Gruenrekorder » peripheries | Katharina Klement

peripheries | Katharina Klement

peripheries | Katharina Klement
Sound portrait Belgrade 2014 – 2016
Gruen 173 | Audio CD > [order]
Reviews

In 2014, I spent nine weeks in Belgrade, focusing on the questions, “What does this city sound like? Is it possible to portray it using sounds?”
In numerous excursions to different areas of the city, I collected sounds and noises. In addition, I conducted several interviews about the soundscape of Belgrade with people of different ages and backgrounds. The resulting comprehensive acoustic archive, or memory, became the basis of my compositional approach.

One characteristic of Belgrade is its numerous peripheries: Even within the historic city center, you may quickly and unexpectedly find yourself in fringe areas. The transitions are sudden – when it comes to sounds, you abruptly move from loud and noisy areas into others that are delicate and subtle. Also, I discovered circles in various contexts: in architecture, in ornaments, in traffic regulations; even time seems to be perceived as circular rather than clocked and linear as it is commonly understood in central Europe.

I designed a score by using my city map: The location of my apartment was the center, around which I drew eight concentric circles. During the compositional process, all the recordings from each of these rings were combined into one layer, resulting in eight musical layers.

The piece was then composed with eight channels, for a setting that uses eight speakers. On this CD, you will hear a stereo version of the piece.
Like in an “acoustic blender,” selected field recordings (some raw and some processed) create a sustained moment of density: a musical likeness of Belgrade. While the components of this sound portrait are taken from the acoustic reality of the city, the compositional process transforms them, giving them a new quality. Belgrade’s highly expressive and captivating character was extracted and abstracted through music.

The entire structure is divided into smaller sequences which, however, merge seamlessly.

Track List:

1. entrée | 4:23 min.
I enter the city, slowly approaching its background noise. I take the elevator to my apartment on the sixth floor. If you listen from my balcony, you can make out some of the city’s ambiance.

2. induction | 6:00 min.
Part of the raw material for this piece is a recording of a model of Nikola Tesla’s induction motor with an egg-shaped rotor, found in Tesla Museum, Belgrade. The rotating motor and the magnetic field it creates lead to the “egg” spinning on its major axis and standing on end.
The other part of the material for this piece comes from the two fountains in front of Belgrade’s Tesla and Tito Museums. The sounds of the rotating “egg” merge with the polyphonic song of the rushing water.

3. nijemo kolo (mute dance) | 4:02 min.
This piece functions entirely without pitch, using only noise-like material. It was created in memory of the great number of dead who are buried in this city and no longer have a voice but are etched into the city nevertheless. The piece is fashioned of sound particles such as the sound of the countless flames of slender candles in Orthodox churches as they are snuffed out in water; of the popcorn stands that dominate the city; of nuts, of fireworks, and of the recording of a “njemo kolo,” a silent dance during which only the rhythm of steps and jumps can be heard.

4. zeleni venac (green wreath) | 6:34 min.
The urban neighborhood of “zeleni venac” is a hub of people and goods; located right next to Brankova Street, it represents a link to both Novi Beograd and Zemun, a neighboring suburb. The area consists of a major bus terminal with a large-scale underpass alongside an open market. The former restaurant “To the green wreath” has been turned into a McDonald’s. You will encounter Romany selling their goods or playing music amid the masses of passers-by who are on their way from the periphery to the center of the city. Even the soccer players, a common sight all across the city, take center-stage acoustically in this piece.
MP3

5. escalator | 4:41 min.
Beginning with the recording of an escalator at the “Sava Centar,” this piece takes you on a journey through a number of Belgrade’s neighborhoods. Moving virtually on this escalator, acoustic windows open intermittently to present the atmosphere of one or another of several locations: a concrete mixer on the Ada Ciganlija, birds in the zoo, frogs on the Great War Island, rattling racks at the marketplace of Zemun, and much more.
MP3

6. Karaburma (black ring) | 8:32 min.
The Northeastern neighborhood of Karaburma is where the oldest (Celtic and Roman) settlements of Belgrade were located. Originally situated right next to the Danube, the area was partially a swamp with hot springs that created a constant mist. It was under Turkish rule that the district was first called Karaburma (“black ring”), referring to a forbidden place that people should avoid. In the 19th century, under Prince Milos Obrenovic, executions were carried out there, which only added to the area’s notoriety. Today it is one of Belgrade’s most densely populated neighborhoods, with large apartment blocks. Bordering Karaburma is a sizeable locality settled exclusively by Romany, who live according to their own culture. This historic background, as well as recordings that were made during multiple visits to the area, are what fuels this piece.

