The Squid's Ear Magazine


Lehn Schmickler (Thomas Lehn / Marcus Schmickler): Neue Bilder (Mikroton Recordings)

A stunning album of electronic interaction between long-time collaborators Thomas Lehn on analog synthesizer and Marcus Schmickler on computer, created from two performances in Munster, Germany in 2016 and in Wels, Austria in 2013, resulting in a dynamic album that's both vicious and beautiful, relentless yet manageable, a masterpiece of impressive sonic power.
 

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Thomas Lehn-synthesizer

Marcus Schmickler-computer


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Label: Mikroton Recordings
Catalog ID: cd 60
Squidco Product Code: 25199

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2017
Country: Russia
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at LWL-Museum, in Munster, Germany, on February 12th, 2016, and at Schlacthof, in Wels, Austria, on November 9th, 2013.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Thomas Lehn and Marcus Schmickler have been known for building their sonic worlds for 17 years since their first album Bart. After 6 years of studio silence, here comes Neue Bilder. Their 5th album is a constant flux of musical juxtapositions, collisions and balance of their tour de force with analogue synth and computer.

The album features two tracks created from two concentrated performances in Munster and Wels, both being magnificently reworked stereo versions of their quadrophonic live concerts. Neue Bilder goes further in their development of sound with meticulously constructed abruptly appearing and disappearing abrasive and tonal sound clusters, remote echoes, and lonely remnants.

The CD comes in an awesome artwork by Heike Sperling - who also did the cover for Bart (2000), adding to a time-warp just like the musicians' instruments."-Mikroton



"These two purveyors of experimental electronic music based in Cologne, Germany, have forged a dynamic partnership over the last two decades, bridging differences in age, musical backgrounds, and the hardware they prefer to produce music of uncanny visceral power. Lehn's analog synthesizer mastery is rooted in free improvisation, while Schmickler's digital synthesis has a foundation in techno. Working together, they find a elusive yet thrilling common ground. On last year's terrific Neue Bilder (Mikroton) their fast-moving, rapidly morphing collisions defy identification. I have serious trouble figuring out who's doing what, but that certainly doesn't matter much in the end: aqueous, sci-fi long tones are pitted against splattery, acidic noise bursts; echo-laden oscillated abstractions are slathered in blorpy, viscous drips; and so on. Each musician is deeply attuned to what the other is doing, and there seems to be zero latency in their reaction time; as their alien machinations unfold in quicksilver sprints, they pull the listener along for a disorienting, yet exhilarating ride."-Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader


Artist Biographies

"Thomas Lehn was Born in Fröndenberg (Germany) in 1958. Since the early 1980s Thomas Lehn has been working as a author and performer of contemporary music. After studying recording engineering - piano with Prof. Wilfried Kassebaum - at the Music Academy of Detmold in Germany, studies at the Music Academy of Cologne with Peter Degenhardt and Prof. Klaus Oldemeyer (classical piano) and with Frank Wunsch and Francis Coppieters (jazz piano) completed his academical education. In the 80ies he took part on courses of Studio for pianistic interpretation held by Prof. Jürgen Uhde.

As an interpreting pianist he has been playing concerts since 1982 - performing both contemporary new music including numerous first performances and traditional composed music of the classical and romantical period. In 1989 he initiated the chamber ensemble Trio Dario and four years later the Mengano Quartett, performing compositions of the contemporary avant-garde, in particular numerous first performances of comissioned works. Developed parallel to his work as a pianist, since the early 1990s his major and widely reknown work has been performing and producing live-electronic music. Rooted in the experience of a wide spectrum of musical fields based on his background as an interpreting and improvising pianist in classical-, contemporary and jazz-music and having been involved in numerous other projects like music theatre, dance, multi-media, studio pre-/post-production etc., he has been developing an individual 'language' of electronic music.

The electronic equipment he uses consists of analogue synthesizers of the late 1960s, and since 1994 in particular the EMS Synthi A. Besides the substantial sound qualities of its analogue synthesis, the facilities of this modular instrument - for example to modify electronic sounds very directly as well as to combine and to control several parameters of the sound synthesis at the same time - allows him to spontaneously act in close contact with the various structural degrees of the musical process.

In 2000 his solo album Feldstärken had been released on German label Random Acoustics. Up today, his discography enclosures about 80 CD publications. Numerous appearances at major international festivals of contemporary musics and concerts tours in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungaria, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA give evidence of his international profile and recognition.

