The Squid's Ear Magazine


Krebs / Unami: motubachii (erstwhile)

Berlin based Annette Krebs and Tokyo sound artist Taku Unami bring together a variety of improvisation, compositional and unlikely sources for 5 part puzzle box of understated sound.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Annette Krebs

Taku Unami


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Label: erstwhile
Catalog ID: erstwhile 058
Squidco Product Code: 11896

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2010
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack - 3 panel
Recorded in Hamburg, Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe and Kaditzsh in June 2009. Mixed by Annette Krebs and Taku Unami.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Throughout their careers, both Annette Krebs and Taku Unami have explored the areas between composition and improvisation, innovation and repetition, music and ambient sound. On motubachii, their distinctive styles come together to form a whole that is monolithic yet widely varied, simple yet impossible to fully grasp.

Annette Krebs studied music and concert guitar in Frankfurt/Main, and has lived in Berlin since 1993. She has worked intensively in the crossover area between improvisation and composition, exploring the possibilities of the prepared guitar with regard to sound, structure, noise, the mixing of materials, and space. Various preparation methods are used to produce noises and sounds, which are then enlarged through the use of sometimes high levels of amplification. The sound of the amplification and mixing board, additional tapes, radios and objects are used as musical material. She works also in the field of electroacoustic composition, both deconstructing and reconstructing selected sound and noise material. Fragments of noises, of words and sentences are used to remind, to suggest certain meanings, fusing with the sounds in a surreal, abstract soundscape. Krebs has released a string of superb CDs in recent years, with the most recent being Sgraffito, Siyu and The Kravis Rhonn Project (duos with Robin Hayward, Toshi Nakamura and Rhodri Davies respectively).

Taku Unami was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1976. He is a composer and improviser working with assorted stringed instruments, including the guitar, mandolin, and contraguitar, laptop and vibrating objects (from which he amplifies the inaudible vibrations). Despite being linked to minimal improvisation his music is hardly classifiable, being able to surprise listeners on every new release, raising unforeseen questions and forging new paths for improvisation. He is part of the group HOSE and has active collaborations with Mattin, Taku Sugimoto and Masahiko Okura. In the past he has worked with Radu Malfatti, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Klaus Filip, Masafumi Ezaki, Burkhard Stangl, Rhodri Davies and Keith Rowe, among others. Unami has also composed for film, including 'Lost My Way' (directed by Takeshi Furusawa) and 'In 1,000,000 years' (directed by Isao Okishima). He has released more than 30 records, both solo and in numerous groups and collaborations. He runs the influential label Hibari Music and co-organizes the Tokyo concert series Chamber Music Concerts with Taku Sugimoto and Masahiko Okura.

Krebs and Unami had only briefly played together a couple of times, and never as a duo, before meeting in Germany and Japan for a series of recordings in June 2009. motubachii is a test for the experienced and jaded listener, a puzzle box of sound, refusing to be categorized neatly. The design by Yuko Zama (based on photos submitted by the musicians) frames the music inside."-erstwhile records


Artist Biographies

"... [Annette Krebs] wanted to play the guitar since she was four years old, but only eleven years later this dream came true. Her first teacher was a jazzmusician who led her more practically and gave her the basis of the most varied styles. From the beginning she made improvisational and compositional songs about the school and the things around her. At sixteen she wrote her own protestsongs, played a little rock, a little this and that. When the time for studying came, she chose classical guitar. Jazz and modern music did not interest them at first, modern art was even more so: she painted, was fascinated by Dadaism, Schwitters' Merz and others. She tried to play what she painted, to paint what she was playing. Of the fact that the other were similar, she had no idea at that time.

In Frankfurt, where she at that time studied guitar, she also tried to penetrate the authentic interpretation of baroque music, discovered the European tradition and composed intensively. At the same time, however, she lured the abstraction - the pictorial as well as the musical. In her own compositions she stayed with pure tones, from which she formed her "abstract" melodies.

Now Frankfurt is a very lively city, and Annette Krebs took everything that was going on around her: concerts of contemporary music, jam sessions and joint improvisations and debates with other musicians. When she finally moved to Berlin, she began to break out of the world of classical music. First, she tried to put her guitar in an informal context, playing classical repertoire in pubs, which was almost surreal, but she soon sought another The instrument was accessible to the instrument itself. She held it between the knees like a violoncello and reduced the number of strings. So she started to use the electric guitar as well. She tirelessly studied the possibilities of other forms of play, Until she finally put the guitar on the table. This had quite practical advantages: All "boxes" and the mixing console were so at hand. Similar to Keith Rowe, she developed a certain "sculptural" approach to her instrument. But the resulting distance began to disturb her with time, so she put the guitar on her knees to strengthen the immediate contact with the instrument. Although the gameplay remained basically the same, the gameplay was quite different; The instrument was so much easier to master. The range of instrumental and additional sounds stretched them in all directions - even those who see Annette Krebs play can hardly say which are from their guitar and which not.