7. Tito’s Rondo | 3:18 min.
Historic recordings of several speeches by Tito that reveal much about his political thought served as the basic material for this piece. Even in the 21st century, Tito still occupies a central place within the collective memory of Serbia and all other countries of the formerly united Yugoslavia.
MP3

8. Interviews | 5:22 min.
Several people I interviewed talk about acoustic features of Belgrade. An electronically generated pitch reinforces the natural pitch of each person’s voice.

9. turn | 8:48 min.
Immediately following the interviews, the listener is taken on one more acoustic tour through the city. Embedded in rapid glissandos derived from the interview partners’ voices, characteristic sounds of Belgrade emerge: the bells of the Temple of Saint Sava, crowds from the countless local pubs, animal sounds from the zoo, polyphonic sacred songs, a streetcar. All the previous pieces appear once more in a compressed, miniature version.

9 Tracks (52′00″)
CD (500 copies)

thanks to Land Steiermark / Austria for supporting the residency in Belgrade
many thanks to Bojana Gruvečič, Miloš Tomić, Milenko Vasič, Danijela Mršulja Vasić, Selman Trtovac and Milan Blanuša,
who kindly agreed to be interviewed for this project.
thanks to Valentina Brković, my guide and translator in Belgrade
all tracks composed by Katharina Klement (AKM)
mastering: Martin Siewert | translation: Lea Rennert
photos: Katharina Klement | www.katharinaklement.com
artwork: Sebastian Ristow | www.flatlab.biz

Sound Art Series by Gruenrekorder
Germany / 2017 / Gruen 173 / LC 09488 / AKM / EAN 4050486988459

Reviews

Ed Pinsent | The Sound Projector
Beyond The Fringe
Two recent field recording releases from Gruenrekorder, the German label that offers unparalleled high quality releases and packages in this genre. Both albums are presented in soft digipaks with booklets of full colour photographs, complementing the sounds. Both from 12th June 2017. […]

Katharina Klement may be more well-known to many as a contemporary classical pianist, and indeed many of her solo albums of piano music can be found on her own KalK label since 1996, although she’s also represented on the Austrian label Extraplatte. On Peripheries: Sound Portrait Belgrade (Gruen 173) she’s demonstrating her very able skills in the genre of documentary / field recording, and unlike Namblard she’s concentrating on an urban area for inspiration and sounds. Indeed she has explicitly set herself a challenge to convey the truth of this city with her microphones, or to use her own words: “what does this city sound like? Is it possible to portray it using sounds?” Her own response was comprehensive, to say the least. She not only recorded sounds of Belgrade, but interviewed the locals, building up what she calls an “acoustic archive” over a period of nine weeks. But it wasn’t just about sound; through her peregrinations, she found Belgrade to be a place of “numerous peripheries”, by which she means you can turn a corner at any moment and enter a “fringe area”, as it were a pocket of space outside the bustling city centre, moving from loud and noisy places into quiet zones in a matter of seconds. Further: the motif of the circle imprinted itself on her creative brain, and I suppose once she’d spotted it she started seeing it everywhere – on buildings, on decorations, road signs.

