The idea for this project was in the air since the late 1980´s. There was an intense, though short-lived, (snail) mail contact between DSM and P16.D4, RLW´s group in those days, which fell into sleep for reasons unknown today. 20 years later the contact lived up again. After getting themselves informed about the actual respective state of work, methods and techniques and sounds, the recordings for the project started.
RLW cd:
The basic recordings were done by rlw from early to mid 2009, sound sources are instrumental (piano, trombone) and household objects. First detailed sketches of the compositions (autumn 2009) include heavily treated versions of these recordings, cross-modulations with sounds supplied by DSM and with DSM-variations of the RLW sounds sent to Caen. Fine-tuning of the compositions took until fall 2010.
DSM cd:
With very few exceptions I used only the original sound recordings of RLW, discarding most of his own processing that he provided me with as I wished for treatments only what would be conceived to be already into the realm of the compositional strategies I fancied for these works. So up to which degree a processing of a sound turns it into an autonomous new one is a question without answer. In consequence resulted a collaboration starting with extremely few basic recordings. However as they had been particularly distinctive by their material character as well as the audible space of the recordings and the variation of their physical intensity as they all resulted from manual efforts they provided me with what was needed. Besides dynamical treatments and cleaning up, my sound processing is not only mostly analogue or equivalent too, but mostly even mechanic. Playing back recordings through 'no-fi equipment' and recording them again, while manipulating mechanically reproduction and recording devices is what I employ most.
Ralf Wehowsky
founded the group P.D. (in 1981 renamed P16.D4) and the label Wahrnehmungen (in 1982 renamed Selektion) in 1980. P16.D4 were one of the most influential groups of experimental industrial music. they developed concepts of materialaustausch long before the term remix was even coined. for their live appearances they were equally at home at punk and no wave festivals as at the holy grails of academic avantgarde like the Ferientage Neuer Musik, Darmstadt. since the early 90s Wehowsky worked under his own name (rlw). his quiet, highly complex style of composition, based on artifacts of instrumental and electronic lateral noises is influential for numerous artists in the fields of electronic and improvised music. some reflections on his work can be found on TULPAS, a 5CD-box-set, featuring more than 50 artists performing their versions of rlw pieces (incl. Jim O´Rourke, Brume, Achim Wollscheid, Toshiya Tsunoda, John Duncan, Antanas Jasenka, Ryoji Ikeda, John Watermann a.o.). his actual work embraces musique concrete improvisee (with Bruce Russell, Johannes Frisch among others) as well as projects based on extended materialaustausch (like Die Eisenbüglerin).
DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE exists since some 30 years now with a variable membership. Formed in Berlin, the group, composed of interdisciplinary artists (visual artists, performers, musicians, writers and Scientifics) has presented performances, installations and concerts in many european countries as well as in New York, Montreal, Sao Paulo. DSM has also participated to conferences, given lectures, participated to several publications and had artists residencies : Association, Pollen Monflanquin/Agen; Wharf, Centre d'Art Contemporaine, Herouville St Clair; Denkmalschmiede Höfgen; Akademie der Künste Berlin. Since 1999, the duo formed by Guido Hübner and Samuel Loviton has concentrated its activities on the music and collaborates since several years with Flavien Lavisse for the Live Video as well as Rainer Frey with whom the group worked already from 1985 to 1992.
Playing on the edge between different disciplines, the audience is invited to discover a universe on the crossway of concert (between electro-acoustic and live musique concrète), sound installation (with several autonomous devices of precarious stability on which intervene the musicians), performance and even exhibition (by way of accumulated, heteroclite objects overwhelming the space). The visual appearance is for each of the concerts as important as the music itself.
Concerts have been given since in France (Paris, Nantes, Caen, Lille), in Belgium (Liège, Bruges), England (London, Nottingham, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Belfast ), The Netherlands (Nijmegen, Maastricht, Amsterdam, Heerlen), Russia (Yarislav, Moscou, Orel) Poland (Varsovie) and Germany (Leipzig, Hambourg, Berlin, Brême, Cologne, Münster), Spain (Barcelone, Madrid).
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