In stock
LP
William ENGELEN
“32 bpm”
After "Today, the organ has played beautifully again", released earlier in 2019, Edition Telemark presents the second instalment of what will become a series of LPs of sound works by Dutch artist William Engelen. "32 bpm" was recorded at Kunsthalle Mannheim for an exhibition in summer 2019 and is a slowed down version of "38 bpm", previously released on Engelen's double LP "Partitur Belval" in 2016.
The piece – played here by Mannheimer Schlagwerk – is written for 8 percussionists, each using a set of 9 different instruments varying in their timbre and in the duration of their resonance. The composition is played in a monorhythmic pulse of 32 beats per minute and in unison. To determine the order in which the instruments are played, each percussionist draws their own path through the score consisting of a 32x32 grid of dots of different sizes, with larger dots representing instruments with long resonance and smaller dots those with short resonance. Because each musician has chosen their own path, different instruments are played at each pulse. Neither does the pulse ever change nor do the musicians play out-of-sync at any time. As the piece progresses through its 5 parts, more and more dots are skipped, leaving only 64 beats per musician in part 5, as opposed to 320 in part 1.
The composition "38 bpm" was written in 2016 and now adapted by Engelen to take into account the acoustic qualities of the atrium of the Kunsthalle Mannheim, leading to the slower tempo and a different selection of instruments, now focusing on more resonant ones. The instruments played are mokushos, wood blocks, bongos, reyongs, crotales, triangles, timpanis, gongs, and tubular bells. For the performance, each player stood at a different spot and the audience moved freely between them, feeling out the space by listening to the resonance. The piece thus turned into a sound sculpture inside the architecture of the museum.
The LP is a co-release between Edition Telemark and Kunsthalle Mannheim and comes in a full-color gatefold sleeve with a 12-page LP-sized booklet with photos, a reproduction of the score, and extensive liner notes by Björn Gottstein, director of the Musiktage festival in Donaueschingen, and Sebastian Baden, curator at Kunsthalle Mannheim.
Original price was: 21,50€.12,00€Current price is: 12,00€.
In stock
2 LP
William ENGELEN
“Today, the organ has played beautifully again”
William Engelen (born 1964 in Weert, The Netherlands) is a sound and visual artist living and working in Berlin. After having studied visual arts, his focus shifted over time from solely visual to multi-disciplinary works that oscillate between sound and visual arts, between exhibition and performance, and incorporate installational, sculptural and compositional elements. He now considers himself a conceptual artist who works with sound. Many of his works are site-specific and have been presented and performed in museums, galleries, concert halls, private apartments, parks, urban spaces, a.o. Unlike other sound artists, Engelen does not primarily try to make a space sound, but rather to develop works that resonate and reflect the specific surroundings where they are presented.
"Today, the organ has played beautifully again" (2018) is Engelen's second LP release after "Partitur Belval" in 2016. The piece was written for his solo exhibition "Heute hat die Orgel wieder schön gespielt" at Kunsthalle Osnabrück in Lower Saxony, Germany. The Kunsthalle building was once a Dominican monastery which, in 1713, became home to a pipe organ made by the famous Klausing workshop in Herford. In 1819, after the monastery had been secularized, the organ was moved to St. Matthäus church in Melle where it continues to be played to the present day. For the exhibition, Engelen decided to virtually bring back the organ to its original place. The piece was performed first for an audience at St. Matthäus church on October 14th, 2018, then turned into an 8-channel sound installation for the Kunsthalle exhibition from November 2018 to January 2019. During the rehearsals and the concert, video recordings were made that were compiled into a 2-channel work. The fourth iteration of the piece is this double LP album, recorded in the night of October 18th, 2018, and presented in a full-colour gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves. Co-released by Kunsthalle Osnabrück and Edition Telemark.
"The air supply for this historic instrument can either be pumped by a motor or by sheer force, literally by stepping or pressing on the large bellows. Together with Stephan Lutermann, the church's regular organist, I explored and pushed the sonic boundaries and possibilities of the Klausing organ – from the barely audible to the astonishingly raucous. While Stephan played the console, I served as the so-called calcant, or bellows blower, and in this role could decide the length and force of the air supply. Only four of the twelve parts are played with the help of the motor." (William Engelen)
30,50€
In stock
LP
William ENGELEN
“Gebrauchsspuren”
After "Today, the organ has played beautifully again" and "32 bpm" from 2019, Edition Telemark presents three new LPs by Dutch sound artist William Engelen, released on the occasion of his exhibition "Klinkt goed" at Kunstmuseum Den Haag. All three LPs are released separately but may be listened to as a whole because they portray three work groups that are representative of Engelen's compositional methods: Falten, Verstrijken and Gebrauchsspuren.
