"Olaf Rupp is a volatile guitarist whose several albums must be listened to to begin to grasp the extent and relevance of his work with the six acoustic or electric strings to which he adds a remarkable palette of electronic effects. But also the five fingers of the left hand and especially the five fingers of the right hand. Whether solo, with Tristan Honsinger, Lol Coxhill, Shoji Hano, Tony Buck, Joe Williamson, Rudi Mahall, Ulrike Brand, Rudi Fischlehner, Paul Rogers and Frank Paul Schubert, Olaf Rupp is an astonishing musician. What could be more natural for him to discover a new horizon with this stubborn multi-instrumentalist researcher that is Udo Schindler, who has recorded with a host of improvisers of all kinds including Jaap Blonk, Peter Jacquemyn, Damon Smith, Irene Kepl, Erhard Hirt, Wilbert De Joode, Xu Feng Xia, Nikolaus Neuser, Andreas Willers, Meinrad Kneer, Eric Zwang Eriksson..., and, of course, the bass clarinet duets with Ove Volquartz.

In these HerzAtmungen recorded in Munich in June last year, we hear him on the cornet, bass clarinet, alto sax and tuba with a love for sound, curious glissandi, sound paste, mystery. Both patiently and spontaneously construct sound events to which our imaginative listening and our imagination join theirs to travel, dream, feel, free ourselves from our ready-made ideas. The effects of duration and resonance of the amplified guitar, of its harmonics, mingle with the scintillation of the column of air pressed at the mouthpiece by Udo's whistles and whispers. The gurgles of the bass clarinet, its grasseyements find an echo in the electric oscillations and tremors. The cover photo shows us Olaf bowing the strings of his Fender and Udo engaged in a growl vibrating in the bell of his bass clarinet. Their pooling of all these neighboring, mirrored or contrasting sound elements creates a unique, dreamlike sound universe, suspended in the space of silence, both moving and static. Both are immersed in the margin of their instruments, beyond the limits of "normal" playing. Their approach has all the sensitivity of the best jazz without the forms being part of any formal or programmed music. Except perhaps the phrasing of the alto sax in 4/ where Olaf Rupp alternates two approaches, one in cascade that coincides with the articulation of the sax and another that detonates delightfully. The sixth piece makes us hear our audacity on the tuba facing the cascades of muted chords and the mysterious harmonics of Rupp.

I had already appreciated Schindler's work with guitarist Gunnar Geisse and clarinetist Ove Volquartz. This is confirmed here with another guitarist, Olaf Rupp who transports him to the confines of the imagination. A magnificent unexpected dialogue between two seasoned improvisers..."Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (Orynx), translated by Google