Osborne: Debut Full-Length out on Ghostly
House- and Technoproducer Osborne proudly presents his first full-length via the colourful Ghostly International. The eponymously titled album covers a wide range of material, including some of his classic cuts, previously unreleased pieces as well as a slew of completely new tracks. Having already released with Richard James’ (aka Aphex Twin) Rephlex label under the Soundmurdered guise, “Osborne” now catches him in full flight, on an extremely varied collection of 15 songs. From the edgey ambient softness of “Outta Sight” to the melodic and harmonic pop-bliss of “There” (characterised by Ghostly as “the kind of music to listen to in your den while learning Japanese”), the album covers the many different fields of interest of a musician never satisfied with simply copying patterns of those who have gone before him.
Anna Netrebko & Rolando Villazon: La Boheme for young lovers
The musical liaison between Anna Netrebko and Roland Villazon is set to enter a new round with the release of their latest opera project. “La Boheme” follows in the footsteps of the tremendously succesful “La Traviata”, whose complete recording, solo CDs and DVD dominated classical charts for months roughly two years ago. Again issued by German classical label Deutsche Grammophon, this new encounter between Netrebko and Villazon was supervised by French conductor and artistic director of the Vienna Symphonic Radio Orchestra Bertrand de Billy. Even though the appearance of the current “dream duo of opera” will probably be enough for most to make for their local record store, there is a significant difference between the Netrebko/Villazon version of “La Boheme” and “La Traviata”. While the latter was recorded live, the former had to cope with the extended difficulties of transporting the excitement of the stage situation to the studio. “We are in a strange situation here”, Bertrand de Billy summed things up, “We’re making an opera without a stage. We’re making an opera with fantastic singers. We have to replace visible sentiments with audible ones. Everything must be exagerated with song so that the feelings can be understood. When you laugh on the stage, the laughter must be heard. When you smile, then the smile must be heard in the singing.” Despite these challenges, he also stressed the importance of this new “La Boheme”’s line-up: “This is where we are lucky with this cast, because they have such fun acting.”
Manuel Göttsching & Rhys Chatham: 800 Years of Minimalism in Damrosch Park
German Composer and Guitarist Manuel Göttsching will be prominently featured as part of the illustrous line-up of a genre-spanning multimedia event organised by New York's Lincoln Center („the world's leading performing arts centre“ according to their modest self-estimation). In a show entitled „800 Years of Minimalism - The Spiritual Transcendent“, three works from three different eras will highlight a connected underlying, wordless method of composing and grasping the world. On Friday, August 15, 2008, Damrosch Park Bandshell will be turned into a place of intense listening thanks to a mediaeval piece by Perotin, a special commission from Rhys Chatham and the American live premiere of Göttsching's seminal „E2-E4“. For Manuel Göttsching, the program must come as a strong personal satisfaction. While the press in his native Germany have lazily filed him in the techno cabinet (a description which ignores the technicality of his performance as well as the compositional aspect of his work) or into the Krautrock drawer (which roughly ignores the last twenty years of his career), „800 Years of Minimalism - The Spiritual Transcendent“ now presents him in an inspiring context: Amidst the top of American minimalism, a movement which he has felt close ties to since its earliest days and which he himself already contributed to on his 1975-classic „Inventions for Electric Guitar“.
Dream Amsterdam: Ryoji Ikeda floods the city with pure light
The Dream Asterdam foundation has announced that Japanese multimedia artist Ryoji Ikeda will be their featured artist for this year's edition of their Dream Amsterdam spectacular. Dream Amsterdam is an outdoor art event which uses the city as its projection surface, integrating walls and public spaces directly into the artist's performance. As a consequence, spectators are whitnessing two different layers of art at the same time: The visual and aural media in their concrete form and the changes to the urban landscape, which now appears surreal and dream-like. Ryoji Ikeda's contribution, too, will demand a fair amount of participation from the side of his audience according to the organising committee. Pure light is to be the source for his work, spread across several secret locations in Amsterdam. As Dream Amsterdam have pointed out, his brightly luminous interventions „will appear mysteriously, connecting a constellation of points across the cityscape.“ The event will take place on three subsequent nights, each with its own twist to the installation.
