sator-rotas |cs109

Sator-Rotas (cs 109) ist tatsächlich Markus Schmicklers elektronische Komposition von 1998, arrangiert als Stromsparversion. Das Ensemble Zeitkratzer ist bekannt für Umkehrungen von elektronisch in unplugged. Das gleiche Kunststück gelingt MATTHIAS MUCHE, Posaunist in der Schäl Sick Brassband – aha, Köln -, im James Choice Orchestra und bei Das Mollsche Gesetz und Mitorganisator des Festivals Frischzelle, dem Österreicher PHILIP ZOUBEK (LHZ, Hubweber/Zoubek) am präparierten Piano und als Senior dem angeösterreicherten Köln-Bewohner ACHIM TANG, der mit seinem Bass auch mit Oskar Aichinger, Hannes Löschel oder Max Nagl zugange ist. Finessenreich werden Computersounds simuliert, extended techniques zaubern mit Pizzikatokürzeln und vorsichtigen Pointillismen bis hin zum langen finalen Crescendo ein dröhnminimalistisches Klangmorphing, das Schmicklers magisches Klangfeld aus Sinuswellenmotiven auf erstaunliche Weise nachzeichnet. Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy)

O propósito vem contado nas notas que acompanham o disco: a música de SATOR ROTAS (Creative Sources Recordings) baseia-se na composição homónima de Marcus Schmickler, originalmente escrita a pensar na execução electrónica. Para esta gravação, a peça foi “transcrita” e arranjada para trio acústico de contrabaixo, trombone e piano preparado. A transposição para trio (Matthias Muche, Philip Zubek e Achim Tang) em ambiente acústico mantém a aparência própria da instalação electrónica, centrada na microscopia sonora, põe em evidência uma miríade de detalhes sónicos a partir dos quais evolui para realidades mais complexas, estruturadas na confluência das três correntes dominantes. O que aqui se ouve requer máxima concentração e focagem no instante que ainda não terminou e já renasce no momento seguinte. Acções, figuras, formas, planos, motivos, processos – o modo de os organizar é suave, quase terno, mas incisivo na criação de linhas oblíquas que apontam para diferentes pontos no espaço pluridimensional. O piano, tanto desenha linhas verticais de recorte feldmaniano, como desfia horizontalmente um continuum de sons preparados e executados em tempo real; à vez e em simultâneo, trombone e contrabaixo murmuram sons alienígenas inspirados nos processos de criação sonora por via electrónica. Os três envolvem-se num pulsar de quase-drone que desliza suave, apenas perturbado por ligeiros acidentes na paisagem. Como se o vapor se fosse condensando em gotículas sobre um vidro multicolor, aglomeradas de maneira a formar um líquido cristalino de textura complexa. As relações estabelecidas dão origem a uma constante sucessão de surpresas e à dificuldade prática de perceber quem está a fazer o quê, o que apela à participação do ouvinte na descodificação do segredo bem guardado. A sensação com que se fica ao cabo da terceira e última peça deste tríptico, além da fruição estética de uma obra de arte sonora bem construída, é a de que SATOR ROTAS, proposta verdadeiramente intrigante, refractária a qualquer categorização, coloca uma série de questões interessantes, deixadas propositadamente em aberto. Eduardo Chagas (Jazz e Arredores)

