Infinite Jest | Invading Pleasures (Nikola Lutz & Mark Lorenz Kysela)

 

Infinite Jest | Invading Pleasures (Nikola Lutz & Mark Lorenz Kysela)
English | Deutsch
Gruen 156 | Audio CD > [order]
Reviews

 

The Stuttgart-based saxophonists Mark Lorenz Kysela and Nikola Lutz are tenacious advocates of experimentation with saxophones and electronics. „Is there anything that one cannot produce with a saxophone?“ This question haunts them and every day they discover something new: soft and loud, light and hard, tender and billowing, green and grunting, askew and silent, short and crisp. Lutz and Kysela play on several saxophones simultaneously, augment their instruments with mechanical and electronic attachments, and demonstrate their devotion to both improvisatory and compositional forms. They are pioneers on the border of what is aesthetically comprehensible. They quickly redefine the state of the art in contemporary saxophone performance if it should become necessary, for example, for a 16th-tone composition. They launch full force into an uncompromising investigation at the slightest suspicion of the listener’s hesitance to participate fully in the acoustic process.
Infinite Jest, the debut album from Invading Pleasures, represents a selection of postmodern sound and musical concepts that will be a delight for all lovers of acerbic acoustic sensuality.

 

Tracklisting

 

1 – Uwe Rasch – aus vierundzwanzig: vierundzwanzig (2008) 6’19’’
MP3

 

2 – Nikola Lutz – Graphic Sound VI (2015) 21’55’’
MP3

 

3 – Uwe Rasch – aus vierundzwanzig: zwölf/einundzwanzig (2014) 14’40’’
MP3

 

4 – Malte Giesen – mit Verlaub (2013) 11’38’’
MP3

 

5 – Remmy Canedo – Criminal Immensity (2013) 09’43’’
MP3

 

6 – Joseph Michaels – Assembly Line (2013) 07’19’’
MP3

 

6 Tracks (70′14″)
CD (500 copies)

 

Nikola Lutz: Sopran-, Alt-, Basssaxofon, Tárogató, Klangobjekte, Stimme, Elektronik
Mark Lorenz Kysela: Sopran-, Alt-, Tenorsaxofon, Kontrabassklarinette, Klangobjekte, Elektronik
Malte Giesen Live-Elektronik in Nr 4
Remmy Canedo Live-Elektronik in Nr 5
Alle außer Nr 5: geschrieben für Invading Pleasures

 

Aufgenommen am 19.-22. Januar 2015 im Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal
Produzent: Frank Kämpfer
Tonmeister: Robert F. Schneider
Toningenieure: Hendrik Manook, Eva Pöpplein
℗ & © 2015 Deutschlandradio / Gruenrekorder
eine Co-Produktion mit dem Deutschlandfunk

 


 

aus vierundzwanzig: vierundzwanzig
aus vierundzwanzig: zwölf/einundzwanzig – Uwe Rasch

For some years now, I have been working on a body of work based on the 24-part song cycle Die Winterreise by Franz Schubert. As a work in progress, individual sections of the songs and text are adapted, formed into modules, written out as various pieces, adjusted according to place and other similarities, set side by side.
I treat the work of Schubert and Müller as an example of medial work about marginalized people in an urban context, who are to be found in every big city today but are hardly acknowledged.
Schubert’s music and Wilhelm Müller’s text form a framework for associating, points of departure or resistance in the search for music and impressions in sound: loose, not simply quoting or chronological. For the module aus vierundzwanzig: vierundzwanzig, which is based on Der Leiermann, the last of the 24 songs, both saxophones produce small differences in pitch (a whole tone is divided into 16 tones) so that beating, difference tones and combination tones constantly emerge. Instead of keeping the voice and piano as far apart as possible, as can be found in the original, the pitches are layered on top of one another so that a heterophonic unison emerges due to the small differences in pitch: the sounds begin to glow.
The succession of pitches in the module aus vierundzwanzig: zwölf/einundzwanzig is derived from excerpts of the twelfth (Einsamkeit) and the twenty-first (Das Wirtshaus) Schubert songs, which are laid on top of one another. Each song is assigned to one of the instruments. The music consists of constant bisbigliandi (timbral changes in pitch) and the playback, which is based on the barking of dogs. Treated like an imaginary trio partner, the playback is switched on and off with foot pedals by both players until it gradually disintegrates and, like the entire piece, comes to rest.