Klement felt that she now had a map in her hands, a map of the city which clearly had been drafted through her own singular creative process. Many readers will recognise this as something not unlike the Situationists and their “dérives” of Paris, except they were trying to subvert society and normalcy by going against the grain of the map with their meandering, purposeless walks. By contrast, I would say that Katharina Klement was trying to seek out a hidden truth, and may have come close to cracking the code of Belgrade. She used this information as the basis of her composition, one in which concentric circles naturally played an important part. There is an eight-channel version of the work; we get a stereo version on this CD. Besides her summary of the compositional process, there are also paragraphs of notes attached to each of the nine episodes on the CD, which reveal further fascinating details of the life of Belgrade and the unusual objects and places she thought fit to record. These include a Tesla induction motor, housed in the Tesla Museum; Romany markets and musicians in Zeleni Venac; and a magic escalator ride that starts in a business centre and takes the listener past the zoo, an island, a marketplace, and a concrete mixer.

In just nine weeks, this remarkable composer learned and absorbed a lot of history, got to know several people, and demonstrated remarkable sensitivity to capturing the nuances of their voices in interviews, ultimately telling many stories about Belgrade in her imaginative and well-crafted sound explorations. It takes a rare mind that is able to reach and understand the heart of a place as thoroughly and as sympathetically as Klement has done with this work. Such works remind us why artists, not politicians or town planners, should be put in charge of managing the layout and throughput of large cities; the results could only be beneficial for everyone in society.
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ACL 2017 ~ Top Ten Field Recording & Soundscape
Katharina Klement ~ peripheries (Gruenrekorder)
“What does Belgrade sound like?” Katharina Klement asks the question not only of herself, but of the local residents she encounters, with colorful results. She travels the streets, picking up memories and realities, visiting the trolley bus, the river, the zoo. In the end, the inhabitants are the greatest draw, the warmth and humor of their responses painting the city with natural ebullience. (Richard Allen)

Pierre Cécile | Le son du grisli #3
Il faut souvent s’armer de patience avant d’écouter un disque Gruenrekorder – label, rappelons-le, spécialisé dans le eld recor- ding. Je veux dire : lire les textes qui posent le décor de l’enregistrement, relier des coordon- nées géographiques à des points cardinaux, voire suivre à la trace et au fur et à mesure de l’écoute le musicien (ou le capteur) qui a décidé, un beau jour, de livrer son travail sur CD.

Avec la pianiste contemporaine Katharina Klement, c’est un peu di érent. J’explique : j’ai fait deux écoutes de Peripheries. Une sans m’intéresser à son projet, et en y laissant traî- ner mon oreille. Ce que ça a donné ? Comme un violoncelle qui claque avec des bruits venus de partout : des sirènes en milieu ur- bain, des objets remués dans tous les sens, des musiciens des rues, des ventres de pia- no, les crissements d’un terrain de basket… De temps en temps elle s’amuse à looper ce qu’elle a enregistré, et la scène perd de son concret pour résonner d’une autre manière.

A ma seconde écoute, j’ai ouvert le livret du CD et j’ai appris qu’elle avait, en 2014, passé neuf semaines à Belgrade, ville aux nom- breuses périphéries (j’ai appris ça, moi aussi). Elle s’est donc essayé au portrait d’une capi- tale par les sons de ses périphéries. Étrange concept, indeed, mais blu ant aussi. Car je n’ai pas entendu deux fois le même disque

(un peu plus de piano, la seconde fois peut- être ?) mais deux fois il m’a subjugué. Non, le mot n’est pas trop fort : son équilibre entre eld recordings bruts et composition abs- traite m’a littéralement subjugué. Non, le mot n’est pas trop fort : littéralement !

