Thursday
We met where the stairs ended, waiting for the first begin to concert. Exchanging some walls while the words we spoke slowly turned into a bridge between us. After a while, he said his name: Fredrik Engelbrecht and I said mine: Michael Hossmann.
The first concert changing something inside of me was Sheriffjunko + Streifen of Nothingness. Playing without microphones, but inside them was the sampling of experience, delays, sound manipulations and technology all brought back to their Viofones, saxpet and trumlin. Did i listen with open or closed eyes? I don’t remember. It is not important. Was i on the stage? Were the musicians inside of me? New roles are needed to describe these feelings: like perdience and auformer.
Me and him meeting between the concerts – discussing among other topics music not yet created. What is the sound of Neil Davis and Miles Young? Of Bob Eno and Brian Dylan? Of Leonard Brahem and Anouar Cohen?
Friday
began with the Radioshow: Burning songs for storytellers (or how to turn magic into radio.) filled with songs that were mine before I had even heard them. Followed by the almost brutal soundscapes of Jana Harding and Mike Vinderen. A voyage into the depths of their uncompromising recordings of unspoken promises from the independent recording business played back at earsplitting volume. It was painfully pleasant closing the eyes and floating away into the unending space between my ears. At last there was a meeting with Andy Laurel, who spoke a lot about her cat slowly growing deaf, but had learned to play cards. We would watch a movie with the cat playing poker and grinning. The image of this almost deaf cat with a paw full of a straight flush is a door that I have passed and can never go back.
Later that evening Eriographs by Helikh Onore was a fishbowl of aural delight and we were flying with the seagulls on the beach. Arve Zach and Eivind Henriksen on drumtar and gitpet. Jeffrey Aarseth and Ingar Bruinsma on viobal and cymlin. And the remix, just flowing out of the moment, like a gracious dolphin giving birth to itself under water. Another of these magic moments was to see a Zapp played by his instrument, to see a machine touch his naked skin, to hear sounds that no Bang has yet wrenched from the bottom of his endlessly moving body. There was hammers of sound and nails of noise. And then the remix by Fennesz4; violently playful and playfully violent at the same time, a contrast between before and after the beginning.
Saturday
began with Henning Bang seducing Jan Bolte about his sampled approach to conversational Zapping.
This is where the idea of remixing conversations came up:
What tools does the conversation remixer have? A sampler – repeating everything that is said. A cutup sampler – sampup a cutler. Playing samples backwards. Sdrawkcab selpmas gniyalp. Adding delay. Repeating the words slower (sssllloooowwwwweeeerrrr) or faster (fstr) or making them stutter. We have the replacer and the sensotron – taking everything that is send and depending on which direction you push the dial too make sense out of random or the purest stupidity out of perfectly sensibel krauersaut.
The discussion ended with a poem sampled and remixed live:
„Why not sit on the wind / bang on a drop of water / and sing along with the rocks …“
Then there was an unnamed piece outside of the official program performed by a nameless artist with an ending I wished had continued longer, a beginning that had begun later and a middle that could have been somewhere else. Later that evening the concert with Bang4 and Jan Zapp was not without reason that the applause were rising to the feet after this audience. A cascade of beings responding to each other picking up elements letting go returning floating mirroring breaking glass red velvet getting lost finding the way being the way just being (…) Closing in to the end we gathered in the belly of the Phoenix to listen to Arve Anderson on trumlin and Laurie Henriksen on violet blending into each other becoming one beautiful beast. The final words softly spoken were:
„The stars looking down on us / too far away / far away to touch / still they try / still they try to touch us / with their fingers / fingers of light / light / fading light“
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Here are some tracks you can download for your listening pleasure:
Arve Anderson and Laura Henriksen – The Birth of the Phoenix
Bang4 and Jan Zapp – (Videofeet Remix)
Unnamed artist: unnamed piece – Silent remix by Fredael Engelmann
Henning Bang/Jan Bolte: interviewing the interviewer Jan Bolte (Recording)
Michrik Hossbrecht – Radioshow: Burning songs for storytellers (or how to turn magic into radio.)
Sheriffjunko + Streifen of Nothingness (Identity blur remix)
Jana Harding and Mike Winderen – The sound of unspoken promises amplified
Eriographs by Helikh Onore (Under water remix)
The remix of Fennez4 (Remix by the remixer remixing the remixers remix)
(to be linked to the picture: instructions for download)