 

GraphicSound VI – Nikola Lutz:
The series GraphicSound investigates the relationships between visual and auditive perception through improvisation. It was conceived by Nikola Lutz and Rebekka Uhlig in 2006. Since then, a number of collective and individual works from both artists have come to life.
GraphicSound VI is a musical concept with graphic scores. Through graphics that are emblematic but not too transliteral, a focus emerges on an openly defined material, which the improvisational development of the music redirects without fully determining it. The non-hierarchical concurrence of visual and acoustic perception becomes the formative force of the piece, which is being realized in variable versions.
About Its Development:
The next step was a collection of photographs on a given topic – in this case detailed shots of the contrabass clarinet and tárogató. Designs created from the photographs through a process of abstraction were scanned and transferred to half-transparent slides. This collection of materials enables superimpositions, thus leading to a formal, variable score that is rearranged in each performance.
Analogous to the graphic collection, Nikola Lutz and Mark L. Kysela recorded a series of improvisations for Graphic Sounds VI, which Nikola Lutz later assembled into the present collage. Through the superimpositions as well as interference in pitch as well as the speed and direction of the playback, the material undergoes changes that maintain its identity while simultaneously developing it further. The relationship of the original photographs to the designs is reflected in this transformation. Processes of seeing and hearing interlock and condense extemporaneously from the collection of possible realizations into one of many imaginable forms.

 

mit Verlaub (gehoben, eine möglicherweise Ärger erregende Aussage einleitend) – Malte Giesen
Two saxophones played, two saxophones manipulated, doubling of the instrument, doubling of the pitches with general Midi sounds and meaningless speech, from pure unison pitches to multiphonics to full throttle noise. The integration of “improper”, awkward material.
The synthetic saxophone sounds are the stylization of the original, a bad copy.
One could also see the quoted speech as such. In terms of the content, it, too, is ultimately a “bad copy”. It does not strike one immediately as musical material, but it is treated exactly as that: the playback speed and the duration of the speech fragments are linked directly to the pitches and the durations in both saxophones. Through the constant repetition of the same words, they lose their substance, become hollow, and transform into a rhythmic pattern that serves only as a mold for further timbral changes.
Formally, the piece is constructed as a repetition of three variations of the playback: the attempt at a unison at the highest speed possible, two voices with individual tempo fluctuations, and simple two-voice music as a sort of bicinium. These variations are repeated continuously, but with each repetition something changes, comes undone, becomes obscure. The essential and the non-essential elements of the variations blur and little by little withdraw from recognizability. Like a copy of a copy of a copy. From the chromatic into the spaces in between, from a pattern into disintegration.

 

Criminal Immensity – Remmy Canedo:
Criminal Immensity is about sound meta-annihilation, abstract violence, broken lines and tempo shifts. Based on a text by Georges Bataille, the piece explores the stratification of instrumental gestures. The material is organized by the algorithmic translation of verses into temporal matrices, exposing a fragmented narrative that follows the structure of these seven strophes of the poem. A tap tempo implementation allows the performer to control the speed of every passage, hence the total length fluctuation. Originally written for Patrick Hammer as a monophonic piece, this CD contains an alternative stereo version.