felix | freiStil – Magazin für Musik und Umgebung / #74
Neun Wochen verbrachte Katharina Klement vor drei Jahren in Belgrad. Die Frage, die sich ihr stellte, war, ob und, wenn ja, wie ein akustisches Städteporträt funktionieren könne. An verschiedenen Plätzen – vor allem an den Peripherien der Stadt, wie der Titel schon erklärt, aber auch im Zentrum – sammelte sie Klänge und Krach, Stimmen und Stimmungen und führte Gespräche mit Einwohnerinnen unterschiedlichen Alters über ihre individuellen Hörwahrnehmungen. Der Sound der Donaumetropole, multikulturell in jugoslawischen, nicht mehr ganz so in serbischen Zeiten, mit seiner reichen Geschichte an römischen, keltischen und türkischen Einflüssen, ihrer gesellschaftlichen und historischen Nichtlinearität, ihrer Ambivalenz. Das akkumulierte Klangarchiv bzw. das akustische Gedächtnis Belgrads bildete die Basis für eine Komposition. Wir hören Ambient und Statements, städtische Formationen, Informationen und Transformationen. Das auf field recordings spezialisierte Gruenrekorder-Label erweist sich dabei als ideale Homebase für Klements Belgradkomposition. Der Sound der Straßen, Plätze, Märkte, Kirchen, Kinder u.v.m.; auch widersprüchliche Eindrücke, manche rauh belassen, unbehandelt, manche behutsam elektronisch hinter-, zusammen- oder übereinandergelegt, komponiert eben. Eine sehr aufwändige, besonders schöne Arbeit.
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textura
It’s fitting that these Gruenrekorder releases by Katharina Klement and Marc Namblard respectively appear as part of the label’s Sound Art Series and Field Recording Series: peripheries is very much a highly personalized sound portrait the artist fashioned of Belgrade, whereas F. Guyana is a relatively undoctored set of field recordings collected at French Guiana. Both releases benefit from Gruenrekorder’s customary dedication to high-quality presentation, with each fold-out package supplementing its CD with a full-colour booklet of photographs and text that thoroughly enhances the project. Each also rewards a headphones-styled listen when its sound field is so rich in detail and panoramic in spatial definition.

In 2014, Klement, an Austrian-born and Vienna-based sound artist, spent nine weeks in Belgrade where she collected sound materials from various parts of the city to help answer the questions, “What does this city sound like?” and “Is it possible to portray it using sounds?”; to help flesh out those answers, she also interviewed people of different ages and backgrounds about the city. In conceptualizing the proposed work, she designed a score using her city map with her apartment as the center around which eight concentric circles were drawn; recordings gathered from those demarcated zones were then shaped into eight musical layers to produce a presentation piece featuring eight channels and eight speakers (the fifty-two-minute CD presents a stereo version). The field recordings and interviews give the work a site-specific character, but the artist is very much present in the way the material has been shaped into a nine-part portrait that captures the vitality of the city.

Loosely organized as a travelogue of sorts, peripheries begins with a generalized impression of the setting when Klement, having taken the elevator to her building’s sixth floor, records the city from the balcony of her apartment. Traffic noise, sirens, and barking dogs immediately establish the ambiance of an active industrial center, after which “induction” blends a recording of the rotating ‘egg‘ component in Nikola Tesla’s induction motor with sounds of water taken from fountains in front of Belgrade’s Tesla and Tito Museums. Following that, “nijemo kolo (mute dance)” pushes the project to a greater level of abstraction in wedding sounds of church candle flames being snuffed out in water to a recording of a “nijemo kolo,” a silent dance where only steps and jumps are audible, to produce a sound portrait designed to honour the city’s dead. At this early stage, we’re presented with clear evidence of the composer’s sound-sculpting presence and reminded that peripheries is anything but a pure collection of field recordings, even if some parts are dominated by them (e.g., “zeleni venac (green wreath),” a sound portrait of a busy urban neighborhood filled with people selling goods, playing music, and playing soccer). Yet even in those cases, the field recordings are shaped and processed in a way that reflects Klement’s sensibility. Elsewhere, Turkish musical elements emerge during a portrait of one of Belgrade’s most densely populated neighborhoods, “Karaburma (black ring),” speech recordings by Tito serve as raw material for “Tito’s Rondo,” and a voice collage of sorts forms from interviews (in English) Klement conducted with Belgrade residents. Bringing things full circle, “turn” takes the listener on a final acoustic tour through the city, with elements from the previous pieces reappearing in a shape-shifting piece that incontrovertibly reminds us of the abundant life-forces in play. […]
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Łukasz Komła | Nowamuzyka.pl
Austriacka eksperymentatorka wybrała się do Belgradu, żeby odpowiedzieć sobie na kilka pytań związanych z fonosferą tego miejsca.

