Olaf Rupp / Derek Shirley / Hannes Lingens
Olaf Rupp - guitar
Derek Shirley - cello
Hannes Lingens - drums
recorded live at umlaut festival, berlin, september 24, 2010 by christoph schlimbach
mixed by christoph schlimbach
live at umlaut festival CDr
artwork by Michal Fuchs
limited edition of 80 pieces in handmade cover with original artwork
each cover is a square of 16,5 on 16,5 cm cut out of a huge collage
edition uqbar 2011
reviews
vital weekly no. 827
A live recording from the Umlaut Festival, made on September 24 in 2010 by Olaf Rupp on acoustic guitar, Derek Shirley on cello and Hannes Lingens on drums. They have been playing in various duos but not as a trio. No rehearsals were done, and the three played a twenty-five minutes, here released in its entire length. Obviously a work of improvisation, just like one would expect from such players doing no rehearsals. Rupps style is best recognized by me, as I heard some of his previous releases and seeing him play live a couple of times. All three of them use a reduced playing, carefully placing their notes on the table, listening to what the others are doing, responding carefully to what the others are doing. They never go for the all-out playing but keep playing in the reduced style, without being silent. Their methods of improvisation remain conventional - all three instruments sound as they are supposed to be and not like resonating electro-acoustic boxes. A fine work, and perhaps a pity its only twenty-five minutes. The release, in an edition of 80, has a square cover of 16,5 times 16,5 centimeter which is cut out of a collage by Michal Fuchs, and makes up for an all around fine release. (FdW)
Olaf and Derek had played together a few times. Hannes and Olaf had also played. Derek and Hannes had played in their trio OBLIQ with Pierre Borel and on a few other occasions.
Anyway, the meeting of the three of them was a first and it happened on stage without rehearsal (Olaf said that if the rehearsal is close to the concert date he prefers to do without).
As Derek usually plays the double bass but is also a sometime cello player, Olaf proposed he would bring the cello. Derek left this question unanswered and Olaf, who plays both acoustic and electric guitars did not mention which instrument he would bring either. Hannes, who had recently started to reduce his setup to just a snare drum and a few objects and who plays accordion as well, did not inform the other two about his choice of instruments for the night either (he probably made his decision very late).
The concert was one out of four sets performed by different groups, so it was agreed on, that a short set should be prefered to a long one. The music, obviously, was entirely improvised. The instrumentation ended up to be acoustic guitar, cello and drumset, the drummer being restricted to play in a low volume range in respect to the natural abilities of the other two instruments. There probably was a certain tension to be felt because of that. Further tension was created through the contrast between the sonic pointilism of Olaf s guitar playing and the more quiet and reduced style that Derek and Hannes had developed in their group OBLIQ and others. Nevertheless, both the musicians and the audience enjoyed the performance which luckily happened to be recorded by Christoph Schlimbach.
Thus, the new format led to a new label, EDITION UQBAR, which was founded by Hannes with the idea of releasing tracks of 20-30 minutes length as limited edition CDrs with unique artist made packaging. For the first release, Michal Fuchs was asked to provide the artwork and she came up with the proposal to make a large collage and to cut it into 80 squares, each one being the front of a unique CD Cover. Michal made the collage and cut it into 80 pieces which were then glued on 80 rough cardboard rectangles, the front and back thus providing a pocket for the CDr. 80 CDs were burned and printed on at home. The result made everybody happy, but the whole procedure was a lot of work and, as it is CDrs what you get in the end, you cannot really sell the product for the money that the effort seems to require. Thus, it remains uncertain if more music will be released through EDITION UQBAR, although there are some recordings of 25 minutes length already on the list.
the story
The piece ended up to be 25:10 minutes in length, which is a weird, in between kind of duration. Definitely too short for a CD, it is still too long for a MiniCD or for one side of an LP, if you do not want to cut it in two. A CDr seemed to be the appropriate medium, cheap and easy to produce, it can be sold for little money, so nobody would complain about the short duration.