Standing on their heads earlier electronic projects such as Switched on Bach that were based on the adaptation of traditional music to wave-form material, the three Köln-based improvisers on this CD do just the opposite. They recreate German composer Marcus Schmickler’s award-winning pop-minimalist electronic composition “Sator-Rotas” using only acoustic instruments.
Although the three sonic researchers involved are usually affiliated with more acoustic music, the surging textures of this nearly-40-minute session, suggest similar musical alchemy performed by cerebral performers such as Britain’s AMM or Australia’s The Necks. More beguiling however is that unlike bands such as those, which use standard rhythm section instruments, this trio integrates the extended techniques and minimalist approach of trombonist Matthias Muche along with a piano and double bass in this sonic transformation.
Muche, who has worked with dancers and multi-media artist as well as improvisers such as Dutch pianist Misha Mengelberg and American saxophonist Larry Ochs, here exposes ratcheting pops and flat-line expiration as his contribution to the mix, along with more expected brass sounds. As for the chordal instruments, bassist Achim Tang, who has collaborated with sound explorers such as Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger and American slide guitarist David Tronzo, provides the timbres closest to traditional. However, his use of expanding plucks, sul tasto string sawing plus wood and gut vibrato add more color to the undertaking.
On the other hand Philip Zoubek, who in has recorded with trombonist Paul Hubweber, creates prepared piano operations that provide vibrating ostinato wave forms that substitute for similar triggered pulsating sound loops found in true electronic projects. Applying pressure on wound piano strings, stopping, pumping, plucking and strumming highlights complementary partials, thus creating a constant buzzy undertow that frames the others’ solos.
Among this output are keyboard resonation from Zoubek himself, who cuts through the engorged layers of inchoate wave forms with arpeggios, single-key plinks, percussive triplets and two-handed cadenzas. Meanwhile Muche reaches past the trombone’s regular tessitura with rooster cries, gurgling throat motions and solid breath movements that involve the instrument’s lead pipe in preference to its valves or slide. Very occasionally he also produces alphorn-like cries, but they last only as long as similar out-of-character tones – which probably result from string-sawing bass striations as well as the clattering of a miniature cymbal against the piano action.
Eventually, the program reaches a crescendo of layered dissonant pitches and harmonies. Soon, the blurry, tremolo chunks dissolve, trans-mutate and are revealed as properly acoustic, individually shaded, keyboard notes, plucked bass lines and back-of-the-throat capillary trombone rumbles.
Operating as if a parallel music world exist the three players have modified “Sator-Rotas” so that it is the same, yet different. On this CD, Muche, Zoubek and Tang have produced a notable interpretive improvisation, while retooling the composition for the acoustic realm. Ken Waxman (Jazzword.com)

“Sator-Rotas” is an electronic composition by Marcus Schmickler, from which the trio of Muche, Zoubek and Tang took inspiration for a total reworking of the concept. The new “score”, or interpretation if you prefer, is for trombone, piano and double bass played by the artists according to the order in which they’re quoted above. Lasting about 37 minutes, this is an excellent, concise work that exploits dynamics and colours beautifully, to the point of finding its niche both in the realms of the most advanced new music and in the kind of contemporary jazz explorations of which Creative Sources has presented several examples in recent times. The musicians show composure, self-reliance and inquisitive minds in abundant doses, their reciprocal attentiveness commendable since the very beginning. Mental fixedness and feverish states alternate in a succession of scenarios, the attention to the sonic details reaching points of tension at the drop of a needle, such is the responsiveness of the players to the single event. In the final section of the piece a hellish clangour is progressively raised, our ears completely invaded by the thunderous power of the instruments nearing breakup. But, all of a sudden, everything ceases - the menace rapidly becomes vapour, the venom is dispersed, the noise mutated into near-silence. The music returns to the initial state of ambivalent quietness from where it started and, when the CD is over, a strange mix of satisfaction and unexpressed rage permeates the surrounding air. Is this version better than the original? Maybe so. It sure sounds like an original itself. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

(...) Jakies dziesiec lat temu Marcus Schmickler, niemiecki kompozytor i muzyk poruszajacy sie po obrzezach muzyki akademickiej, pop oraz improwizowanego noise'u, stworzyl elektroniczna kompozycje "Sator Rotas". W ubieglym roku na plycie oznaczonej numerem katalogowym CS 109 przedstawilo ja trio Matthias Muche, Achim Tang, Philip Zoubek. W ich interpretacji soft noise'owa zawierucha ukazuje swoje nowe, Janusowe oblicze: w pelni akustyczne, ale o wyraznie elektronicznej aurze; z lekka minimalistyczne, ale plynnie ewoluujace, takie z lekka feldmanowskie - swoja droga, zadziwia fakt, jak wielki jest wplyw tego kompozytora na wspólczesna muzyke improwizowana - delikatne i intensywne; lagodne i szorstkie. Puzonista, kontrabasista i pianista zmyslnie lawiruja miedzy Scylla rozszerzonych technik artykulacji, a Charybda kompozycji zapisanej w nutach, ani przez chwile nie gubiac watku improwizacji. (...) Tadeusz Kosiek (Diapazon)