 

Fragment of L’Archangélique by Georges Bataille

 

Immensité criminelle
vase fêlé de l’immensité
ruine sans limites

 

immensité qui m’accable molle
je suis mou
l’univers est coupable

 

la folie aimée ma folie
déchire l’immensité
et l’immensité me déchire

 

je suis seul
des aveugles liront ces lignes
en d’interminables tunnels

 

je tombe dans l’immensité
qui tombe en elle-même
elle est plus noire que ma mort

 

le soleil est noir
la beauté d’un être est le fond des caves un cri
de la nuit définitive

 

ce qui aime dans la lumière
le frisson dont elle est glacée
est le désir de la nuit

 

Assembly Line – Joseph Michaels:
Like many of my recent works, Assembly Line transplants elements from popular music into an experimental context: a distinct pulse, tonal inflections and symmetrical structures are intermingled with 16th-tone microtonality and grinding dissonance.
Compositions that begin with only sound as the impetus are the hardest to name. In such cases, I often look for a metaphor from every day life. Inspired by the electronic timbre of the playback and the repetitious nature of the music, eventually the thought sprung to mind of an automated assembly line.
Nearly all of the sounds in the playback come from a recording session with Mark L. Kysela and his soprano saxophone. I recorded him playing a three-octave A-flat major scale, which was then manipulated into the material for the playback.
The work was written for Nikola Lutz and Mark Lorenz Kysela, who premiered it on May 16, 2014 at the GEDOK Galerie in Stuttgart, Germany. The commission was made possible through funding by the Robert Bosch Foundation.

 


 

Remmy Canedo
is a digital alchemist that transmutes mechanical waves into experimental electronic art. He studied composition and computer music at the University of Chile (BA) with Jorge Pepi Alos, at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart (MA & Konzertexamen) with Marco Stroppa, and later at IRCAM (Cursus 1 & 2) with Hector Parra. His music explores the manipulation and deformation of sound in real time, and his interest especially lies with experimentation and dialogue between machines and performers. In the past years, his work has focused on the implementation of live algorithmic composition as an expansion of the concept of sound manipulation. In terms of the score, he generates interactive networks that involve the compositional process, performers and visual elements for the creation of multiform music. In 2012, he started creating audiovisual installations together with Tobias Hartmann, which gave birth to AVAF (AudioVisualArtFabrik), a collective for interactive art. In addition, he founded the Reactive Ensemble, an electronic ensemble specialized in computer music design for the performance of electronic music & multimedia art, which has been active since 2013.
www.vimeo.com/channels/remmycanedo

 

Malte Giesen
Born 1988 in Tübingen, studied composition/computer music in Stuttgart and Berlin, teacher at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music since 2015. He received first prize at the German Music Competition in Composition in 2009. Assistant conductor, artistic and technical advisor for Ensemble Ascolta since 2012. Performances in Germany and abroad, including the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, Sonar Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, Sonic.Art Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Ascolta, ensemble recherche, ensemble mosaik, Ensemble Kuraia, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Orchestre du CNSM, Ardey Saxophone Quartet, Namascae Lemanic Modern Ensemble, SUONO MOBILE global. Music performed at festival such as Donaueschingen, Vienna Modern, Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Ars Nova Rottweil, Neue Töne Open, blurred edges Hamburg, Stuttgart Saxophone Festival. Collaborator with artists from other disciplines, taught New Music at schools and music schools, founding member of Klangbüro, artistic and organizational collaboration for SUONO MOBILE – Initiative for New Music, and cofounder of the Stuttgart-based festival Neue Töne Open.
www.malte-giesen.de

 

