***Dutch maverick conceptualist RINUS VAN ALEBEEK interprets the music of the well-known French-Italian tape music composer. As van Alebeek says, he doesn’t make music, and is in fact a writer who abandoned traditional literature and its confines, in favor of “writing” with the cassette recorder. “It is an example of his unique sonic approach to documentary reportage,” supposes our friend at The Sound Projector, “A compelling suite ... which layers together several half-familiar domestic and everyday sounds, along with half-whispered narrating voices, suspending everything in a fluid and open-ended mix…. [C]learly … not ‘composed’ in any normal sense of the word … it unfolds [naturally] and you have no clear idea where it is going, or what to expect next.” The third release in Bôłt’s Populista series of radical reinterpretations of historical music, curated by MICHAL LIBERA.
CD $15.00
02/28/2012
***MAURICIO KAGEL’s 1970s film Ludwig Van, a rather critical piece of avant-garde cinema, asked pointed questions about the ways in which later audiences appropriate and interprete Beethoven’s music. Pianist FREDERIC BLONDY and turntablist DJ LENAR reclaim and reinterpret the soundtrack in this post-modern mashup that includes source material such as Herzog soundtracks, a lecture by Alfred Cortot, samples of string playing and percussion from contemporary improvisation records, and numerous other unknown sounds—all recorded at the Warsaw National Art Gallery, produced the same day as its premiere. “It’s an indescribable puzzle piece,” marvels our friend at The Sound Projector, “A crazy-quilt knitted together from mosaic-fragments of music, and virtually every second of sound appears to have a subversive intent or hidden meaning, one quote leading to another quote. It’s also glorious to listen to…. A fabulous thirty-two minutes of delirious complexity which bends 19th century classical music into 20th century atonal composition, by way of very contemporary techniques (editing, turntabling, mixing, layering).” The second release in Bôłt’s Populista series of radical reinterpretations of historical music, curated by MICHAL LIBERA.
CD $15.00
02/28/2012
***Premiered at The Song Is You Festival in Warsaw in 2009, recorded in Berlin 2010, vocalist BERNHARD SCHULZ and pianist REINHOLD FRIEDL (of ZEITKRATZER) perform the song cycle by famed 19th century German romantic (with lyrics by sarcastic poet HEINRICH HEINE). Schütz’s vocalizing would probably turn a conservatoire vocal trainer pale and induce a coronary seizure. He bends notes around the melody in a snide, mocking way, occasionally punctuating with an angry growl. Attack, sustain and room presence are served generously with Friedl’s assured, decidedly non-quiet keyboard work. The debut release in Bôłt’s Populista series of radical reinterpretations of historical music, curated by MICHAL LIBERA.
CD $15.00
02/28/2012