Out of stock
CD
Ulrich KRIEGER
“Winters in the abyss”
Matt Barbier, trombone. Zara Rivera, French horn. Paul Rivera, contrabass trombone.
Winters in the Abyss are the first five pieces of Ulrich Krieger’s Deep-Sea cycle, which compromises a total of 14 pieces. Each movement of Winters in the Abyss can stand on its own and be performed as an independent piece. Numbered in order of their composition, the movements from V to I follow the sinking of this material from light flooded, warm near-surface waters to high pressure, pitch black and extreme cold deep-sea trenches.
Winters in the Abyss takes the fictional undertone series, an upside-down overtone series, as its compositional material. Analogue to water pressure, the density of pitches is higher in the lower range and gets thinner in the upper range. The structures of the individual pieces follow the pressure, amount of live and movement being present in the respective depths. Therefore there is more movement in the higher regions and less in the lower regions. Based on an undertone series Winters in the Abyss is in Just Intonation, making its performance even more challenging by having the series ‘on its head’.
An hour long endeavor on three brass instruments is a daunting task, but it also provides an unique opportunity for the performers to explore their physical and instrumental limits in a separate mode from the traditional pitfalls of brass endurance - missed high tones and playing wrong overtones. Winters removes that - the extremely low tessitura eliminates concerns of fatigue decreasing one's range or a lack of focus causing pitch errors. Long held concerns are stripped away and all that's left is staying in the middle of the sound and maintaining it. The instruments are all close-microphoned, therefore amplifying elements of the sound normally not or only weakly audible: air within tone, sound of spit, weaker partials, tiny tone fluctuations, and more. This results in a redefined brass sound that only pretends to be acoustic, due to the lack of electronic manipulation, but is inherently processed.
Please note: This release packaging comes folded into quarters, ending up as a 5 ” x 5 ” brochure style booklet (liner notes inside), with the CD in a paper sleeve, all inserted into re-sealable plastic sleeves. There is no jewel case, tray card etc. There is a bar code.
Original price was: 14,00€.8,00€Current price is: 8,00€.
In stock
2 CD
Ulrich KRIEGER
“-RAW:ReSpace-”
Ulrich Krieger: electric tenor saxophone, saxophone-controlled feedback, pedals, delays; 1/4-inch jack cable, vocals; Joshua Carro, drums (CD 1, tracks 3, 5).
CD 1: RAW
CD 2: ReSpace
“[Krieger] ranges wide as he seeks the spots where noise and beauty meet” Anne Power, Los Angeles Times
RAW/ReSpace is the first-ever experimental noise-metal saxophone solo album, changing and re-defining how the saxophone can sound and what saxophone playing means. No saxophone player ever dared to explore these uncharted outer realms of woodwind expression. RAW brings together noisescapes and electronica with death and doom metal approaches and contemporary instrumental composition techniques. While ReSpace combines dark ambient, controlled-feedback soundscapes with a reductionist approach to create eerie ambient sound-fields. All sounds are saxophone-produced and performed live, no sampling and no purely electronic sounds. RAW and ReSpace are part of the ongoing Universe series.
Ulrich Krieger is well known as a saxophone player in rock, noise, contemporary composed and free improvised music as well as a composer of chamber music and electronic music. He has been active in pushing the boundaries of saxophone playing in general and the function of the saxophone in rock and noise in particular, collaborating with Lou Reed (Metal Machine Trio, Lou Reed Band), Lee Ranaldo (Text of Light), Faust, Zbigniew Karkowski and his own death-doom-noise-metal band Blood Oath. His recent focus lies in the experimental fields and fringes of contemporary Pop culture: somewhere in the limbo between Noise and Heavy Metal, Ambient and Silence. His original compositions go back and forth between Just Intonation, Silent Music, Noise, Instrumental Electronic, often asking for elaborate amplification, and works in the limbo of Rock culture - not accepting stylistic boundaries. Krieger developed his own, often amplified style of saxophone playing, he calls “acoustic electronics”. He uses refined acoustic, quasi-electronic sounds, which then get processed, the saxophone often becoming more an “analogue sampler” rather than a traditional finger-virtuoso instrument. By amplifying his instrument in various ways, he gets down to the 'grains of the sounds', changing their identity and structure from within.
“When Ulrich introduced his “acoustic electronic” concept, there was another door blown wide open, and another glorious field of pure expression revealed. There is an openness, and a level of abstraction to the music that leaves room for “me” to exist within the music; I can bring my own associations, patterns and inner visuals — and let it blend, mutate and morph into the intended delivery from the artist. The acoustic element in Ulrich’s music makes the sonic reality deeper, as the organic qualities of acoustic-to-electronic resonate with the mind and flesh in a way electronic-to-electronic cannot.” (Ivar Bjørnson of Enslaved, from the liner notes)
13,00€