Mark Lorenz Kysela
was born in Stuttgart in 1971. He studied classical saxophone, chamber music and contemporary music in Frankfurt and at the CNR Bordeaux/France with Marie-Bernadette Charrier and Jean-Marie Londeix. His main points of interest lie in the fields of new, newest and experimental music, free improvisation and electronic and computer music. Mark not only regularly performs as a saxophonist but also as an ad-hoc player, performer, composer and electronic technician at important festivals for contemporary music and improvised music, both nationally and internationally. He focuses on the collaboration with the composer and artists of other artistic branches as well as on his own production of all kinds of musical and multimedia concepts. His work has been documented through many broadcasting and CD productions. He has performed and premiered a considerable number of his pieces as a soloist or in various chamber formations. Important persons in his present artistic biography include Alan Hilario, Martin Schüttler, Michael Maierhof, Christoph Ogiermann, Eckart Beinke, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Robin Hoffmann, Hannes Seidl, Thomas Stiegler, Maximilian Marcoll, Fred Frith. A close artistic friendship exists between Kysela and the dance performers and choreographers Claudia Senoner and Fabian Chyle, which is reflected in frequent collaborations. He is the saxophonist for the ensemble Oh Ton (www.ohton.de) and many other ensembles. Furthermore, he is a member of the collective of musicians and composers stock11. Together with Jörg Koch and Matthias Schneider-Hollek, he is artistic director of the monthly electronic music and improvisation series “Elektrominibarklingelton” (www.elektrominibarklingelton.de). His solo CD “Eins+”, which features six contemporary pieces, was published under the Frankfurt label Gruenrekorder in 2013.
www.stock11.de

 

Nikola Lutz
studied saxophone in Bordeaux and Stuttgart and has made a name for herself as a saxophonist of new and experimental music. Her constant interest in developing creative literature for the saxophone is marked by numerous premiers. She has been a lecturer in classical saxophone at the Conservatory for Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart since 2006. In 2010, she was awarded first prize and the audience prize at the International Saxophone Competition in Paris.
In addition to her active concert schedule, Nikola Lutz engages with electronic composition and the possibilities to expand the instrument through electronics. Electronic and acoustic sound worlds overlap and find new aesthetic points of contact in her sound sculptures, which exist somewhere between composed and improvised New Music. She is especially interested in interdisciplinary concepts, such as her series “GraphicSound”, where graphic scores and modified vinyl are confronted with audiovisual perception and sound design.
In addition to the saxophone, she began to play the tárogató, an Eastern European folk instrument, in 2013. Since then, she has been working on establishing new literature for the instrument. She has gone on tour with classical and experimental music throughout the US, China, Brazil, Russia, India and European countries. In 2015, she became a cofounder and the chair of the Stuttgarter Kollektiv für aktuelle Musik.
www.nikolalutz.de

 

Joseph Michaels
(born 1977 in Oberlin, Ohio, USA) is a freelance composer, multimedia artist and concert curator based in Stuttgart, Germany. Michaels interest in probing sound worlds and their social implications is evident in many of his recent works, which confront experimental classical music with events and sounds from every day life and other familiar settings. His music features extended techniques, alternative tuning systems, music theater, and various media, such as video and the playback of prerecorded material.
Michaels is also active in bringing music from other composers and performers to the stage. In January 2015, he began working as a board member for the Stuttgarter Kollektiv für aktuelle Musik, whose aim is to promote experimental music in Southern Germany.
Michaels’ works have been performed in North America, South America, Africa, and Europe by such performers as the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, ensemble cross.art, Geoffrey Deibel, Stephen Mattingly, Thürmchen Ensemble, Truike van der Poel and Andreas Fischer (Neue Vokalsolisten), Rohan de Saram, and Ensemble SurPlus. As a guest composer, he has been invited to conservatories in Europe and the United States. His music has been broadcast on WDR3 and Freies Radio Stuttgart and performed at such notable venues as Acht Brücken, Curitiba Biennial, Gaudeamus, and ISCM Miami.
www.michaelssound.com

 

Uwe Rasch
Studied at the University of Bremen and at the Conservatory of Art and Music, Bremen; guest in the composition class of Rolf Riehm, Frankfurt; scholarship recipient of the Conservatory of Bremen; worked for some years as a freelancer at Radio Bremen; adjunct at the School for the Arts Bremen until 2008; music educator, cofounder and employee of neue musik bremen; member of the artist’s group stock11.
Most of Rasch’s work feature audio-visual combinations, gestural, semi-staged, concert-installation moments as well as the most diverse similarities between body (movement) and sound; sound impressions very often develop in collaborations with actors, dancers, singers, and video artists.
2013 CD/DVD: Musik als Leibesübung 1993 – 2009
www.stock11.de

 


 

Artwork
For the front cover of the present CD, Jörg Koch created an independent picture from the photographs that were used for the preliminary stages of GraphicSound VI. The 70 original pictures were stacked on top of each other and mixed together with various blend modes. Thus, certain areas were emphasized, distorted, or eliminated depending on their coloring. The process of superimposing and abandoning complete controllability correlates with the improvisatorial concept of Nikola Lutz’s GraphicSound… yet it also leaves its own mark.