Ties Mellema: Dramatic injury prompts slew of commissions
Recovering from a serious injury, Dutch Saxophone player Ties Mellema has asked befriended composers to write short pieces for him only using the notes he can play. On March 12th of this year, Mellema cut his wrist in what he describes as a „very unfortunate accident“. While the damage done to one of his hand's tendons and an artery will not pose any insurmountable problems, the ulnar nerve, responsible for some essential motoric functions (such as spreading your fingers) was also severly injured. Mellema's future as a Saxophone player now depends on whether he the nerve endings will heal completely (for which there is a chance of 75% apparently) and whether the healing will mean that the old functionality will be restored. In a first move, the members of the renowned and astoundingly succesful Amstel Saxophone Quartet had to cancel all tour dates – including prestigious ones in New York, Detroit and Chicago. Mellema also started taking singing lessons and focusses on composing for the time being. Playing the Saxophone, both „in his head“ as a mental training and – carefully – for real, he realised that he would benefit greatly from music suited to his current situation. As a consequence, a slew of composers will ready pieces for left hand Saxophone and Piano over the next weeks.
Headphone Festival: Going East straight into your ears
After offering some intimate listening moments in Leipzig last year, the Headphone Festival will move to Pecs in Hungary for this year's edition. Organising German label Privatelektro has again invited a colourful array of artists from diverse genres for one of the more unusual Festivals on the experimental scene. As Privatelektro has revealed, visitors to the Headphone Festival will be given a FM Radio with integrated Headphones (or is it a pair of Headphones with integrated FM radio?), with which to receive the performances. Alternatively, visitors can bring along their personal headphones and plug into docking stations at „listening islands“ designed for relaxing listening sessions – or even use their mobile phones as a receiver. This year's motto for the two-day festival is „going East“ and next to the obvious geographic relocation to Hungary, the artists involved have prepared their personal vision on this theme – with either abstract sounds or field recordings, analog equipment or digital gear, as purely electronic projects or in a more traditional band line-up. Concerts will take up to thirty minutes and there will be a continous flow of music thanks to the involvement of DJs, filing in the gaps between live sessions.
Kluster: Admira & Vulcano dig up Krautrock treasures
Legendary Krautrock band Kluster are back – sort of. Kluster member and former Tangerine Dream engineer Klaus Freudigmann discovered two sessions of the group, a full decade apart, now deemed exciting enough for a release. Available from Important records, “Admira” and “Vulcano” take listeners back the early 70s and the beginning of the 80s respectively, when Kluster were counted among the most innovative and unique formations in the blooming garden of experimental rock outfits. Both albums were realized after the other two members Mobius and Roedelius had left the band to pursue different projects and solo careers, and with Conrad Schnitzler as Kluster’s mastermind. “My criterias were not folk music, not rock music, not pop songs and not dance music”, Conrad Schnitzler remembers, “The idea for "Cluster" later "Kluster" (I wanted to avoid americanisms) is not only a name for a group but a form of music. I had amplifier,instruments ,contact mikes and effects, that could used by the others,too.Klaus had tape machines and microphones. In addition he constructed instruments and electronical sound generators,which made the most undescribable sounds.” “Admira” and “Vulcano” are now issued as deluxe packages in strictly limited editions of 1.000 copies on Important Records.
