Ignaz Schick (alto saxophone, flutes). Matthias Müller (trombone). Toshi Nakamura (no-input-mixer). Marta Zapparoli (tapes, electronics). Werner Dafeldecker (ac. guitar, live-electronics). Paul Lovens (selected drums & percussion).
Recorded live at Radialsystem V Berlin during A L’ARME! Festival 2013.Recorded by Ignaz Schick. Mixed by Toshi Nakamura. Mastered by Werner Dafeldecker.
In early 2013 Berlin based pianist & curator Louis Rastig gave Ignaz Schick a “carte blanche” to put together an ensemble project for that year’s 2nd edition of A L’Arme! Festival in Berlin. Schick decided for a carefully mixed group consisting of both electronic and acoustic players. Besides the well balanced instrumentation Schick chose an unusual blend of both Berlin based and international players – all of them have been ground breaking figures in the recent and not so recent history of creative music & improvisation. In addition to the very well selected and highly unique players Schick himself in this group decided to switch roles and perform on his primal acoustic instruments (alto sax and flute) and leave his usual role of being a live-electronics player to three different minds. The group came together in Berlin for a two day rehearsal phase and worked themselves through two stacks of loosely notated graphic scores and instructions Schick had prepared for the occasion. The scores were soon taken away after the rehearsal days and the group improvised the two parts of „The Return of the Old School“ only relying on what each player could vaguely memorize from the original sheets. There were no instructions given how to relate to the original piece and the musicians where completely free how to proceed. The resulting music is an obscure blend of minimal improvisation, cool jazz quotes and contemporary electronics. An understated non-virtuoso music which blends various different musical influences with clear reminiscences to Third Stream Music, European Improvisation, EAI, Glitch & Noise.
This album is the first volume of a planned series of releases documenting Ignaz Schick’s current acoustic works (on alto saxophone) and also functions as and marks a direct link to his recent conceptual graphic & verbal compositional output for improvising ensembles (i.e. the Circuit Training series) which will also be released pretty soon.
Ignaz Schick (born in 1972) is a Berlin based turntablist, sound artist, performer, composer and visual artist. After meeting Don Cherry in his childhood he studied the saxophone and performed in free jazz and avant rock bands. At the same time he was getting obsessed with multitrack tape machines, record players and effect boxes and he started experimenting with many different instruments and sound making devices. After college he briefly studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and worked for several years as an assistant for the contemporary composer Josef Anton Riedl.
Since 1995 he lives & works in Berlin where he became an active and integral force of the so-called “Berlin Nouvelle Vague” and the blossoming “experimental” music scene. He has been also prolific as curator (Festival für Andere Musik, Erase & Reset, Time Shifts, TITO, Echtzeitmusiktage 2010, …) and runs the experimental music label Zarek.
Schick has toured worldwide solo or with groups like Perlonex, Phosphor, Berlin Sound Connective, Nighthawk Kitchen, Tree People, Splitter Orchestra, Ilog and many more (…). He has released music on several labels like Absinth, Boomslang Records, Charhizmha, Irrah, Le Petit Mignon, Mikroton, Nexsound, Non Visual Objects, Potlatch, Staalplaat and his own imprint Zarek and collaborated with more than a hundred international sonic artists – amongst others with such iconoclasts like Mwata Bowden, Don Cherry, Sven-Ake Johansson, Paul Lovens, Toshi Nakamura, Charlemagne Palestine, Andrea Parkins, Keith Rowe, Akira Sakata, Matthias Spahlinger or Martin Tetreault. Since 2012 he focusses on conceptual composition and experimental radio pieces. In parallel he has started several new projects with a new generation of Berlin experimentalists (Ilog, Yemen Breakfast, Radio Nightmares, Hawking, Overdue, KUDU, …) and composes & works a lot for/with his large workshop ensemble Circuit Training.