 

Photographers
Joseph Michaels: Patricia Neligan
Nikola Lutz & Mark Kysela: Gerhard Killet
Malte Giesen: Fondation Royaumont – Agathe Poupeny
Remmy Canedo: HyunJun Hong
Everything else: privat

 

Thanks to
Achim Reiter, Patrick Hammer, Jeanette Singer, Gerhard Killet, Harald Dallhammer, Jörg Koch, Rebekka Uhlig, Piet Johan Meyer

 

Invading Pleasures (Nikola Lutz & Mark Lorenz Kysela)

 

Sound Art Series by Gruenrekorder
Germany / 2015 / Gruen 156 / LC 09488 / GEMA / EAN 4050486947142

 


 

Reviews

 

Ed Pinsent | The Sound Projector
Intensive exploration of the possibilities of the saxophone in modern music on Infinite Jest (GRUENREKORDER Gruen 156). The duo Mark Lorenz Kysela and Nikola Lutz, calling themselves Invading Pleasures, are consummate players dedicating to pushing envelopes and expanding the boundaries of what is considered possible to play on the saxophone. To that end, here are six compositions and situations set up to test their mettle, including works by Uwe Rasch, Malte Giesen, Remmy Canedo, Joseph Michaels, and Lutz herself. They treat the sounds of their instruments extensively with live electronics, play multiple instruments at the same time, and draw no lines between composition and improvisation. The works here are heavily annotated, but these notes mostly describe the elaborate processes involved in their creation; one of them uses graphics scores derived from photographs, another piece doubles up the instrument pitches with “Midi sounds and meaningless speech”. Still another boasts that it is “about sound meta-annihilation, abstract violence, broken lines and tempo shifts” and goes on to quote Georges Bataille. In short, I know when I’m outsmarted; this release is far too intellectualised and hyper-musical for me to derive much enjoyment from it, and while one can admire the skills on offer and the unusual sounds created, the operation feels far too poised and contrived, and the music emerges as something cold and clinical in its perfection. The work doesn’t appear to be about anything, other than the process by which it was created, and the musicians’ ability to play it. From 26 January 2016.
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Katrin Hauk | freiStil – Magazin für Musik und Umgebung / #67
infinte jest (Gruenrekorder/gruenrekorder.de) umfasst neue Musik für zwei Saxofone, gespielt vom Duo Invading Pleasures mit Nikola Lutz und Mark Lorenz Kysela. Uwe Raschs Stück aus vierundzwanzig: vierundzwanzig eröffnet das Album. Rasch bezieht sich in seinem Zyklus aus vierundzwanzig auf Schuberts 24-teiligen Liederzyklus Die Winterreise und verarbeitet einzelne Lied- bzw. Textteile zu neuen Modulen. Beim ersten Stück spielen die beiden Musiker unisono eine Melodielinie im hohen Register. Beim zweiten Stück aus vierundzwanzig: zwölf/einundzwanzig, ebenfalls Teil dieses Albums, fügt Rasch Elektronik und Klangobjekte hinzu. Fast alle Stücke auf dieser CD beinhalten elektronische Zuspielungen bzw. Live-Elektronik, wie etwa auch Malte Giesens Komposition mit Verlaub (gehoben, eine möglicherweise Ärger erregende Aussage einleitend). Schnelle Saxofonlinien fallen hier zu Beginn nach unten, begleitet von elektronischen Klängen, die sich im weiteren Verlauf des Stücks in Stimmengewirr veränderen. Neben Musik dieser beiden Komponisten gibt es noch Arbeiten von Remmy Canedo, Joseph Michaels und Nikola Lutz selbst zu hören. Lutz‘ Stück GraphicSound VI basiert auf Detail-Fotografien einer Kontrabassklarinette und eines Tárogató, die in einem weiteren Schritt abstrahiert werden und durch Überlagerungen zu einer variablen Partitur führen. Jedes dieser Stücke trieft nur so vor Hirnschmalz. Die Musik selbst klingt dennoch nie konstruiert, was den beiden Interpreten zuzuschreiben ist. Sie spielen gekonnt, mit Überzeugung und bringen es stets auf den Punkt.