He has been involved in projects promoted and/or supported by the Goethe-Institutes in Belgrade, Boston, Bratislava, Budapest, Chicago, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Lille, Lissabon, London, Manchester, Marseille, Milano, Montreal, Palermo, Rome, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Toronto, Warsaw, Wellington and York. His musical activities enclosure long term and newer ensemble collaborations as well as involvements in numerous specific single projects. Long term collaborations are ensembles like KONK PACK, TOOT, THERMAL, FUTCH, MIMEO, SPEAK EASY, 6IX, VARIO-34, as well as the duo works with Marcus Schmickler, Tiziana Bertoncini, Gerry Hemingway, Paul Lovens, Frédéric Blondy Urs Leimgruber and John Butcher. More recently formed ensembles are the duos with Benoît Moreau and with the video artist Kjell Bjørgeengen, trio formations with John Butcher involving pianists John Tilbury and Matthew Shipp.

Further he is pianist and founding member of the ensemble]h[iatus, an ensemble for interpretation and improvisation of contemporary music, whichs members are all experienced interpreters and improvisers. The ensemble compiles concert programs integrating/alternating notated and real-time-created contemporary music. It has been first-performing commissioned works by Vinko Globokar, Peter Jakober, Jennifer Walshe, Anthony Pateras besides performing compositions of the contemporary repertoire. Besides performing his own electronic music, in the recent years Thomas Lehn became more active as a synthesizer interpreter of electronic compositions. The realisation of Boguslav Schaeffer's Electronic Symphony - live performed in 2010 and 2011 - has been documented on the CD PRES Scores on polish label Bolt/Monotype. In 2012 he world premierred OCCAM VI for synthesizer solo by Éliane Radigue at Berghain Berlin during festival Faithful! and - together with KlangForum Wien - dort for synthesizer and 15 piece ensemble by Austrian composer Peter Jakober at musikprotokoll Graz and at Konzerthaus Vienna."

-Thomas Lehn Website (http://www.thomaslehn.com/read/vita_e.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Marcus Schmickler (born November 15, 1968 in Cologne) is a German composer, musician and producer. He is also known under the pseudonym Pluramon.

In 1968 he was born as the son of an industrial salesman and a baker's daughter in Cologne. Soon his parents moved to Kuerten where he met the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1991, after spending a year in London, he started studying music in Cologne and became a member of the seminal collective Kontakta. 1992 his first solo release appeared with the French label Odd Size. In 1995, he was co-initiator of the A-Musik record store and the DJ collective BrŸsseler-Platz-10a-Musik, together with Georg Odijk and Jan St. Werner (Mouse on Mars).

Since 1995 he works as a composer, for film theater and radioplay. In 1996 he released one of the first fully digitally produced post-rock albums under the pseudonym Pluramon on the German label Mille Plateaux. After a concert in Cologne, in 1998, he became a member of the 12-piece electro-acoustic ensemble MIMEO (Music in Movement Electronic Orchestra). In 1999, he completed his studies in electronic music with Hans Ulrich Humpert and the composition with Johannes Fritsch with a thesis on Gottfried Michael Koenig.

In 2000 he published jointly with Thomas Lehn the CD Bart, which enjoys a reputation to be one of the most impressive synth-improv performances ever made. With Lehn thereupon follows a long musical collaboration. In September 2001 he recorded the Pluramon album Dreams Top Rock with American singer Julee Cruise, and went on an extended tour through South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela) on the initiative of the Goethe-Institut in 2003 . Since 2004 he has been working on various theater projects, with among others, Felix Ensslin[citation needed]. He created numerous works of electronic music, and compositions for choir, chamber-ensemble and orchestra. In 2009 he composed Bonn Patternizationon on behalf of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the German Music Council, an electronic music with projections based on astrophysical data[citation needed], which attempts an epistemological exchange between the arts and sciences. Since 2015, Schmickler has been assistant professor at the Institute For Music and Media in DŸsseldorf, while continuing his work as a composer.

Marcus Schmickler has received prizes and scholarships, including the Ars Electronica, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia[citation needed] and curated festival programs in the Academy of Arts, Berlin[citation needed] and the ZKM[citation needed]. He was a longtime member of the jury of the Deutscher Musikrat (German Music Council, a member of the International Music Council). As an author, he wrote articles on various topics of electronic music."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Schmickler)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. 12022016 16:48

2. 9112013 20:13

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Duo Recordings
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Experimental & Electronic Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Mikroton Recordings.


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