Katharina Klement pochodzi z jakże zasłużonego dla historii muzyki współczesnej miasta Graz, choć obecnie mieszka w Wiedniu. Kompozytorka, pianistka i improwizatorka często w swoich kompozycjach wykorzystuje na różnych poziomach preparowany fortepian oraz elektroakustykę. Wydaje płyty od przeszło dwudziestu lat. Oczywiście nie jest jej obcy także soundart o czym świadczy najnowsze wydawnictwo , pt. „peripheries”.

Artystka spędziła w 2014 roku dziewięć miesięcy w Belgradzie, koncentrując się na zadawaniu pytań i szukania na nie odpowiedzi: Co to jest za miasto? Czy można je przedstawić za pomocą dźwięków? Z tego, co wyczytałem, zebrała pokaźną ilość materiału, odwiedzając przeróżne miejsca, gdzie napotykała hałas, zgiełk i delikatność. Słyszymy też fragmenty rozmów jakie Klement uchwyciła chodząc po stolicy Serbii. Katharina podkreśla, że charakterystyczną cechą Belgradu są rozległe peryferia oraz nietypowy układ architektoniczny, który zainteresował ją w kontekście rejestrowanych nagrań. To, co uzbierała, następnie poddała studyjnej edycji (m.in. użyła do tego wielokanałowych głośników, ale na płycie stykamy się z stereofoniczną wersją). Jej zabiegi z dźwiękiem, formą nadały temu projektowi soundartowego wyrazu. Zaintrygowało mnie wiele rzeczy, ale wynotowałem np. zestawienie odgłosów podeszwy buta uzyskane w trakcie meczu koszykówki z elektroakustycznymi preparacjami („zeleni venac / green wreath”). Klement prowadzi nas do wielu fascynujących miejsc (ciężko je wszystkie zliczyć).

Warto wymienić choćby historyczną dzielnicę „Karaburma (black ring)” sięgającą korzeniami do czasów celtyckich i rzymskich. Pierwotnie położona tuż obok Dunaju. Sam obszar był częściowo pokryty bagnami z gorącymi źródłami, które stały się swego rodzaju wizytówką. W XIX wieku, pod rządami księcia Miłosza I Obrenowicia, przeprowadzono tam liczne egzekucje, tylko dodające rozgłosu tym okolicom. Ogólnie mówiło się o tym miejscu jako zakazanym, złowieszczym etc. Dzisiaj jest to jedna z najgęściej zaludnionych dzielnic Belgradu z dużymi blokami mieszkalnymi. Z Karaburmą graniczy osiedle zamieszkałe przez Romów. W „Rito Tito” z kolei mamy okazję posłuchać historycznych przemówień Tito, a także fragmentów wypowiedzi ludzi dotyczących akustycznych cech Belgradu ( „Interview”).

Ktoś kto zna bardzo dobrze Belgrad będzie miał niecodzienną lekturę w postaci „peripheries”. Ja nie znam tego miasta, ale poczułem się tak, jakbym odbył pieszą wędrówkę po zakamarkach tego multikulturowego miasta.
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Richard Allen | a closer listen
What comes to mind when you think of Belgrade? Katharina Klement went on a nine-week mission to discover the sound of the city, and came away with a multitude of answers.

peripheries plays like a sonic photo album, the images more important than the flow. While the album begins with a thump, the field recordings soon settle into a sort of rhythm. As the set progresses, a tapestry is revealed. The overture of the city is heard from a balcony: dogs, sirens, traffic, street music, passers-by. A discernible hum emerges. Is this Belgrade? Can a single chord, a melange of sounds, sum up the city? Klement answers with an emphatic no. Her explorations reveal jagged edges and clear demarcations, from Tesla’s gorgeously amplified induction motor to the bells of Saint Sava.

