sirenen & blüten |cs125

SIRENEN & BLÜTEN (Creative Sources #125), de Sascha Demand (guitarra eléctrica) e Hannes Wienert (trompete, saxofone soprano, trumpsaz, sheng e tubos) desdobra-se em 18 peças miniatura, outras tantas maneiras de exprimir as concepções destes dois músicos alemães sobre o estado da música improvisada actual no sentido “europeu” do termo, ou seja muito longe da improvisação do jazz. Neste cenário, o primado vai inteiro para a relação entre timbres e texturas, a opção por tonalidades escuras, dispostas num plano em que as noções de melodia e harmonia e ritmo se esbatem, insinuam ou desaparecem em favor da exploração de ambientes atonais, com simplificação de volumes e geometrização de formas, linhas direitas e superfícies lisas. Sascha Demand e Hannes Wienert trazem a diversidade das suas experiências para um território comum. O mano-a-mano favorece a criação de ambientes criados a partir da relação complexa entre instrumentos acústicos e eléctricos, reduzidos à pluralidade mínima, como estratégia deliberada para focalizar a atenção sobre o núcleo essencial do seu trabalho. É nele que nascem os cruzamentos e as combinações sonoras mais heterodoxos, as técnicas fora do comum, procura de recursos alternativos e de meios para explorar novas vias de comunicação. Para o efeito, Demand e Wienert optam por focar o esforço de convergência sobre vibrações mínimas e micro-sons que se aglutinam para formar paisagens que mais não são que ligações entre linhas descontínuas cuidadosamente dispostas ao longo da vastidão do campo auditivo, como pequenos pontos de luz bruxuleante. Maneiras distintas de entender a livre-improvisação e de a colocar ao serviço da criação electroacústica experimental na sua variante mais intimista e sofisticada. Eduardo Chagas (Jazz e Arredores)

Ein Duo: Sascha Demand (e.Gitarre, Mitbegründer des Ensembles Beside
the Cage) - Hannes Wienert (Trompete. Sopransax, Schläuche...
Maler & Instrumentalist). In HH aufgenommen 2006. Mastering von Thomas
Siebert.
Eine Abfolge von Stimmungen, wo der schöne Anteil in den Texturen liegt.
Eine plastische Klangarbeit und eine hübsche Vignette auf dem selben
Ton,
eine wenig aufgerregte Träumerei ...
Minimal, Nächtlich und Mineralisch. (Metamkine)

Eighteen epigrammatic sketches by a pair of German improvisers gifted with quite interesting curricula, accurately reported in the CD leaflet. Demand is a guitarist who exalts the inspiring side of string resonance, the sound of his prepared machine at times analogous to the reverberation of Asian gongs, elsewhere focusing on the hardly edible core of the matter with shrieking secretions whose acridness is on a par with the effluences of an infecting industrial unit. Wienert plays a number of instruments, at this juncture including soprano sax, trumpet, trumpsax, sheng and tubes. The option of keeping things short and sweet, so to speak, is a winning choice: one catches glimpses of abnormal attractiveness underlying metallic energies, rhythmic out-of-shape-ness, emotionless pulses and weirdly resonating parabolas of didjeridoo-like insufflations, yet we can’t actually get used to anything as the pieces end almost instantly, all too quickly in a coitus interruptus of sorts. A cross between the sonic snapshots of two researchers at work in their laboratory and the commentary for a modern theatre act, “Sirenen & Bluten” is positively a good outing - and the evidence that half a hour is an adequate amount of time when ideas abound. When the disc’s over we would love to go on and find out if there’s more in the artists’ vault. Masimo Ricci (Totching Extremes)

Last week I saw Ensemble Integrales perform a live soundtrack with Augsburger Tafelconfect to Walter Ruttman's 1928 film 'Berlin' and got these two items handed. Guitarist Sascha Demand from the ensemble teams up with Hannes Wienert, who handles soprano saxophone, trumpet, trumpsax, sheng and tubes here on a CD that holds eightteen tracks in thirty minutes. I am not sure why they are so short, but it makes great sense. Each of the pieces seem to explore their own sound world within the miniature frame. The table top guitar, and the various wind instruments merge together most of the times, and its hard to tell which instrument does what here. Sometimes they drift wide apart and each is on his own. And then things are over, and things start again. Nothing lasts more than its supposed to be, which is the greatest thing about it: a fine quality that is: knowing when to stop. Excellent CD, not just for those who love improvisation, but also for those who love electro-acoustic and acousmatic music. Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly)

