Manafonistas

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The piece „50 Shades Of White“ is performed by 55 musicians all dressed in white on a white stage – faces painted white – in a strong white light all sharing a white plastic saxophone – playing one sound at a time – every minute – passing the instrument from one musician to the next while moving in slow motion – when all 55 players have made their sound – the piece is over and they leave the stage and close all doors and turns of the lights.

The audience is left in the darkened room for at least an hour before being let out one by one.

How would you feel being the last one to be led out of the room?

Imagine.

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With this CD Nonplace releases the first edition in a series of instrumental soundtracks that were edited for film or television companies over the past decade or aim at being used in conjunction with moving images. All pieces were produced by Burnt Friedman or/and Hayden Chisholm as part of sessions with The Embassadors, or during Friedman´s numerous score recording sessions with Joseph Suchy on electric guitar amongst many others. You will discover an abundance of musical components throughout a dense, seamless mix of 25 short cinematic “scenes”. The musical styles featured range from odd dub rhythms, classical chamber orchestra arrangements and subtle, indescribable electro-acoustic soundscapes all of which could potentially serve as the ultimately remote archive for exceptional soundtrack demand.

(Lieber Bernd, ich freu mich auf dieses neue Album, aber ich werde es mir, nach dem Horrorerlebnis an der Algarve im Herbst, als ich nach intensivem Hören deines letzten spoken-word-Albums ein wenig die Erdung verlor, und bei roter Flagge zur zweiten Wellenbrecherzone schwamm, auf keinen Fall an einer Meeresküste anhören. Vielleicht kommst du ja auch zum Underworld-Konzert nach Köln, und wir trinken wieder mal am Eiglstein zwei Cappuccinos. So long, Michael)

Can you bewray something by writing about music? Reveal, yes, but bewray, betray? So that, by hearing, you already have the formula at hand, before your eyes, dissolved? Don’t think so. It’s different with plots. Storylines. So even a thousand words can only hint at the magic of a great record, something about its whereabouts, the structure behind the surface, hidden subtexts. Might be telling, but could never replace the act of listening. Always good then to have stories in the bag for wrapping them around the music like an invisble glove always prepared to fall apart, or – best case – to linger on Memory Lane like something your thoughts might recur to (for seconds) when listening. So here are two records that are, in my ears, really great records, and I won’t tell a thing. Though it would be easy. But for now, I’m just exercising restraint. You cannot program magic. So even the actors (musicians, producer) must have had their moments here where they didn’t trust their ears. Stunned, so to speak. True that! So, for the moment, I’m leaving you alone with the titles of two forthcoming ECM albums produced by Manfred Eicher at the Rainbow Studio in Oslo. Class performances. Awesome sequencing of tracks. Oh, sorry, I seem to sabotage my premeditations. The one is by guitarist Jakob Bro (guitar, bass and drums); and the other one by kantelele player and singer Sinika Langeland (with viola, saxophone and percussion). But, no, it’s not a song album, in the sense Eno’s „Another Green World“ is not a song album either.  Both reords wil be released on February 6th. All stories will be told on February 5th, in „JazzFacts“, and on February 21st in „Radionacht Klanghorizonte“, my next two appearances in the Deutschlandfunk. The titles of these Nordic pieces of excellence (the only one from outside Scandinavia is bass player Thomas Morgan): „Gefion“, and (well, some resonating sort of punchline at the end of not telling any stories!), „The half-finished heaven“.