rauschgiftengelloops | Brandstifter
Gr 036 | Gruen CD-R > [Sold Out]
operatic concert sound installation
„Ihr seid so schön… wie Rauschgiftengel“ („You’re as beautiful as… narcotic angels“) – Liesel F. (72 years) to her granddaughters B. and D. at Christmas. A slip of the tongue (?).
rauschgiftengelloops is an interactive sound installation of plastic angels, gramophone records and record players. The record players which are arranged on one small stage or on several platforms inside the room play gramophone records. The narcotic angels rotate at different rates (17, 33, 45 und 78 upm) on the labels of the records. The arranged plastic angels look pale, their tiny pupils looking seemingly ecstatic up at the colourful and corny lights. Inside their backs they have an injection filled with gold-coloured fluid sticking between the glittery wings. Everytime the pick-up arrives at the dress of the angel, monotonous, spherical, unending loops are being initiated, which change from time to time due to the shifting of weight. Brandstifter [arsonist] kneels in front of the scene and joins in the hypnotic sounds that happen, mixes those like a DJ into each other and improvises live, by replacing the records, a perseverative but even so changing sound collage, as if in a trance. Each concert is unique, affected by the particular acoustics of the location, the musician’s mood and of his audience. The performance of the rauschgiftengelloops is an interdisciplinary action in the form of an operatic concert. Brandstifter is said to „instigate“ where different art sectors – in this case: new music, improvisational music, performance art, performance, sound installation, sculpture – mix, to create an original form of expression. Because the random, the improvisation and the claim to transport life into art play an important role, rauschfgiftengelloops are in the tradition of works of John Cage and the FLUXUS movement.
rauschgiftengelloops
1 Track (40’17“)
CD-R (50 copies)
Mainz / 2005
Gruenrekorder / Germany / 2006 / Gr 036 / LC 09488
Review:
BRANDSTIFTER Rauschgiftengelloops (Gruenrekorder)
We recently discovered this little label in Germany called Gruenrekorder, who specialize in „Phonography and Audio Art“ which translates to field recordings, turntablism and audio installations, which definitely sounded right up our alley. We then discovered that they had 60 or 70 releases, probably more by the time of this review, most cd-r’s and all incredibly limited, usually to 50 or less. Yikes. Had to do some quick thinking, so we picked two of the most promising sounding and got a bunch of those (a bunch meaning 25 copies, which is half of the pressing). So elsewhere on this list you’ll find the other Gruenrekorder release, a field recording of bats (and you know our love of bats is second only to our love of frogs!), which somehow seems to perfectly balance this one right here, a live recording of a sound installation for turntables, records and… plastic angels.
The set up goes like this, a bunch of turntables, all set up on a small dais, each with a plastic angel spinning in the middle of the lp, and each angel with a weight hung between its wings, which shifts with each rotation, and causes various loops to alter, drift, shift, change duration, overlap, all the while, Brandstifter, the man responsible, crawls around moving the angels, replacing the records, changing speeds, the result is pretty magnificent, a looped hypnotic soundscape of operatic voices, fluttering flutes and fiddles, droning whirs, hiccupping song snippets, skipping stuttering rhythms, the vibe very festive, as most of the discs are choral, the voices locked into hypnotic mantras, the various cracks and skips adding percussive filigree. Some passages are epic and triumphant, voices soaring, while others are murky and mumbled, sounding like they could have been yanked from some mysterious Finnish free folk record or from some blurred Philip Jeck turntable landscape.
Haunting and eerie, like some damaged funhouse mirror holiday soundscape, Christmas carols twisted and gnarled, holiday favorites scratched up and looped, bits of opera looped into fuzzy repetitive seasick mantras, you can almost imagine some Tim Burton-ish mad scientist armed with a bunch of dusty scratched up records and weird old fashioned turntables and all those painted angels, hovering in a dark cobwebby corner of some old seventies mall, families and children steering clear of the crazy man in the corner and his murky muddy choral din. SO AWESOME!!!
Beautifully packaged, printed cd-r, full color sleeve, but again, LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!! So once these are gone, that’s it…
