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LP
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VOCSON 163LP
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In the mid-1970s Anton Bruhin was surely at the peak of his tape manipulation works. Always using poor techniques and equipment he sculpted everyday-life sonic objects turning them into very accomplished and yet totally experimental music artifacts. The works presented here surely are among the most accomplished results of his expanded creativity.
"InOut", a masterpiece for tuning whistle, mouth harps, flutes, toy and party gag instruments, percussion, bells, electric razor, model ship engine with propeller, birdcall whistles, CH-Phon, feedback speaker-microphone, siren, double shawm, falling down spoon, jew's harp (only two short notes), tearing scotch tape from the spool, ocarina, hair dryer and other noise makers plus occasionally radio tuner was recorded in Zurich between May 17th and May 22nd, 1981, on a Sanyo M7300L stereo radio cassette recorder with both integrated and external microphone. The recorder is in the recording standby position, both "RECORD" and "PAUSE" buttons are pushed. Then, Bruhin sings or plays a tone into the microphone. During this tone he releases the "PAUSE" button by pushing it. Subsequently he presses the "PAUSE" button again within a fraction of a second. Now the first short note is recorded. In InOut thousands of very short notes were added this way, like a patchwork, like an acoustic quilt with geometric irregularities and varied patterns.
"Rotomotor", subtitled "ein motorische Idiotikon", is a 28-minute long reading representing one of Bruhin's major works. Written in Zurich between 1976 and 1977, then recorded in August 1978 at Etienne Conod's Sunrise Studio. "Rotomotor" is a poetic Idiotikon of the Swiss-German dialect where, instead of the straight alphabetical order, the words are organized according to the similarities of their letters (each word differ from the previous one by just one letter). For this reading a delay equipment which repeated the signal after 0.6 seconds was used and each word is superimposed to the echo of the preceding one. On one hand this echo generates the rhythm of the performance, on the other it supports the acoustic metamorphosis of the words.
Anton Bruhin in the 1960s began organizing happenings and performances, creating sound works, designing and typesetting his own books, drawing, and writing poetry. Anton Bruhin was a member of the first class to study at the F+F School with Serge Stauffer, famous art teacher and specialist in Marcel Duchamp, where he came into contact with concrete poetry, Fluxus, and experimental music.
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LP
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BT 073LP
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Black Truffle offer up a rare serving of unheard works by legendary Swiss artist Anton Bruhin. Active as a visual artist, poet, and musician since the 1960s, Bruhin has created important work in forms as varied as concrete poetry and landscape painting, imbuing everything he does with wit, humility, and absurdist humor. A recognized master of the jew's harp (or Trümpi, as this ancient folk instrument is known in Swiss German), Bruhin's sound work also encompasses tape collage, sound poetry, and manipulated bird song. On Speech Poems/Fruity Music you are treated to 26 short pieces made between 2006 and 2008 using the audio software Fruity Loops. These pieces carry on Bruhin's long-running project of exploring the creative use and misuse of cheap, accessible technologies. In many of his analog works, Bruhin explored the possibilities of simple cassette equipment. He invented DIY approaches to layering sounds by using multiple tape machines, experimented with distortion and tape speed, or, in his classic Inout (1981) created a maniacally single-minded audio monument to the pause button. Like the computer pixel drawings the artist produced around the same time as these recordings, Speech Poems/Fruity Music extends this approach to consumer software, presenting two parallel sequences of works that make use of Fruity Loops' inbuilt synthetic instruments and its speech synthesis function. The instrumental works play like a twisted take on the aesthetics of 1980s video game soundtracks, using synthetic accordion and harpsichord sounds to realize jaunty little ditties that exploit their machine-realization by making use of improbable pitch-bends and humanly impossible tempos and articulations. Between these samples of Fruity Music, you are treated to the Speech Poems, a series of recitations by a lone computer-generated voice. Many of them are in fact songs, as the synthetic voice crudely and hilariously changes pitch as it moves through its fragmented syllables and odes to cream in coffee. Carrying on Bruhin's interest in the creative misuse of technology, many of the Speech Poems attempt to force Fruity Loops' voice synthesis, designed only to speak English, to speak German. By entering phonetic text into the program, Bruhin gets it to produce a passable German alphabet and a series of approximations to a proper pronunciation of his name. Hilarious while strangely austere, entertaining but bizarre, Speech Poems/Fruity Music is classic Anton Bruhin, arriving in a beautiful mosaic cover by the artist, with the text of the "abc für anglophone" on the back cover. Compiled by Marc Matter and Anton Bruhin. Mastered by Joe Talia.