Here's a fairly infrequent and unusual occurrence: a trio of improvisers transposing the buzz of circuitry into the realms of the acoustic. Terre Thaemlitz tinkered with Kraftwerk's mensche-machine in similar fashion, trading in their German group's synthetic toys for the classical austerity of piano, with mixed results (he's done that deed with the likes of Devo as well). Now it's Marcus Schmickler's turn. Trombonist Muche, (prepared) pianist Zoubek, and bassist Tang attempt to reconfigure Schmickler's verdant electroacoustic work Sator Rotas into something more befitting a petite modern chamber ensemble. It's questionable whether or not such experiments should be conducted: it's easily understood why synthesists endeavor to reinterpret acoustic (usually classical) compositions by sculpting new motifs from arcs of electricity, but one wonders if it's a fool's gesture to navigate the opposite. Surely the very textures particular to electronic music's domain would be nigh on impossible to replicate in an unplugged setting; if anything, however, the nimble parameters of improvisation is the one genre capable of realizing such progeny successfully, theoretical obstacles notwithstanding.
Interestingly enough, the trio nearly pulls it off. Zoubek's occasional tone clusters and minimalist dabblings offer a spatial counterpoint to Tang's flanged contrabass, whose collection of squawks, scratches, peals, and sudden outbreaks create as much knotty tension as its electronic analog. Muche seems to be the odd man out at times, but there are numerous instances where his trombone provides a gaggle of alien contours that remind the listener what came first in the sonic narrative was the chicken before the egg. On the piece's third movement, Muche's outbursts feel like metamorphic rocks tumbling amongst Tang's gulf-streams of liquid metal, all flowing chop and offbeat hisses. All three musicians seem to not only possess a keen understanding of the parent material, but an intuitive concern about how, when and why certain sounds should be juxtaposed. They also subscribe to the maxim that silence is golden: in the recording's few deaf spots, enough inertia is attained so that when those gaps appear, it whets your appetite to see just where the piece will go next. When the whole enterprise assumes critical mass towards its denouement, the various fibrillations assuming a downright noisy position, the musicians are wise to let cacophony reign. The trio's got moxie, that's for sure, but it's all show, which ultimately classifies their take on Sator Ratos as a brave failure, pitched somewhere between lark and yeoman effort. Darren Bergstein (The Squid's Ear)

2007 : cette année-là j’avais contribué à organiser et à enregistrer le concert de Philip Zoubek en duo avec le tromboniste Paul Hubweber (Archiduc Concert / Emanem). Philip Zoubek, un improvisateur accompli et pianiste hors-pair a développé une pratique au carrefour des tendances actuelles de l’improvisation et de l’extrême évolution du jazz. Ces deux camarades impliqués dans ce trio et lui travaillent ensemble depuis plusieurs années et dès le départ, cette séance de 2007, donnent le ton avec une maturité confondante. Creative Sources s’est fait le réceptacle prolifique de nombreuses initiatives de renouvellement / dépassement des musiques improvisées et du sound-art aux quelles le responsable du label, Ernesto Rodrigues n’est pas étranger. Le catalogue contient des moments forts et aussi des tentatives honorables, certaines plus réussies que d’autres. Parmi les jeunes musiciens au catalogue qui veulent faire évoluer la pratique musicale de l’improvisation vers des formes nouvelles, voisines d’un travail compositionnel, le trio m / z / t est sans contestation un des projets les plus aboutis. Sator Rotas est une composition de Marcus Schmickler pour l’électronique que Zoubek, le tromboniste Mathias Muche et le contrebassiste Achim Tang ont arrangé pour leur trio en fonction de l’instrumentation piano trombone et contrebasse. Leur utilisation des techniques étendues les conduisent à sortir complètement l’instrument de ses références et de ses fonctionnalités de manière à ce qu’il devienne méconnaissable sans que leur musique soit désincarnée ou anémique. On a presque l’illusion que la musique est créée par des moyens électro-acoustiques ou carrément extra-galactiques comme ces glissandi hallucinants. Là où nombre de praticiens s’agrègent dans un flux organique semi-aléatoire, ces trois intrépides donnent à ces pratiques une expressivité intentionnelle, suggérant le mouvement dans la stase, le rythme au travers des effets sonores. C’est donc un moment rare qu’ils rééditeront avec leurs excerpts from anything paru récemment sur le même label. Recherchez ce cédé, car il risque bien de devenir un collector. Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (Orynx-improv'andsounds)