H\ybrid S\ound S\ystem is a spin-off of Berlin's
Zeitkratzer collective featuring Reinhold Friedl on piano, Ulrich Krieger on
saxophones and Burkhard Schlothauer on violin. All three compose, too, and
their work is featured on the first CD of this set along with Manuel
Cecchinato's "Four Constellations Before A Dawn" and Cage's
"Two", for saxophone and piano. The second CD brings together nine
remixes of the material by Carsten Nicolai, Lee Ranaldo, Rene Liebermann,
Boris Hegenbart, Craig Willingham, Masami Akita (aka Merzbow), Marcus
Schmickler and Dean Roberts, who contributes two pieces. The title, which is
also the name of Friedl's piece, is a reference to the Kronos Quartet's
bestseller "Winter Was Hard", a timely reminder that Zeitkratzer
have followed Kronos' lead in smashing down the fences between contemporary
classical and popular music by commissioning figures from the world of rock
and leftfield electronica to produce or arrange work for them. While
Zeitkratzer's most prominent crossover coup of recent times was their
arrangement of Lou Reed's legendary "Metal Machine Music", it's
worth bearing in mind that their roots also lie in the extremely quiet, slow
moving lowercase style that has been associated with Berlin now for quite
some time (and against which several musicians are now feeling the need to
push). Schlothauer is also active in the Wandelweiser Group, with Antoine
Beuger, Jürg Frey and Radu Malfatti, and his "Something Lost… Töne"
for sax, piano and slowed-down sounds is in keeping with the radical
Wandelweiser aesthetic in which silence plays an important structural role.
Krieger's "Fallen From Grace" starts with a bang and incorporates
some gritty multiphonics, scratchy violin sonorities and thudding inside
piano work, but keeps the slow heartbeat, despite some spiky rhythmic
interjections. Cage's austere "Two" sounds almost baroque in
comparison, after which the extended techniques employed in Friedl's
composition come across as opulent, impressionistic even. George Crumb comes
to mind on several occasions listening to this and Cecchinato's piece, whose
extraordinary sonorities seem due in no small part to studio treatment,
reverb and spatialisation (though the booklet lists no electronics as such).
And so to the remixes. Though the musicians are undoubtedly sincere in their
wish to break down barriers and open the world of modern composition up to a
generation of punters reared on techno and rock, it's probably fair to say
that more copies of this album will be sold to rabid Akita and Sonic Youth
completists than in the discerning niche market of contemporary classical
music. Thankfully though, there's not the slightest whiff of sell-out -
though quite what John Duncan's recollections of Tokyo porn actress Toki
Ruriko have to do with the project is frankly beyond me - all the
contributions are clearly sourced in the compositional material and respect
its leisurely pace and serious character. Nicolai's "Alva Noto.z1"
imposes a somewhat ominous three-note bass line and a haze of bleeps and
clicks onto isolated piano chords to create a rather forlorn landscape. Sonic
Youth's Lee Ranaldo's mix starts off using the same loop, but abandons
Nicolai's regular pulse in favour of a cloud of violin tremolos and thuds
from inside Friedl's piano. The stock-in-trade touches of ProTools are in
evidence, but used discreetly and sensitively, the piece ending in a
spine-tingling upper register crescendo. Liebermann's "..\." is
busier, superimposing dozens of tiny clicking loops over a background of
rumbling piano resonance to create a veritable rainforest of activity, while
scrupulously respecting the character of the original pieces. Hegenbart's
"re:remerge" is similarly austere, recalling his fine collaboration
a while back with Werner Dafeldecker on Grob. Dafeldecker (shame he wasn't
invited to take part in this project) also turned out a magnificently morose
album with Dean Roberts ("Aluminium" on Erstwhile) in 2000, and
Roberts contributes two fine pieces to this collection that move further away
from the instrumental source sounds to create a web of tingling pulses and
sustained bell-like tones. Sandwiched in between them is I-Sound (aka Craig
Willingham)'s ".{.." (dontcha just love these titles? I haven't had
as much fun with my computer keyboard since fällt's invalidObject series a
couple of years ago), which cooks up a gurgling broth of rasps and buzzes
into which handfuls of Cage chords are tossed like spices. Similarly, Masami
Akita goes straight for the gut by sampling and looping one of Krieger's
dirtiest multiphonics. As Merzbow pieces go, this must be one of the
prettiest he's done in recent times, but it can't resist an odd blast of
viciousness about halfway through. Unlike all the other remixes, it strays
just a bit too far from the feel of the original source material for my
liking, though as Akita's presence will probably guarantee a good few hundred
sales off the bat, one imagines that the project instigators didn't mind too
much. Fortunately, the album goes out on a high note with Marcus Schmickler's
"friedl.krieger.extension", further dazzling proof that Schmickler
is one of the brightest laptoppers out there with a pair of ears to match his
software. A satisfying way to round off an intelligent, well realised and
highly recommended piece of work.
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