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4CD BOX
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TES 096CD
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On the occasion of the 2015 exhibition Le Caselle di Anton Bruhin at the Istituto Svizzero di Roma in Milan, Alga Marghen presents the complete edition of Anton Bruhin's 1977 cycle Vogelsang/Vogelsong/Vogelsung/Vögelsäng. If the idea of recording birds came from Bruhin's friend, the Swiss painter Hans Krüsi (this was a common practice for the art brut master, who layered recordings of the many birds sharing his living space into primitive multi-track sonic sculptures), Bruhin is able to use the same material to create a cacophonic and distorted world of unrecognizable nature, all in one low-fidelity stroke. In the 1960s, Anton Bruhin began organizing happenings and performances, creating sound works, designing and typesetting his own books (which he self-published with Hannes R. Bossert through April-Verlag), and drawing and writing poetry. Bruhin was a member of the first class to study at the F+F Schule für experimentelle Gestaltung in Zürich with Serge Stauffer, famous art teacher and specialist in Marcel Duchamp, where he came into contact with concrete poetry, Fluxus, and experimental music. Dieter Roth and André Thomkins are recognizable influences too. In the mid-1970s, Anton Bruhin was surely at the peak of his tape manipulation work. Always using poor techniques and equipment, he sculpted everyday-life sonic objects and turned them into very accomplished and yet totally experimental musical artifacts. The works presented here belong to this same period of expanded creativity, combining themes of excess and chaos with a pragmatic interest in simple structural schemata. To be consistent with the aesthetic quality of these works, Alga Marghen presents each of these four CDs in a silkscreened jewel case, with the four CDs housed in a numbered slipcase. Limited edition of 200.
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LP
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VOCSON 087LP
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11 Heldengesange und 3 Gedichte was privately published by Anton Bruhin in 1977 as a luxury 2x10" box. This unique and imaginistic sound poetry work has been issued on LP by Alga Marghen for the VocSon series and is now available for distribution for the first time, ever. It's a sound poem which takes us into a medieval world of minstrels and errant knights, a phantasmagoria in text and sound. It is also a modern document of the not-yet-existing electronic Sampling Art of the 1970s. Anton Bruhin wrote: "In the Heldengesange, I conceived each hero speaking a different invented dialect and coming from a different fictional geographical region. I also wanted to give each hero his own music as a companion. I have used various musical materials and played a variety of instruments, but also taken parts from existing musics and manipulated them." Like an anthropologist, Anton Bruhin presents this fictional culture, inventing its language and music as well as drawing its objects -- a hat, a cup, an arm, a flag, a wurst -- everyday-life artifacts from an ancient time catalogued with scientific precision. In 11 Heldengesange und 3 Gedichte, a masterpiece by Anton Bruhin, all is artificial and nothing is real -- exactly like in our contemporary world. Edition limited to 350 copies, including a large LP-size folded insert with the full Heldengesange and Gedichte texts as well as a selection of original graphic works.
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CD
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TES 041CD
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2001 release. The compact disc by Anton Bruhin issued by Alga Marghen is titled r o t o m o t o r and covers two different areas of the artist's research. The first one is represented by a group of works including the short and mysterious environmental recording "ORAX" as well as "Lange Tone," "VERSUCHPILZ 6," and "Paul Is 35," three excerpts from the epic "MC-10 zyklus" created between 1976 and 1977, recording various layers of sound sources on two cassette recorders with loudspeakers. The complete zyklus consists of 12 different episodes (each one 10 minutes long) which investigate the multi-layer ping-pong recording technique; the spatial illusion of the monoaural replay which moves away from the listener's ears into the depth of space. Far away sounds coming from a cosmic dimension or from an abyssal space, moving fore and back. The loss of sound quality considered as stoned space improvement. The title-track is a 28 minute-long reading of one of Bruhin's major works. Rotomotor is a poetic Idiotikon of the Swiss-German dialect where, instead of the straight alphabetical order, the words are organized according to the similarities of their letters (each word differs from the previous one by just one letter). For this reading, a delay is repeated in the signal after 0.6 seconds and each word is superimposed into the echo of the preceding one. On one hand this echo generates the rhythm of the performance, on the other it supports the acoustic metamorphosis of the words. Again, a very simple concept perfectly accomplished. What results from the whole program is maybe difficult to describe, and maybe more easily perceivable in a state of alternate consciousness. But surely, it is a quite unique sense of acoustic approach; so no surprise to see him mentioned in the mythical Nurse With Wound reference list.
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LP
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ALGA 033LP
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"In the past few years alga marghen successfully released on CD some of Anton Bruhin more experimental works. InOut, Rotomotor and the CD version of his first LP masterpiece from 1969 Vom goldabfischer, made many of you become familiar with the eccentric creations of this obscure Swiss artist. But for this new release alga marghen decided to concentrate on Anton Bruhin's favorite instrument, the Jews harp. Included in this LP record are six breathtaking Jews harp pieces of pure genius. On Side 1 'Apocalypt Rb- with sampling loop' and 'Chor H+ with sampling loop and solo reverb pot', recorded in January 2000 while testing some modified Jews harp self-made instruments created by Zoltan Szilagyi. This virtuoso performance is improvised over to a loop-continuum sampled through a Casio child synth. On Side 2 the all-time-classic titled 'Maultrommel und Sprache' (i.e. Jews Harp and Speaking) where Bruhin is scientifically investigating the use of Jews harp in rendering human voice. Recorded in 1994 this piece, divided in five short paragraphs, move from the very basic structure of language (vocals, diptongues, triptongues) and constructs a perfectly accomplished sonic statement. Also on Side 2 are three pieces from 1995 for Electric-Trumpi-2, the only existing second generation electric Jews harp, constructed specially by Szilagyi for Anton Bruhin. 'Towards the G-Spot', 'ET2 with fly and cough' and 'ET2 extreme filling' grandly complete the collection of limousine musics selected for this record. Gatefold sleeve with large 8-page booklet reproducing four mind-blowing drawings released between 1969 and 2006 that well prove Anton Bruhin's ultra-modernistic talent of the most refined nature. Also included in the booklet with the complete score of 'Maultrommel und Sprache'. Edition limited to 330 copies."
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