In the multicultural and musically vibrant Berlin she joined the thriving improvisation scene. Chris Dahlgren, Chris Dahlgren, Chris Dahlgren, Rhodri Davies, Jim Denley, Axel Dörner, Robin Hayward, Marcus. The list of people with whom they have collaborated is impressive: Chris Abrahams, Natasha Anderson, Alessandro Bosetti, Burkhard Beins Heike, Charlotte Hug, Sven-Ake Johansson, Christoph Kurzmann, Sachiko M, Coffee Matthews, Wade Matthews, Chico Mello, Toshimaru Nakamura, Andrea Neumann, Bhob Rainey, Taku Sugimoto, Luca Venitucci, Michael Vorfeld, Marc Wastell, Steffi Weismann, Otomo Yoshihide ...

In the year 2000 the seven-head ensemble phosphorus, In which Annette Krebs on Burkhard Beins (drums), Axel Dörner (trumpet and laptop), Robin Hayward (tuba), Andrea Neumann ("Inside-Piano"), Michael Renkel (acoustic guitar, laptop) and Ignaz Schick (electronics) , Gramophone). They all combined the need for increased concentration of musical expression and the effort to achieve clarity and transparency. In place of dense sound, silence was the starting point. The sound events and phenomena were carefully positioned in the imaginary space and meticulously measured their relationships (volume, character, sound start and end, contrasts, transitions, and collisions) and precisely measured with a view to the balance of the whole. Since these sounds were generally very quiet, a wide spectrum "

Outside of phosphorus, Annette often appears alone or with other musicologists. The Japanese guitarist Taku Sugimoto or the Italian saxophonist Alessandro Bossetti are close to her. For several years she appeared in the duo with Andrea Neumann, in Vienna she plays with Christoph Kurzmann and Burkhard Stangl. She also works with Sandra Becker or Steffi Weissmann on their video projects. Together with the latter, for example, she has created a funny variation on the subject of "alienation / deprivation" with the title Le vol 1-3, a parody on pop music videos, in which the two authors make a cheerful raid in the department store to the sounds of "recycling music".

The music of Annette Krebs is full of opposing qualities: On the other hand, she is "ascetic" - she works with large portions of silence and delicate noises. On their CD Guitar Solo (Fringes Recordings, 2002), the first normal guitar sound can only be heard after about six minutes. On the other hand, it is very rich - it works not only with differently transformed guitar sounds, but also with laptop, radio or cassette recorder, from which, inter alia, fragments of the real world (talks, different sound environments, etc.). Annette Krebs teaches us to listen to what we have long known. Even the most common sound is re-evaluated. Her music slips smoothly into the mysterious gap between life and art that Robert Rauschenberg once spoke of. Annette Krebs is a charismatic personality that is always good for a surprise. Their game is full of unpredictable interruptions, sudden outbursts and trembling excitement."

-Annette Krebs Website (Translated by Google) (http://www.annettekrebs.eu/texte/text/js.html)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Taku Unami was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1976. He is a composer and improviser working with assorted stringed instruments, including the guitar, mandolin, and contraguitar, laptop and vibrating objects (from which he amplifies the inaudible vibrations). Despite being linked to minimal improvisation his music is hardly classifiable, being able to surprise listeners on every new release, raising unforeseen questions and forging new paths for improvisation. He is part of the group HOSE and has active collaborations with Mattin, Taku Sugimoto and Masahiko Okura. In the past he has worked with Radu Malfatti, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Klaus Filip, Masafumi Ezaki, Burkhard Stangl, Rhodri Davies and Keith Rowe, among others. Unami has also composed for film, including 'Lost My Way' (directed by Takeshi Furusawa) and 'In 1,000,000 years' (directed by Isao Okishima). He has released more than 30 records, both solo and in numerous groups and collaborations. He runs the influential label Hibari Music and co-organizes the Tokyo concert series Chamber Music Concerts with Taku Sugimoto and Masahiko Okura."

-Taku Unami Facebook page, Jon Abbey (https://www.facebook.com/Taku.Unami/about/?__xt__=33.%7B%22logging_data%22%3A%7B%22page_id%22%3A%22179276168795059%22%2C%22event_type%22%3A%22clicked_view_page_about%22%7D%7D)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Track 01 5:05

2. Track 02 11:58

3. Track 03 10:06

4. Track 04 3:56

5. Track 05 12:28

6. Track 06 4:44

7. Track 07 5:07

Related Categories of Interest:

erstwhile

Improvised Music
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
lowercase, micro-improv, sound improv
Free Improvisation
Duo Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
erstwhile.


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