the musicians
Olaf Rupp
Olaf Rupp started at the age of twelve as an autodidact to play what might be called today Improvised Music. His way of holding the guitar in an upright position is inspired by chinese Pipa players. He refined some playing techniques like rasgueados, arpeggios and tremolos in such a way that they can be used for overtone and cluster effects to create new, virtual sounds. He sometimes describes his music as analog granular synthesis or sonic pointillism because the intrinsic colour of every note or a group or notes is more important than the melodic or harmonic burden we may or may not put on them. He played among others with Lol Coxhill, Michael Wertmueller, John Zorn, Joe Williamson, Paul Lovens, Butch Morris und Tony Buck. Five solo albums on FMP, GROB and GLIGG.
Hannes Lingens
Hannes Lingens is an improvisor/composer on drums and accordion. Born in Hamburg in 1980, he studied drums with Michael Griener and Guenter Baby Sommer in Dresden before moving to Berlin in 2006. His interest in various forms of exploratory music gave him the opportunity to work with such diverse artists as Tetuzi Akiyama, Sven-Ake Johansson, Christof Kurzmann, Olaf Rupp or Matthias Schubert. Ongoing collaborations include the groups OBLIQ, Hop Frog, Destination Out, Schulbus, as well as a duo with Pierre Borel (Saxophone). He has performed in internationally renowned festivals and venues throughout Europe, Japan, Israel and the USA. In 2009 he co-founded the collective Umlaut Berlin which curates an annual Festival for contemporary and experimental music and is part of the international label and network Umlaut Records.
Derek Shirley
Born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1975, studied Jazz Bass in Montreal at the McGill University Faculty of Music before moving to Berlin in 2001. active in the fields of improvised music and Noise. He is a member of, among others, Monno, Coal Oven, Michael Thieke's Unununium, MEK with Burkhard Beins and Michael Renkel and the Vladislav Delay Quartet. He has record releases on Charhizma, Japan-Improv, and Schraum.
bad alchemy no. 73
Diese 25 Minuten entstanden als jungfraeulicher Dreier. Denn Rupp hatte vorher nur mit Shirley oder mit Lingens gespielt, die sich wiederum von OBLIQ her vertraut sind. Aber ein Trio funktioniert nun mal anders. Rupp hatte die Akustische dabei, Shirley sein Cello, und Lingens, als Umlaut-Mann quasi der Gastgeber, passte sich dem mit weniger phonstarken Aktionen an. Dabei ist Rupp auch auf der Akustischen nicht als Leisetreter bekannt. Zwar zeigten seine juengeren Einspielungen auf Gligg eine vermehrte Ausdifferenzierung seiner druckvollen, nahezu manischen Pointillistik. Aber seine Finger sind jederzeit dick genug, um zwei Berliner Reduktionisten noch vor dem Fruehstueck zu schnupfen. Nicht dass ich Shirley darauf reduzieren moechte, aber Titel wie The Whispering Land (mit Hotelgaeste) oder The Shadow of Your Smile (mit Ruby Ruby Ruby) deuten doch auf eine Tendenz hin (die er freilich in seiner Arbeit mit Monno kontrastiert hat). Auch 'oblique' - indirekt, verdeckt, verbluemt - ist nicht gerade ein Synonym fuer Rupp. Der kommt aber hier derart spanisch und auf Draht daher, dass die Interaktionen mit Shirleys oft hauchduennen und wie gezirpten Cellostrichen und Lingens geraeuschhaft perkussiven Kratzern und Punkten, Tupfern und Schraffuren, seinen aufrauschenden Guessen, den raschelnden und klickenden Akzenten, zu den feinsten gehoeren, die man mit nach Hause nehmen kann. Die prickelnden Hochgeschwindigkeitsarpeggios und die perkussiven Interpunktionen greifen oft wie Zahnraedchen ineinander, ohne dass das Runde ueber das Eckige dominieren wollte oder das Feste ueber das Luftige. Ich will damit nur sagen, dass dieses Scheibchen nicht nur wegen des Covers das Zeug zum Sammlerstueck hat. [BA 73 rbd]
