THE WIRE
Reviewed by Brian Morton April 09
Magda Mayas & Tony Buck / Gold
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There’s just 36 minutes of music here, but every second of it is interesting. Pianist Mayas plays chunky, bell-like clusters that seem to observe a slowly evolving musical logic, neither obviously melodic nor conventionally harmonic. Drummer Buck for the most part works a parallel path, working busily but delicately round his kit. The opening minutes of “mercury machine” are full of light, skittering figures on the metal parts and big, damped clusters on the piano, some of them hand-damped inside the sound box, I suspect. It opens out thereafter, but there’s no attempt here to emulate the iconic piano and drum duos of the past – Coltrane and Ali, Taylor and Roach. Mayas and Buck create their own intimate languages and in the process deliver something very special and exactly the right length.
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„....Improvised duos have lots of pitfalls to avoid: levels of alertness and/or talent can be too disparate, the speed of interaction may never sync, one person can try too hard to push the music in a certain direction, etc. But from the very first sounds they made and all the way to the final tones of the encore, these two were in perfect balance throughout. Tightly intertwined at the level of both the sonic material they pursued and the rhythmic pointillism with which they went about their journey, they stunned me into wide-eyed, open-mouthed attention.
Even their minuscule pauses overlapped. And when they didn’t, it was as if they were just making room to highlight and frame what the other was doing.
Pianos are naturally percussive instruments, and especially so when attacked from the inside, and this piano/drum duo exploited that overlap of sonority with exquisite concentration. Buck and Mayas were completely wrapped up inside each other’s sonics.
A taut, highly successful combo.“
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Konfrontationen 2007
By Andrew Choate
http://www.facsimilemagazine.com/2007/09/index.html
"Like the man who awoke to find himself drowning in a river, you may
roam the dark with 4 million other somnambulists - and never know it.
One soldier, after one of these attacks, he revealed that he had been
dreaming about trying to plow a field with a balky mule. ‘That mule
made me so darn mad I socked it,' he said. When he awoke, he found that
he had hit his wife in the face and broken her eardrum. His lawyer
successfully defended him by arguing that no one could be held
accountable for acts committed in his sleep. Why doesn’t he, like the
rest of us, lie quietly and work out the worries of his subconscious in
dreams of action, instead of acting out his dreams?"
'Strange facts about sleepwalking', in Mechanix Illustrated (Mar, 1949)
THE SOMNAMBULIST
Record PRE-Release Party
opening act: WRONG. Friday November 6th, h 22:00
live at Antje Øklesund
Rigaer Straße 71–73
10247 Berlin
"five years and counting" - schraum label festival !
On
september 11th and 12th Berlin based label schraum will celebrate its
fifth birthday at Weisepuff - a new venue in Berlin-Neukölln. We invite
you to listen to some of the great acts who released music on our small
label during the last years...
*********** fr sept 11th
UTE VÖLKER SOLO accordeon solo
AXEL HALLER SOLO electric bass & objets trouvés
Torsten Papenheim's TRU CARGO SERVICE Christian Biegai - altosax Matthias Müller - trombone Dave Bennett - guitar, clarinet Torsten Papenheim - guitar, banjo Berit Jung - double bass Christian Marien - drums
*********** sa sept 12th
HUGHES / SCHERZBERG / WIESE John Hughes - double bass Lars Scherzberg - alto- and sopraninosax Nicolas Wiese - electronics
HOTELGÄSTE Michael Thieke - clarinet, altosax, zither Dave Bennett - guitar, radio Derek Shirley - double bass
TANNHAUESER STERBEN UND DAS TOD (D, Edition Mutation) DRIVER (D, Sonig) & GERD RISCHE (D)
Th. 16.07.2009 @ DOT CLUB 9PM Tannhäuser Sterben & das Tod sind Thomas Mahmoud (ex Von Spar, Aggro Cologne, Ives1) und Gerald Mandl (Mediengruppe Telekommander). Ambient, Postrock, Dub, Kraut, Minimal Musik … Loops. Gesang, Bass, Synthesizer, Field Recordings … In Echtzeit manipuliert mit Effekt-Pedalen, Samplern und Computer Software … Live werden sie von zwei Schlagzeugen unterstützt: Chris Imler & und Sebastian Vogel. Zudem treten auf: DRIVER (D, Sonig), das sind *Patric Catani* & *Chris Imler*, sowie *Gerd Rische* von IVES1. Im Anschluss: Disco. Für ihre self-titled DVD EP wurden von Medienkünstlern und Filmemachern, wie Martin Sulzer (Food For Animals, Arte), Markus Wambsgans (Antipop Consortium, The Notwist, T-Raumschmiere, Liars, Funkstörung), Ian Ritterskamp, Sébastien Wolf, Christian Heilig und Daniel Berwanger Videos produziert, die - wie die Musik - die Idee der analog-digitalen Verarbeitung aufgreifen, jedoch jeweils unterschiedliche Ansätze wählen: Film, Animation, Found Footage und Video.
hallo ihr zwei. viele grüße aus dem schönen wedding. man sieht sich...hier oder da... tp
******************************* ganz neu erschienen:
"Some Of The Things We Could Be"
Twelve new pieces composed and arranged by Torsten Papenheim. Produced by Dave Bennett and Torsten Papenheim. Released on schraum, Berlin. Performed by Dave Bennett, Merle Bennett, Christian Biegai, Axel Haller, Christian Marien, Matthias Müller, Derek Shirley, Roland Spieth, Michael Thieke, Clayton Thomas, Gerhard Uebele, Torsten Papenheim, Ute Völker.
on friday, june 19th, the release will be celebrated at electronic church, berlin. hope to see you all there!
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