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CD
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RM 4191CD
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Austrian composer and musician Werner Dafeldecker has carved out a pathway through the avant-garde that takes in the artforms most intensive and evocative characteristics. A founding member of contemporary sound unit Polwechsel and collaborator to artists such as John Tilbury, Sachiko M, Fennesz, and Lawrence English (amongst others), his solo output has picked up intensity over recent years. Neural, a career defining edition from him, pairs two works that highlights his pre-occupation with timbre, stillness and subtle dynamism. They are works of patience and delicate but inescapable tension, a profound balancing act that lands the pieces deep within our minds ear. Features: Nicholas Bussmann (cello); Judith Hamann - cello; John Heilbron - double bass; Lucio Capece - bass clarinet; Wolfgang Seidl - gongs.
A note from Werner Dafeldecker: "For whatever reason, I have always found the idea of using alien material as the structuring element of an artistic process exciting. That doesn't mean the elements always stay, but rather I often remove them right at the end of the creative process. This working method creates areas of tension that reflect the artistic process on a different emotional level. It reduces the sense of creation and moves more toward accomplishment. This method applies to both pieces of this phonogram in a similar way. Neural places sound surfaces as its central focus and is inspired by the idea that neural networks develop a memory when they repeatedly send information. The ensemble focuses on vibrations and rhythmic variations of the overtones, which are caused by dynamics and pitch shifts in the microtonal range. With the passage of time and performance practice, spherical, acoustic stamps become established, caused by the conscious perception of when rhythm changes into sound sensation and vice versa. For 'Tape 231' I re-discovered a long-forgotten music cassette in my archive which contained peculiar percussive electronic sounds. As Lucio and I worked on the recordings of his elongated tones and multi-phonics I again was drawn to the idea to use the tape sounds primarily as a structuring element for the piece, (time, density, dynamics) only to be left out afterwards. The targeted handling of hidden structures evokes a somewhat stubborn emotionality when dealing with creative processes, I like that."
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LP
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RM 447LP
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Viennese born, Berlin based electro-acoustic maestro Werner Dafeldecker creates an intense and beautiful musique concrète journey on Parallel Darks. He examines perspective, extreme subjectivity and the specters that haunt our auditory worlds. What are the bounded limits of sense? How is it we come to know the world and moreover how is it that we share that experience collectively? Where are the points of mutual understanding and how can we approach the spectral aspects of our sensing of the world? It's these questions that have shaped the approaches used by Werner Dafeldecker on his first fully fledged electro- acoustic outing. Parallel Darks charts out a divergent, yet relational sound field that reflects an intensity of practice that Dafeldecker has cultivated over the better part of three decades. Concerning himself with sounds that often lie at the periphery of our listening, Parallel Darks layers dense spatial textures into a tightly woven sonic fabric. Calling on materials collected through field recordings, analog synthesis, and through his extended instrumental techniques, Dafeldecker seamlessly draws together these sources, creating an at times blurry harmony between elements that might otherwise appear incongruous or in contest. The sound world Dafeldecker creates is one that is simultaneously musical and profoundly abstract. As potential elements of harmony emerge, they are pulled away through various dynamic interjections, which the draw the focus of the ears. There is no one singular plateau of sound, rather a constant deepening, a beautiful abyss of spectacular pressure and vital acoustic darkness. Recorded across 2018 and 2019, each of the editions two pieces dwell on sounds' capacity to be a specter. Parallel Darks uses sounds at the very threshold of perception that suggest uneasy acoustic spaces and haunted zones within which the rules of listening in the everyday must be abandoned. In these zones, Dafeldecker carefully crafts hidden sonic relations that call for an intensity of listenership.
"It compares music and reality. The music functions like an observer: the music observes reality. And it is precisely the limits of this approach that make us realize something about the observation instrument. The music, the culturally created, thus becomes a metaphor for perception. A perception that can in no way do justice to what has been perceived, and in this failure can tell us all the more about the limits of our perception and about the process of creating reality in perception." --Peter Ablinger
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LP
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ET 864-04LP
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Small Worlds (2004) is a 42-minute composition for improvising sextet by Austrian double bassist, composer and improviser Werner Dafeldecker. The score is written for any instrument and divides the players into two virtual trios whose constellations change every three minutes. No restrictions are made regarding material or playing techniques, the only specification is that in each three-minute trio, one player has the role of the "dynamic leader" which means that no other player within the trio should play louder than the one on that leading position. Apart from that, the only other restriction concerns how pauses are to be made when two players interchange their positions within the trios. According to Dafeldecker, the object of the piece is to provide a structure that doesn't curtail the qualities of the musicians, yet forces them to listen very closely to each other and make focused decisions about parameters that are often overlooked in completely free improvisation. Especially, the given structure avoids the emergence of certain clichés that are often present in free improvisation, while retaining a very high level of openness with regard to how the piece is performed. The first published recording of Small Worlds, by Australian ensemble Quiver, was released in 2017 on CDr by Tone List. This LP contains a recording made in 2004 at Taktlos Festival in Basel, Switzerland, that features the line-up that Dafeldecker originally had in mind when he wrote the piece: Burkhard Beins (percussion), Martin Brandlmayr (percussion), Werner Dafeldecker (double bass), Klaus Lang (organ), Michael Moser (cello), and John Tilbury (piano). Partly, this constellation later also played together in the long-running avant-garde group Polwechsel. Comes in sleeve with three inserts: two featuring an extensive conversation between Werner Dafeldecker and Matthias Haenisch discussing Small Worlds, Polwechsel and free improvisation in general (German and English), the third reproducing the score of the piece; Edition of 300.
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