB 540

KAI FAGASCHINKSI/MICHAEL RENKEL
Rebecca (Two Variations)
Charhizma 022

Small music duos, these CDs both featuring a woodwind player plus someone manipulating a prepared acoustic guitar, and offer a window into the state of Berlin-centred reductionist music.

Each of the duos is much more concerned about gesture, resonance and texture than melody or rhythm. Yet within these strictures the statements made differ to some extent, especially since soprano saxophonist Alessandro Bosetti and guitarist Annette Krebs divide their music into six mid-length pieces. Clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski and guitarist/zitherist Michael Renkel play two extended piece of more than 37 minutes and almost 32 minutes each -- together about one-third longer than the entire other CD.

Not only that, but while the Bosetti/Krebs tunes were recorded all of a piece in real time in one studio, improvising variations on “Rebecca” occupied Fagaschinski and Renkel for many months before the CD was made. Recorded over a four-day period in the saxman’s flat, the two variations were at that time merely the most recent conceptualizations of the music.

There’s more to it than that as well. Parsing the title, the two point out that the “concept of return” is hidden in the name, with “re” (return), “bec” (back) referring to the act of remembering, and “ca” (circa) stands for the indeterminate. A transplant from Dannenberg, Germany to Berlin, Fagaschinski has long been exploring concepts of restrained improv and electro-acoustic outsounds with like-minded players such as inside pianist Andrea Neumann, who often works in duo with Krebs -- featured on the other CD -- and in solo performance. Michael Renkel, who studied classical guitar in Hamburg, is also part of Phosphor with, among others, Neumann, Krebs and Bosetti, plus percussionist Burkhard Beins, who often works with Fagaschinski.

Although it appears to be little more than strained silence at the beginning, it’s the shorter “Rebecca (Variation No. 6)” that’s more memorable. In front of strummed guitar chords and crab-like manipulations of the zither’s single strings with a mbira-like cast, Fagaschinski rustles out key and reed percussion. When Renkel suddenly hits the front of his guitar full on, the clarinetist introduces quavering circular breathing for a few seconds. As the guitarist strums and picks resonating tone patterns, the reedist expels air currents like a lonely foghorn, creating wheezy, pinched variations on split tones.

Then the guitarist explores bottleneck variations and folk-style chording, turning first to resonating flat-picking and then banging his strings with the heel of the hand as he plays. In response, Fagaschinski blows out purposely-flat streams of colored air that literally sound like a man respiring -- not an instrument. Soon, soggy waterlogged breaths languidly follow this, as Renkel highlights percussive guitar sounds that appear to be played on the instrument’s body not the strings. Finally the plectrumist suggests a two-note rhythmic figure and the clarinetist blows a swelling reed line around it. With guttural single tones and glottal stops, the piece draws to an end, borne on a cushion of vacillating movements from preparations.

Longer by almost seven minutes, “Rebecca (Variation No. 5)” doesn’t really add much more then length to the two’s decision to improvise on the same piece over and over again. Isn’t that why conventional jazzers plays standards? Following scraped and scratched zither and guitar lines, the clarinetist advances a pure, coloratura mellow tone that intensifiers, expands and lengthens, stretching back into itself with a reed-biting augmentation. Somehow producing rolling mouth static, the clarinet tones soon meld with bouncing, ricocheting single string jumps probably from the zither. When flat out finger picking arrives, Fagaschinski first unleashes short chirrups that sound like crickets in a night time forest, then louder, more abrasive split tones that are solid in conception and non-movement. Treatments from Renkel’s side suggest electric organ tones, and as these undulate to form a continuum, the other subtly works his way down the scale ending up with near a-clarinet sounds.

Soon, in response to the resonating whack against a single vibrating string, the reedman’s line split still further, allowing him to come up with a second, complementary tone in a lower register, then a third in a higher register. Resounding and more diffuse air discharges meet the swelling reed organ tones created by preparations that then subside into nutcracker fractures and frog-like croaks. Sporting an almost vibrato-less quivering texture, Fagaschinski sounds fire-extinguisher-like whooshes. Intoning the same note pattern, the guitarist counters with finger percussion that sounds as if cymbals are being rasped and what appears to be strums on the fretguard. Ending with a tone that resembles air leaking from a balloon, the clarinetist’s wavering chalumeau timbre meets harmonically oriented plucks that meld into an almost melody

More extended techniques but fewer attachments to melody are on show on the other CD. Milan-born, Berlin-based Bosetti certainly tries to spread himself as thin as possible, being involved in text-sound compositions, experimental jazz, electro-acoustic pieces, solo sessions and reductionist snuff outs with microtonalists such as French saxophonist Michel Doneda and American reedist Bhob Rainey. Frankfurt-born, Berlin-based Krebs is another classical guitar student interested in the crossover area between improvisation and composition, exploring the possibilities of the electro-acoustic guitar involving structure, noise, the mixing of materials and space, plus using various microphones and pickups.

You can sense that during the six monochromic selections here, as rustling scrapes and shakes from the front of the guitar can often appear to be paper being crumpled, while Bosetti concentrates on hisses, rolling ghost notes and whimpers of whistling air. Although the two may not hear it that way, track four is most instructive because the face off they construct with their idiosyncratic instrumental parries and thrusts sounds like a variation of jazzers trading fours at the end of a piece. Bosetti’s initial emphasized off-key pitch almost turns to a siren wail to counter bell-pealing sounds from Krebs.

When she creates textures that resemble waves washing against the shoreline, he gets more obtuse and dusky, overblowing to produce two distinct tones at once. When she follows this with distorted fades and echoes then appears to be rubbing sandpaper right across the strings and guitar front, he chirps out shrill bird-like tones, split-second squeaks and reed percussion.

