Michael Engelbrecht is a music journalist and trained psychologist who has worked in psychotherapy and adult educational centers. He has written for “Die Zeit”, and “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”, and since 1990, he has been working at the Deutschlandfunk, Cologne, and other German radio stations. With people of very different professions, he has created the English/German blog “manafonistas.de“.
Storytelling for burning songs (Or: how to make radio magic)
There are some radio shows in the world that ignore the limitations of genres.
For instance, Fiona Talkington´s „Late Junction“ (BBC) or Michael Engelbrecht´s „Klanghorizonte“ (Deutschlandfunk). A song by Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) can be played in a row with a John Cage piano track, an interplanetary Sun Ra excursion, Brian Eno´s „Lullaby for the End of the World“, some weirdness from the infamous „Punkt“ family, an ECM classic from the 70´s – and a field recording from the Outer Hebrides. The question is how to create a unified vison from such different sources without delivering a “high brow” post-modern exercise in „anything goes“. One answer: you have to spend a lot of time on the „sequencing“ of the tracks, and the stories you´re telling. In fact, the future of non-mainstream radio is in parts connected to old traditions of griot, campfire stories, and very personal contribitions of the „nighthawk“ at the microphone. Listen to a special „radio perfomance“ by Michael Engelbrecht that will combine controversial thoughts on music, with a series of tracks from the broad field of „textural minimalism“ – and some late night stories told in the middle of the day!
P.S.: A lot of stuff for 25 minutes performance time, before the Q&A-section for the listeners. The music I’ll play therefore has to be quite short and differs from the „post-modern“ list in the official announcement. But, yes, there will be one beautiful ECM-track, two pieces from the new catalogue of HUBRO, and, promise, Eno’s „Lullaby for the End of the World“! (m.e.)