Janine Jansen: Live Sessions: Bach
Violinist Janine Jansen is continuing her promotion and exploitation of the digital market by releasing an EP specially tailored to the world of downloads – and available exclusively at iTunes. "Live Session: Bach" fully profits from the decisively shorter time needed to realise a publication: Recorded in Berlin at the end of February of this year, the music is of an unprecedented freshness, allowing her audience a crystal-clear look at where she stand as an artist today. Both in terms of repertoire and line-up, "Live Session: Bach" can be regarded as an immediate follow-up and addendum to her succesful (physical) full-length “Bach Inventions & Partitia” on Decca Classical. Again, Jansen will be joined by Maxim Rysanov (Viola) and Torleif Thedéen (Cello), with a special guest appearance of her father Jan Jansen on Harpsichord. In conjunction with these widely renowned musicians, Janine Jansen embarks on three musical adventures of different instrumental combinations, all based around the music of Bach, a composer Jansen has repeatedly declared her sincere admiration for. On the strength of "Live Session: Bach", the Dutch instrumentalist has also been invited to perform at Berlin’s “iTunes Festival” as one of the few select classical musicians.
Slon: Post-Rockers announce first tour dates
Austrian Post-Rock band Slon have followed up on their promise of touring with first announcements of a couple of German dates. Only a few months back, the group caught our ears with their “Jelenka EP”, a both relaxed and ambitious effort, which included short musical scenes and epic pieces made up of diverse moods and stylistic allusions. “Based around a solid core of guitar, bass, drums and embellished by cello and electronics, this fourpiece has definitely developed a vocabulary of its own. Their sombre guitarstring-themes and recursive harmonies are stilly pointed in the direction of post-whatever, but their lyrical poetry and brittle structures are both different from the harsher edges of the genre as well as from its mathematically founded art-jazz experiments:” is what we wrote at the time and with concert dates a mere month and a half-away, we still stand by our judgement.
Kenneth Gaburo: An influential Thinker awaits posthumous Breakthrough
Pogus are paying tribute to a man some call “an undersung hero with a profound influence on a generation of musical thinkers”: Kenneth Gaburo. The upcoming “LINGUA II: MALEDETTO / ANTIPHONY VIII” captures Kennth Gaburo in two different phases of his career and on strikingly contrasting musical grounds. “Maledetto” was written and first realised in 1967/1968, only shortly after he had founded the New Music Choral Ensemble (NMCE) – an early avant-garde choir. While he excelled in public performances of the works of Nono, Kagel, and Messiaen among others on the one hand, he also used the NMCE’s creative force for his own music. “Maledetto” is therefore a powerful vocal piece for seven speakers, working on several layers of meaning with regards to the word “screw” “in all its connotations, from the sexual to the mechanical, from the mildly obscene to the boisterous, with diversions along the way into topics such as perfume manufacture, printing, classical design, and structural linguistics, all of which connect with the small ridged, groovy object of attention.”, according to Pogus.
Barry Douglas: Rachmaninov Treasures From the Vaults
While dusting off the shelves in his huge archive, Sony BMG Masterworks’ General Manager Chris Craker discovered a veritable gem by complete coincidence: An over ten year old recording of the Rachmaninov Piano Concertos No 1&3 performed by Belfast-born Barry Douglas on Piano and in cunjunction with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra under Evgeny Svetlanov. Amazed by its qualities, Craker gave the green light for its release – and paved the way for one of the moments to look forward to in the classical music season 2008. “I have known Barry Douglas for more than 20 years, having performed with him myself”, Craker enthused, “I have always greatly admired his recordings and was therefore wonderfully surprised and delighted to find the Rachmaninov recording in the vaults.” Barry Douglas, too, was happy to dig up some golden memories from the recording sessions to the album: “I was on cloud nine all the time to be working with this orchestra and this great musician and was very happy indeed that we saw the music in exactly the same way. I will never forget the sessions and these are performances I will always treasure”.The album is due internationally on 2nd of June.