An unexpected poignancy visits during “nijemo kolo (mute dance)”, though one must read the liner notes to detect it. On the surface, the piece sounds like a work of electro-acoustic experimentalism, similar to that of artists on the empreintes DIGITALes label; but the clicks and clacks, the static and snuffings have a deeper meaning. The piece is dedicated to the silent voices of the city, as the dead speak through candles and the feet of quiet dancers. In the next piece, the voices of the living push them under, but the impression remains, just like the memory of the beloved Zeleni Vanac restaurant, now replaced by *shudder* McDonald’s. In an age of multiculturalism, this information prompts the question of city identity. As distinctive locations and representative sounds are replaced by ubiquitous intruders, the intention that one will feel at home everywhere is replaced by an opposite feeling, a lack of local connection. Klement’s concentric tours tether the listener in more specific sounds, although the zoo recordings hammer home the point, as zoos capture creatures from different areas and gather them in one place so that people don’t have to travel elsewhere to see them.

The most fascinating and culturally relevant portions of the album arrive as local residents are invited to speak about the sounds of the city. The first speaks of the “characteristic” sound of the trolley bus, the second of “small sounds” that are lost in the din. As others speak of the bells or the river using onomatopoeia (“tuk-a-tuk-a-tuk-a-tuk-a-tuk”), another sound begins to sink in: that of accent. The interviewees speak English, yet can only be from Belgrade: pride and pronunciation combined.