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Guillermo Escudero | Loop
Behind Invading Pleasures are Stuttgart-based saxophonists Nikola Lutz: soprano, alto, bass saxophone, Tárogató [an Eastern European folk instrument], sound objects, voice, electronics, and Mark Lorenz Kysela: soprano, alto, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, sound objects, electronics. Both musicians hold an important career in contemporary and improvised music. Their interest is pointed at to expand the possibilities of the instrument through electronics.
„Infinite Jest“ is a new release in the Sound Art Series of the German label and consists of six compositions by musicians Uwe Rasch [two pieces], Nikola Lutz, Malte Giesen, Remmy Canedo and Joseph Michaels.
In the two Rasch’s compositions „aus vierundzwanzig: vierundzwanzig“ the two saxophone sound almost in unison playing the same notes, many of which are electronically manipulated to produce intricate shapes.
„Grahic Sound VI“ by Nikola Lutz’s, the sax emits guttural sounds, some of them almost unnoticeable.
On „aus vierundzwanzig: zwölf / einundzwanzig“ by Uwe Rasch overlap to the sax electronic and acoustic noise and distorted voices.
„mit Verlaub“ by Malte Giesen blend voices with pitch variations and swirling sax attempt to produce a dialogue.
On „Criminal Immensity“ by Remmy Canedo display staccato and sustained sax notes alogwith computer generated sounds.
The last piece of Joseph Michaels „Assembly Line“ computer generated sounds come together with repetitive and espectral sax notes.
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DM | VITAL WEEKLY
So let’s change to the Invading Pleasures, which is the name of a Stuttgart-based duo of saxophonists Mark Lorenz Kysela and Nikola Lutz. They have an interest for combining saxophone with electronics. ‘Infinite Jest’ is their debut album, counting six compositions that all illustrate this interest. Five works are especially written for them. Two parts from Rasch’s work ‘Aus Vierundzwanzig’, a work by Nikola Lutz himself, Plus three compositions by Malte Giessen, Remmy Canedo and Joseph Michaels. All works have in common that electronics play an important role in embedding, manipulating, transforming the sax playing, etc. Highly experimental and conceptual. But again I have to say that this accomplished music did not work for me. I don’t like the combination of sax and other – often electronic – sounds. Also the compositions didn’t impress me. All together these two releases are too far away from my aesthetics.
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textura
Gruenrekorder has certainly made a name for itself as a central hub for field recordings-related activity, but there are other sides to the label, too, one of which is symbolized by Infinite Jest, a seventy-minute collection produced by Stuttgart-based saxophonists Mark Lorenz Kysela and Nikola Lutz under the Invading Pleasures name. Though it’s tempting to describe the release as representative of the label’s more conventional musical side, such a description is misleading: the material, while rooted in musical form, is anything but conventional; instead, it’s as daring and experimental as anything else in the Gruenrekorder catalogue and fittingly is presented as an installment in the label’s Sound Art Series.