Burial: Lends a Buzz to "DJ Kicks "
Just one day after Souljazz Records announced their commitment to the DubStep scene with a handful of most promising releases, K7! have spread the word about yet another highlight from the still fledgling genre. Burial, whose two latest releases have been acclaimed worldwide and turned him into the prodigal son of a style still struggling to express itself in the album format, is set to feature in the next volume of the label’s renowned and classic “DJ Kicks” series. The Berlin-based record company is just as anxious for this album as the rest of the musical world, revealing that they’re “buzzing on the announcement” and labeling Burial as “one of the global leaders in this exploding scene on word-of-mouth alone”. With a projected release date of the end of June and Souljazz’ “Steppas’ Delight” compilation also due any day now, listeners may soon be able to choose from two seminal DubStep collections.
Bebe Barron: First lady of electronic music dies aged 82
American electroacoustic composer Barry Schrader has reported on the death of his colleague Bebe Barron. Barron, a pioneering, widely respected and seminally influential artist, died of natural causes on April 20th. Already in January of this year, when she particpated at an event held at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, celebrating the creative legacy of her close friend, poet Anais Nin, she was no longer strong enough to speak in public. Still as lucid and sympathetic as ever, she shared her thoughts and memories in a video interview – the last she would give. Even though Bebe Barron had essentially withdrawn from composing or least from promoting her work (her final piece “Mixed Emotions” was completed in 2000 and will be available as a free download from the site of Schrader), she never lost her unique position in the world of American Sound Art – a position she had aquired through her immeasurably important work as a soundtrack sculptor (“Forbidden Planet”!), a composer and as the first secretary of SEAMUS, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States in 1985.
Souljazz Records: Dig Dubstep
London’s finest Soul Jazz Records are set to breathe fresh air into the DubStep movement with a string of releases scheduled for the next weeks. In a first move, Soul Jazz will issue three 12’’singles poised to get clubs shaking and breaking. “Carla” by Leeds-based Ramadanman has already been named Mixmag’s single of the week and contains a trio of pieces, each with its distinct flavour: While the title track evokes memories of the jazzy days of Drum n Bass, “Kablammo Eleven” is a sinister, ghostly slab of haunting atmospherics and moody vocal samples rising from cogweb-like pads and a metronomically stuttering, alien latin groove. A second heavyweight Vinyl disc features the ominous Cult of the 13th Hour, with music so dubby and spaced-out it would make Lee Scratch Perry run for cover.. Who’s hiding behind the project name? “We still can’t tell you who the Cult are except that they are two of the most important names in Dubstep at the moment!”, the label says, not entirely unhappy with the attention benefits the mystery might conjur up. Meanwhile, “The Search” is a split highlighting two Cotti-tracks (including the bonzai-wobble of the title tune) and a powerful statement by King Soly, adding further musical nurishment to their ongoing legacy.
Alfred Brendel: Says Goodybe in Style
The sad news is that Pianist Alfred Brendel, revered as a pronounced and personal voice of 20th century classical performance, has announced that he will be retiring from the stage this year. The good news, however, is that he will be doing so in style: First of all, there will be one last tour and a final chance to watch this outspoken and lucid-minded artist live. And secondly, Alfred Brendel will soften the impact of his departure with the release of an 8CD Box set containing some of the finest moments of his long career – selected by the man himself. As part of the „Artist's Choice“ series on Philips, the Austrian performer has been able to draw from an extensive catalogue of albums spanning decades of recording: „This new series by Philips is trying to sum up my career, albeit fragmentary“, Brendel stated, „Luckily for me, I recorded so much, which increases the chance of finding a cut in which you'll be able to recognise yourself as an artist.“ Brendel also emphasised the importance of a wide choice with regards to finding the ideal version of a particular piece. „On my CD featuring the d-minor Concerto by Brahms, for example, which I recorded with the Berlin Philharmonics and Claudio Abbado, the piano sounds as though it was placed amidst the orchestra – not in front of it. Fortunately, however, there's a perfectly balanced concert production realised with the Orchestra of the Bavarian Broadcasting Service under Sir Collin Davis – which is due to follow in a series of my favourite live recordings.“
Partner sites