What does Belgrade sound like? Like kindness and busyness, sound and silence colliding; like crowds and corners, history and commerce vying for space. In many ways, it may sound like your nearest city; but Klement has underlined its distinctive nature in unmistakable ways. If one’s mind is a sonic map, Belgrade is now clearly marked in large, colorful font.
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Frans de Waard | VITAL WEEKLY
With the weather being all sunny, and located in a very quiet neighbourhood, I sleep with windows open and every morning birds awake me quite early. Being no ornithologist, I have no idea which one, but one of these birds makes a very high-pitched noise, which is, come early morning, quite irritating. How remarkable, I thought a few hours later, that I don’t mind hearing such sounds when they arrive on compact disc. Gruenrekorder is a German label with an extensive catalogue of works that deal with field recordings (you know this of course from the many reviews already appeared here) and here we have two new ones, dealing with places I have never been too. Which always made me wonder if that is a ‚problem‘ or not; can I fully relate to the work at hand, without ever visited the place? Of course it is a bit of a theoretical question, since the review has to be written anyway. […]
Katherina Klement is someone who we mostly know for her work within the field of improvised and composed, mainly with her on the piano. But apparently she is also involved in the world of field recordings and in 2014 she spend nine weeks in Belgrade, „focusing on the questions: ‚what does this city sound like? Is it possible to portray it using sounds?‘ and to that end she not only recorded sounds from the city but also she interviewed people. As Belgrade is a (I didn’t know this) city of numerous peripheries, she drew concentric circles on her map as to design a score, and in each piece she uses sounds from that specific circle. Each of the pieces is described here in the booklet and unlike Namblard Klement layers various sound events together to make a musical composition out of sounds from the city. She uses sounds from market squares, elevators, sounds from the Tesla Museum, concrete mixers, animals in the zoo and even historical speeches by Tito, the first president of Yugoslavia. Klement draws from a wider selection than Namblard does, but also seems to be doing much more when it comes to editing and layering of sounds. Whereas Namblard is mainly about the minimalist approach towards field recordings and create musical piece with these sounds, Klement is more into telling a story with sounds. Maybe one not necessarily gets the story of Belgrade (certainly if one has never been to the city before; it is perhaps not easy to say where this city is, based on hearing these pieces and that includes the Tito talk), but abstract as it is, it is also a fascinating piece (nine of them) of music. Klement is not shy to bend and shape tones, pitch them up or down as she sees fit, as long as it is necessary for the actual composition. Both of these new Gruenrekorder releases are excellent, but I preferred the one by Namblard to the one by Klement, mainly for it’s minimal approach that worked out quite musically.
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Holger Adam | testcard
Draußen vor der Tür: Field-Recordings und Sound-Art von Gruenrekorder
Gruen, gruen, gruen sind alle meine Farben – bereits zum dritten Mal in Folge eine Gruenrekorder-Kolumne in testcard. Wie immer kommt man aus dem Staunen nicht heraus, wenn man sich die Veröffentlichungen des Frankfurter Labels anhört. Unerschrocken und ohne mit der Wimper zu zucken haben sie die Geräusche von laufenden Filmprojektoren auf Vinyl gepresst: Sounds Of The Projection Box heißt das Album von MICHAEL LIGHTBORNE und es dokumentiert das Rattern der Maschinen, deren Geräusche üblicherweise nicht aus der Kabine von Filmvorführern hinaus dringen. Geräusche, die vom Aussterben bedroht sind, weil Filme ja mehr und mehr digital an Lichtspielhäuser übermittelt und dort abgespielt werden. Insofern wird hier akustisches Kulturerbe archiviert, und wer die Platte auflegt, kann sich bei geschlossenen Augen in die Rolle des Filmvorführers imaginieren und zusätzlich versuchen, den Tonspuren bzw. -fetzen der ablaufenden Filme ein zusätzliches Narrativ abzuringen. Ähnlich abenteuerlich auch die Aufnahmen von GREGORY BÜTTNER, der für Voll.Halb.Langsam.Halt die Fahrt eines alten Dampfschiffes, eines Eisbrechers dokumentierte, bearbeitete und sein Vorgehen sowie das Ergebnis wie folgt kommentiert: „I had the chance to take a trip on the ship from Rostock to Rügen over the Baltic Sea in 2010. The body of the ship is completely built from metal, so it is a big resonant room which sounds very different on each spot which I put my contact mics on (I used two contact mics, so I could record in stereo). I walked around the ship, placing my mics on different areas of the ship and also directly on parts of the steam engine, which is still fired by coal. For the composition I only used the pure recordings without additional sound manipulations, only juxtapositions, transitions and cuts.” Alles klar? Der Kahn bzw. das, was Büttner aus seinen Geräuschen macht, kann locker mit Merzbow mithalten. Harter Stoff. Metallisch kühl, aber weniger krachend klingt auch Gasworks von GERALD FIEBIG feat. EMERGE & CHRISTIAN Z. MÜLLER. Der Ort als Resonanzkörper für Geräusche bildet das Ausgangsmaterial für diese CD. Entsprechend räumlich ist in der Tat viel von dem, was es zu hören gibt, organisiert: Echo und Hall spielen eine große Rolle im Klangbild – aber auch eine dialekt-gefärbte Stimme, die von der industriellen Nutzung des Gebäudes erzählt, kommt, ergänzt um Geräusche, zu Wort. So entsteht für das Gaswerk von Augsburg-Oberhausen ein Denkmal. Der gleichermaßen verspielte und dokumentarische Charakter der musikalischen Arbeiten verwandelt den frühindustriellen Arbeitsalltag in eine geisterhafte Klangreise: „Des gibt’s heut‘ nimmer.