 

The saxophonists draw inspiration from the instrument’s seemingly limitless sound-generating possibilities, especially when it’s augmented by electronics, and fervently apply that mindset to the six settings on the recording, two of them by Uwe Rasch and one by Lutz herself. The range of music explored on the album might not match the mind-boggling sprawl of David Foster Wallace’s novel—what recording could?—but it does at the very least suggest it. In pursuit of their goal, Kysela and Lutz arm themselves with soprano, alto, tenor, and bass saxophones, as well as contrabass clarinet, tárogató (an Eastern European folk instrument), and, of course, electronics. Both musicians are engaged in exploring the overlaps between composed and improvised forms and between the acoustic and electronic realms.

 

Rasch’s two pieces derive from a body of work he’s creating based on Schubert’s twenty-four-part song cycle Die Winterreise. The first of the two, aus vierundzwanzig: vierundzwanzig (based on “Der Leiermann,” the last of the cycle’s songs), catches one’s ear immediately due to the minute differences between the saxophones‘ unison lines. Beating effects are generated when the pitches closely align, and the pitch-shifting capacity of the instrument allows the patterns to gradually converge and diverge, making for all kinds of fascinating sonic effects. The second, aus vierundzwanzig: zwölf/einundzwanzig, uses pitches taken from the twelfth (“Einsamkeit”) and the twenty-first (“Das Wirtshau”s) songs, which are overlaid and separately voiced by the instruments. Complicating matters, a playback triggered by the players‘ foot pedals and based on the barking of dogs appears as recurring punctuation.

 

The energy level escalates in Malte Giesen’s mit Verlaub, a wild, roller-coaster collage of bleating saxes, garbled voice chatter, multiphonics, unison pitches, programmed beats, and noise. A somewhat macabre dimension is added to the project via Remmy Canedo’s Criminal Immensity, which doesn’t come as a complete shock given that it’s based on Georges Bataille’s L’Archangélique and smears the saxophones‘ grinding and groaning with scabs of grime and distortion. As aptly titled but a little easier on the ears is Joseph Michaels‘ Assembly Line, which re-assembles recordings of Kysela’s soprano sax playing to mimic the repetitious operation of an automated assembly line.

 

For Lutz’s Graphic Sound VI, the musicians recorded a series of improvisations that she then shaped into a twenty-two-minute collage. Over the course of the piece, guttural, burbling, braying, creaking, and writhing sounds repeatedly surface in what could be construed as a direct challenge to accepted definitions of music. Still, as interesting as its wide-ranging soundworld is, the piece’s explorative flow arrests the momentum established by Rasch’s opener, and it’s not the only time the listener is asked to accept meander on the recording. To appreciate what Infinite Jest has to offer, there are times when one must attune oneself to its oft-meditative character and set aside expectations of high-intensity fireworks—though there is a generous helping of that, too.
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Łukasz Komła | Nowamuzyka.pl
Nowości z Gruenrekorder. Tym razem coś dla miłośników eksperymentów rozpisanych na saksofony i modułowe instalacje nawiązujące do dzieł Franza Schuberta.

 

Nikola Lutz studiowała naukę gry na saksofonie w Bordeaux i Stuttgartcie. Podobnie Mark Lorenz Kysela. Oboje w swoich pracach skupiają się na łączeniu swobodnej improwizacji z elektroniką. Niekiedy w trakcie komponowania wykorzystują kilka saksofonów naraz. „Infinite Jest” to ich pierwsze wspólne wydawnictwo, które przynosi sześć kompozycji będących próbą interpretacji utworów, takich kompozytorów jak Uwe Rasch, Joseph Michaels, Remmy Canedo czy Malte Giesen. Duet zaskakuje mnogością użytych technik odnoście saksofonu, co w zestawieniu z muzyką komputerową daje nam postmodernistyczną tkankę zanurzoną w eksperymentach z formą, jak i brzmieniem. Luzt i Kysela nieustannie dopieszczają dysonanse, chropowatości oraz pozbawiają słuchaczy wszelki skojarzeń i prostych nawiązań. Ich myślenie na „Infinite Jest” pokazuje, że kreują swój własny świat dźwięków. []
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