Gebrauchsspuren (signs of wear) is a composition from 2016. It consists of the sounds of a CD player skipping on a piano track, transcribed for piano. The idea for this piece occurred to Engelen while he was listening to a CD of piano pieces by György Kurtág, Béla Bartók et al., when the CD player suddenly started skipping back and forth randomly on a track, repeating some notes and skipping others, thereby creating rhythms and additionally making its own noises. Because he was drawing, he couldn't get up immediately to remedy the situation. Rather, he was forced to listen to what became the CD player's own music. Engelen made an audio recording of the situation, transcribed the notes and noises, and asked pianist Benoît Gagnon to perform the resulting score.
This LP contains two versions of the piece, both recorded by Gagnon in 2018. Edition of 300.
Original price was: 22,00€.15,00€Current price is: 15,00€.
In stock
LP
William ENGELEN
“Verstrijken”
After "Today, the organ has played beautifully again" and "32 bpm" from 2019, Edition Telemark presents three new LPs by Dutch sound artist William Engelen, released on the occasion of his exhibition "Klinkt goed" at Kunstmuseum Den Haag. All three LPs are released separately but may be listened to as a whole because they portray three work groups that are representative of Engelen's compositional methods: Falten, Verstrijken and Gebrauchsspuren.
The Dutch word "verstrijken" means the same as its German counterpart "verstreichen": the time that passes. It is the name of a compositional method that William Engelen has been using since 2005. For a Verstrijken piece, he asks one or more musicians to keep a diary for a defined time period, usually a week. He then transforms each diary into a graphical score for the particular instrument played by each musician, where every hour is translated into eight seconds of sound. For the purposes of the composition, every activity described in the journal must belong to one of four general categories: sleeping, eating, working and free time. These will be represented by different colors in the score and later by different types of sounds. The quality of each individual sound is influenced by the quality of the particular activity, e.g. if the player slept well or not, how a particular meal tasted, etc. In this way, the musician performs a kind of self-portrait.
Due to the nature of the composition, every score belongs to the particular player who has written the underlying journal and must only be performed by themselves. It is possible to perform Verstrijken in ensembles, though in this case each musician essentially performs solo and must not listen to the other players.
Verstrijken has been realized for a large number of musicians and instruments. Some recordings have been released in 2008 on CD as part of the catalogue "Verstrijken (Audio Works 1999–2008)" by Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg. This LP pairs two unreleased solo recordings: "Verstrijken for Ko Ishikawa" (2010, played on shō) and "Verstrijken for Luc Döbereiner" (2007, for computer). Edition of 300.
Original price was: 22,00€.15,00€Current price is: 15,00€.
In stock
LP
William ENGELEN
“Falten”
After "Today, the organ has played beautifully again" and "32 bpm" from 2019, Edition Telemark presents three new LPs by Dutch sound artist William Engelen, released on the occasion of his exhibition "Klinkt goed" at Kunstmuseum Den Haag. All three LPs are released separately but may be listened to as a whole because they portray three work groups that are representative of Engelen's compositional methods: Falten, Verstrijken and Gebrauchsspuren.
In Falten (folds), Engelen asks musicians to play and interpret pieces of folded paper. Falten scores exist in different sizes, ranging from about 60cm x 30cm up to works that are 10 meters long. They consist of a piece of paper with stave-like lines drawn on it. The paper has been folded – sometimes with origami-like proficiency that adds a sculptural element to each Falten score – so that the lines collide, intersect, crisscross, disappear into folds, etc. The staves then represent sound, the parts of the paper that have disappeared represent pauses. The musician should interpret this paper environment like a choreography for their movements on their instruments. The actual notes don't count, but rather their parameters like intensity, timbre, vibration, etc. While this seems like total freedom at first sight, the staves and folds in fact give each performance a time structure that even allows for Falten to be played by ensembles.
Falten scores have been realized on numerous occasions, from performances for orchestra to solo electric guitar. This LP contains "Falten for string quartet", performed in 2012 by Sonar Quartett, and "Falten for percussion", performed in 2013 by Talujon Percussion Quartet. Edition of 300 with photos of Falten scores and liner notes by Dagmara Genda.
Original price was: 22,00€.15,00€Current price is: 15,00€.