Manafonistas

1 Polar Bear (radikal, unberechenbar, und ein schlagendes Herz) 2 RMillis (vinyl only, Exotica für das 21. Jahrhundert) 3 Arild Andersen (grosses Pendeln zwischen Heute und der Frühzeit von ECM) 4 Arve Henriksen (Einblicke ins Soundlabor des gewitzten Lyrikers) 5 Bill Callahan (unterschätzte Fragmentierung eines Meisterwerkes in Dub) 6 Colin Vallon (dunkle Themen, raumgreifend, die „Gesänge“ eines Pianos, abseits der falschen Schöngeistigkeiten) 7 Janek Schaefer (die aufregendste Art, Vorstufen des Schlafes zu erkunden) 8 Alexander Hawkins (Piano Solo, kühl und exstatisch) 9 Penguin Cafe (wie der Vater, so der Sohn, und doch anders!) 10 Bonnie „Prince“ Billy (erhebende Dunkelheiten)

What makes Abandoned City all the more impressive is that every sound on the album was created on a standard piano, using the ‚prepared piano‘ technique, mastered by Bertelmann over the last decade. „A prepared piano is a method that involves taking a piano sound and adding an object – it could be metal or felt or plastic – to a piano string or between the hammer and the string to create a new tone on top of the piano note,“ Bertelmann explains. „By using the prepared piano method, I get to use every single element of the piano, which gives me the freedom to do very modern, almost electronic, sounding music without using electronics as a sound source. On Abandoned City I used only delays with a little distortion to process the sound – everything you hear was played on a piano.“ (Source: The Quietus)