On the longer tracks the pronounced sense of structure becomes more expansive, though still in short units. Bosetti variously displays echoing wooden flute timbres, underwater bubble resonance, irregular vibratos and Bronx cheer pressure tongued against the reed and echoed within the body tube as much as from the bell. Krebs’s contributions include a growling mechanized guitar rumble, the rasp of hard objects against the strings and what appears to be the slice of an e-bow across the strands as well. If paper-shredding sounds or something that could be a car motor turning over appear in the aural field, to which instrument can they be ascribed?

The entire creation is showcased most effectively on track two. As restrained tongue slaps and flutter tonguing replace the expelling of colored air from the sax, Krebs turns her repressed scratches and far-away bumps into a dance with the plectrum on the strings beneath the bridge, the thwack of a palm against the strings and barely audible tremolo distortions. Bosetti’s tiny reed chirrups also give way to rolling, smeared reed static and trumpet-like wavering tones Soon the reedist is overblowing, but so quietly and subtly that the augmentation is in texture not volume.

Whatever you think of such experiments, both the duos here have created musical philosophies and set up definite challenges to which others must respond.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Alessandro: 1. 7:27 2. 9:50 3. 9:02 4. 5:53 5. 8:28 6. 5:05

Personnel: Alessandro: Alessandro Bosetti (soprano saxophone); Annette Krebs (eletro-acoustically prepared, tabletop classical guitar, mixing desk)

Track Listing: Rebecca: 1. Rebecca (Variation No. 5) 2. Rebecca (Variation No. 6)

Personnel: Rebecca: Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet); Michael Renkel (acoustic guitar, zither, preparations)

December 22, 2003

PHOSPHOR

Phosphor
Potlatch P501

Restricting itself to group music making, Phosphor (the band) has with PHOSPHOR (the CD) created a fine disc that offers up intricate abstractions and noises without focusing on individual sounds or players. It also indicates how strongly the cult of collective expression has taken hold in certain Continental circles, with Berlin as its epicentre.

Yet one should probably realize that this collection of Austrians and Germans, plus an Italian saxophonist and a British tubaist are able to create sonic magic from these micro-events because each individual has a thorough grounding in more expressive music, be it jazz, contemporary classical, electronica or noise-rock. Singly or together, the eight have worked with almost every prominent minimalist improv musician extant in Europe, North America and the Antipodes, so that ironically the band is literally an all-star aggregation. It has certainly created another crucial document that ranks with the best work of other stillness supporters, such as Chris Burns’ nonet and Wolfgang Fuch’s King Übü Orchestrü, both of which number trumpeter Axel Dörner, featured here, among their members.

As well, the sounds that are revealed on this CD range from the harshest electronic static to near inaudible tones. Mixed with such “real” instrumental tones of trumpet, guitar, tuba, percussion and soprano saxophone are not only the electronics assembled by the trumpeter and Ignaz Schick on live electronics, but creations like Andrea Newman’s inside piano and mixing desk, and Annette Krebs’ electro-acoustic guitar.

Used without gimmickry, Robin Hayward’s tuba makes the most of its distinctive appearances. Its distinctive subterranean reverb stands out from the sudden smashes of electronic static whacks of electric guitars and ringing bells that surround it on the first track. However it’s probably also the brass bass that creates what could be only be described as how a toilet in a long tunnel would sound if it exploded as it was flushed. Additionally that’s probably Hayward’s instrument in one section of the final track, or someone has recorded in stereo a full-grown rhino snoring.

Strings, probably from the guitars or piano rubbed in some way, join with Beins’ accented percussion and reverberating cymbals to give a human dimension to more electronic whooshes and static here and there’s even an identifiable horn bleat -- is it soprano saxophone or trumpet though? -- that appears. Of course when sounds turn to aviary whistles, someone (Beins?) bangs away on what sounds like metal garbage can lids at one point, and the suspicion remains that some of the lower-pitched pounding is someone’s knuckles or a string instrument’s wooden body.

There’s even some (inadvertent?) humor on track 3, when the silence is shattered by what appears to be a ping pong ball being hit. Did the group take time off for a quick set of doubles in the studio? Certainly the sound remains there even after what appears to be an old tugboat leaving the harbor moves past the ping pong table.

Still tracks two and five, the longest at 12:48 and 12:59 minutes produce some genuine, prolonged excitement. Managing to overcome self-imposed sonic limitations, the former transforms whizzing static, microscopic percussive sounds and the saxophone’s flutter tonguing into an aural picture of a tropical rain forest. Saxophone ghost notes and key pops figure on the later, with electronic thunderclaps and percussion seemingly hit at random giving way to string clicks that suggest they’re jumping from one guitar to the other. Later a just-out-of-earshot guitar melody can be heard.

This disc goes a long way towards convincing anyone that sonorous micro sounds can be created selflessly. But the band’s achievement may be sowing seeds of its own destruction. As just one of the many projects that’s raising the profiles of the musicians in this octet, it’s adding to their renown as individuals. History has shown that leaderless collectives rarely last -- ask anyone who was around in the 1968 in France or as part of the 1970s Peace The Movement in North America. Or look at the experience of King Übü, which is definitely woodwind player Wolfgang Fuch’s group, or the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra which has always been led by bassist Barry Guy.

With these examples before you, it becomes even more worthwhile to seek out this sonically adventurous CD. This particular purposeful grouping may never exist again.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. P1 2. P2 3. P3 4. P4 5. P5 6. P6

Personnel: Axel Dörner (trumpet, electronics); Robin Hayward (tuba); Alessandro Bosetti (soprano saxophone); Michael Renkel (acoustic guitar); Annette Krebs (electro-acoustic guitar); Andrea Neumann (inside piano, mixing desk); Burkhard Beins (percussion); Ignaz Schick (live-electronics)

March 15, 2002