Der Gitarrist Sascha Demand hat mehrfach in Programmen des Ensemble Integrales, einem der besten jungen Ensembles für Neue Musik in Deutschland, mitgewirkt. Vielleicht stammt daher sein Gespür für Timing, seine ungeheure Disziplin, die nichts kopflos oder zufällig erscheinen lässt. Die 30-Duominuten auf Sirenen&Blüten sind eine schmiergelnd-eruptive Angelegenheit, die absonderliche Klänge produziert und überraschent vermengt. Hannes Wienert umschmiegt und würgt manchmal kraftvoll mit seinen Blasinstrumenten die Gitarre, was farbenfrohe Reibungen schafft. Zipo (Auf Abwegen)

Der Komponist und Gitarrist Sascha Demand und sein Partner, der Insallationskünstler, Maler, Saxophonist und Trompeter Hannes Wienert, stammen beide aus Hamburg. Die nun von Thomas Siebert exzellent abgemischte CD "Sirenen & Blüten" dieser beiden ist ein Hörgenuss der ganz besonderen Art. Dabei bedeutet das rein Auditive für sie eine gewisse Beschneidung ihrer sonstigen Betätigungsfelder. Das Aufführungsereignis selbst, die "Installation" des Ensembles im Raum, das Umfeld und seine Illuminierung spielen eine wichtige Rolle, die man sich beim Hören von "Sirenen & Blüten" hinzudenken muss. Wer Hannes Wienert und seine Arbeiten, etwa die Lichtinstallationen in der Schilleroper Hamburg, oder seinen "Immortal Vomiting Sound" kennt, wird einigen Stoff dazu aus der Erinnerung holen können(...). "Sirenen & Blüten" muss und soll trotz seines bildhaften Titels wahrscheinlich nicht programmatisch gedeutet werden. Dennoch hat man den Eindruck, als würde man wie mit einem Mikroskop in eine anatomische Welt von Pflanzenfasern, Zellen und Farben hinabtauchen, wobei das Bild wie in einer Zeitlupe von immer breiter werdenden Klängen verzerrt wird und allmählich immer unwirklicher erscheint. H. Peters (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik)

Unlike the glossy horn-guitar duos of the past involving Zoot Sims and Joe Pass, for instance, these CDs featuring three Germans and an American eviscerating the flaccid mawkishness inherent in this formation to create something more meaningful. Yet each does so in a different way.
Guitarist Sascha Demand and reed and brass experimenter Hannes Wienert’s CD offers 17 tracks in 30 minutes that abrasively expose the extremes of strings and metal with Teutonic conviction With a shared interest in Zen Buddhism, on the other hand, German guitarist Carsten Radtke and American saxophonist Blaise Siwula, take almost twice as much time on half as many tracks to reach echoing concordance that’s often lyrical without being sentimental.
Eschewing rhythmic thrust or melodic story-telling, Demand and Wienert at points treat each tune as a laboratory experiment – advancing a certain technique for a short time to determine what results; then going on to the next one. A graphic artists as well as a multi-wind-instrumentalist, Wienert was a member of the Ton-Art Ensemble and has created musical performances involving cooking, music, film and poetry. Co-founder of the Beside the Cage ensemble, Demand curates an improvised music series in Hamburg and is involved in other local groups.
Sirenen & Blüten includes examples of resonance such as chromatic guitar clatter that resembles the clanking of Oriental temple bells; swollen reed vibrations that peal rhythmically as they’re being overblown; defined spetrofluctuation which also encompasses the scraping scuffs of metal along with off-centre brass notes; what could be thick bond paper balled and crumbled beside the mike; and panning electronic interface amplified to intersect with shuddering guitar twangs.
Although each of these brief sonic investigations isolates singular improvisational strategies, wide scope provides more narrative impulses. For instance the final track features Wienert representing not only the notes but their extensions and partials as his glottal punctuation expands and swells. Meanwhile Demand slides, slaps and rattles his strings for additional dissonance. Track #15 suggests that the guitar body has been shoved against Wienert’s tubes setting off jackhammer-like buzzes and cylindrical pulsations. Adding to this atonality, the horn man yodels crying textures through his instrument’s cylindrical body tube.
[…] More abrasive, Sirenen & Blüten is its equally valid and memorable variant of this sonic conversation. Ken Waxman (Jazz Word)