“ Bemerkenswert. Maschinenmusik ist auch auf der Slotmachine-10“ versammelt, einem Projekt von ACHIM ZEPEZAUER, der von unterschiedlichen Musiker*innen jeweils 45 Sekunden lange Klangskizzen anfertigen ließ, die in der Logik eines Spielautomaten und nach Zufallsprinzip geleichzeitig aufgerufen werden können. Realisiert ist das im Rahmen einer Online-Anwendung, die das Bedienen eines virtuellen Spielautomaten zur Erzeugung der Zufalls-Kompositionen zugänglich macht, hier: http://slotmachine.kuhzunft.com. Viel Spaß! (Die 10“ dokumentiert nur einen kleinen Teil der gewissermaßen unendlichen Kombinationsmöglichkeiten.) Auch KATHARINA KLEMENT liefert mit Peripheries, einem akustischen Portrait der Stadt Belgrad, eine quirlig-nervöse und herausfordernde Arbeit ab. Unter Zuhilfenahme des Stadtplans erstellte Klement eine kartographisch inspirierte Partitur. Verschiedene Lokalitäten in der Stadt wurden aufgezeichnet und ineinander gemischt. So entsteht ein wahres Klang-Gewimmel, das beizeiten wirklich anstrengend sein kann. Ich empfehle nach Selbstversuch folgendes: Die Aufnahmen auf dem Balkon abspielen und die Balkontüre offenlassen, während man im Zimmer bleibt. So entsteht der Eindruck, draußen sei Belgrad! Bei der Gelegenheit gebe ich gerne zu, dass mir im Zweifel die eher ruhigen Aufnahmen aus tropischen Gefilden lieber sind. F. Guyana von MARC NAMBLARD hilft sich vom Stress in Belgrad zu erholen. Allerlei hypnotisches Summen, Surren und Dröhnen der Flora und Fauna von der Nordküste Südamerikas! Auch DAVID ROTHENBERG hat wieder mit allerlei Vögeln Musik gemacht und sich für Nightingale Cities auch zusätzliche menschliche Instrumentalist*innen dazu geholt. Die in Berlin und Helsinki angefertigten Aufnahmen gehören sicherlich zum zugänglichsten Material in dieser Kolumne, die Vögel sind freundliche Wesen, die Musik ist es auch. Wer noch nie eine Gruenrekorder-Produktion gehört hat, kann vielleicht auf diesem Weg einen sanften Einstieg in den Katalog des Labels finden. Frühlingsmusik. Ganz anders und noch besser: die Windharfen-Aufnahmen auf Path Of The Wind von EISUKE YANAGISAWA. Windharfen, große Saiteninstrumente in die Brise gestellt, werden buchstäblich von der Natur gespielt und je nachdem, wo die Windharfen standen mischen sich unterschiedliche Umgebungsgeräusche unter die betörenden Klänge der Instrumente. Ambient Drone mit Seemöve. Minimal Music mit Meeresrauschen. Näher an New Age Klanglandschaften waren Gruenrekorder vielleicht nie, und es schadet nicht: Absolutes Highlight! Das Meer rauscht auch auf De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements von MERZOUGA, die nichts geringeres als eine Komposition auf Grundlage des Lehrgedichtes von Lucretius‘ wagen. Soweit so ambitioniert, aber da muss man sich nicht abschrecken lassen. Musik ist immer Ausdruck von Ideen, hier eben einer dezidiert philosophischen. Und elektronische Musik eignet sich auch nicht erst seit gestern, zur Verdeutlichung, mithin Vermittlung abstrakter Vorstellungen. Und so knistert es kleinteilig, die Atome tanzen unsichtbar aus den Lautsprechern, eine Stimme flüstert hier und da Versatzstücke in englischer und lateinischer aus dem Gedicht usw. – ein kurzeiliges, abwechslungsreiches und durchaus spannendes Hörerlebnis, das dem Überbau entsprechen mag; letztlich aber spielt es zum Genuss der Komposition keine entscheidende Rolle, würde ich meinen. Ähnlich gelagert ist es womöglich im Fall von The Secret Life of the Inaudible von ANNEA LOCKWOOD und CHRISTINA KUBISCH anzuhören. Die beiden Klangkünstlerinnen haben sich Soundfiles von an sich bzw. für Menschen nicht hörbaren geophysikalischen Phänomenen zur gegenseitigen Bearbeitung vorgelegt: elektromagnetische Wellen, Ultraschallwellen, Sonnenwinde… akustische Ereignisse also, die zunächst technisch in eine für das menschliche Ohr hörbaren Frequenzbereich überführt werden müssen und von Kubisch und Lockwood bearbeitet wurden, und die dann – wie auch immer das im Detail von Statten ging – daraus sozusagen dunkle Materie gewannen. Mich würde einmal interessieren, inwiefern, das geologisch-kosmische Quellenmaterial, wo es ohnehin in den hörbaren Bereich übersetzt und also synthetisiert werden muss, nicht auch anders, also mit weniger Aufwand, generiert werden könnte? Ich nehme behelfsweise an, es wäre nicht dasselbe! Wie dem auch sei, das Ergebnis fasziniert: Sunn O))) – Kindergarten dagegen. Finster dräuende, pechschwarze Klangflächen. Wahrhaft infernalische Musik aus dem Reich des sonst Nichtwahrnehmbaren. Hervorragend.
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