The Squid's Ear Magazine


Schiller, Christoph / Birgit Ulher: Kolk (Another Timbre)

Five unique pieces from improvisers Birgit Ulher (trumpet, radio, speaker, objects) and Christoph Schiller (spinet, preperations) recorded in Hamburg with no post-production work.
 

Price: $14.95


Quantity:

Out of Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Christoph Schiller-spinet, preperations

Birgit Ulher-trumpet, radio, speaker, objects


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Another Timbre
Catalog ID: at52
Squidco Product Code: 16497

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2012
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardstock gatefold foldover
Recorded on October 26th, 2010 in Hamburg at Muar Retor.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Five tight, close, and immaculate improvisations from the leading exponents / abusers of improvised trumpet and spinet. Recorded in Hamburg in October 2010, and sounding like nothing else."-Another Timbre



"Interview with Christoph Schiller

First of all, why the spinet?

I used to play the piano, the spinet came later. I'd always been unhappy with the fact that as a pianist you can't usually play concerts on your own instrument, or sometimes there's no instrument at all. Maybe ten years ago, I got a spinet so that I could play baroque music on a more or less appropriate instrument, and after a while I started trying it for improvised music too. Having taken the decision to develop it for my own purpose, I spent almost a whole year adapting my inside-piano techniques to it, and developing new techniques. It worked well. My first thought was to use it as an alternative to the piano, but soon I abandoned piano completely. As I was interested in 'small' sounds, I'd also been unhappy with the massive body of the piano. The spinet is a much lighter, smaller instrument; I can even travel with it.

Also there's less tension on the strings, and this provides other possibilities, for example when working with an e-bow. I generally like the light sound of the instrument. Even though I play it in a way that's far removed from its 'original purpose', it keeps its character, and funnily enough it works very well with instruments that it "knows" from the baroque world: viola da gamba, violin, recorder. But it also sounds good in electronic contexts. The strings are plucked (when played from the keys), and this makes it much easier to mix inside techniques with keyboard playing, as compared to the piano.

With the piano I always felt aware of the history of piano music behind me. I don't think this is just an intellectual thing, it also has to do with the way sound is produced in a piano. This is a very special technique. The spinet is simpler in its sound production, and perhaps this is why I feel much freer with the spinet. I know its history (baroque music), but I can still use it as if there was no history at all, as I was inventing the instrument completely anew. The spinet and harpsichord didn't play any role in the music history of the 19th and half of the 20th century.

The spinet might be exotic in improvised music; but my instrument isn't just the spinet, but also the preparations and the way I play it. Looked at from this angle, it's no more exotic than a guitar or a laptop or a trumpet.

So can you tell us a bit about the preparations you use? When I've seen you play, you seem to use quite a variety of objects.

I use some small stones, a piece of metal and a glass for either putting on the strings (to shorten or open them), or for placing on the bridge to create distortion effects. And a larger stone for putting on the lower keys to open the strings ('pedal'), as well as some forks, a piece of polystyrene, and various little objects - amongst others, a chopstick, a small cymbal attached to the instrument, and an egg-slicer which holds a ruler. I use a cello-bow for playing on the attached objects and the wooden body, and sometimes even on the lowest string. Also I have two e-bows. I play the strings via the keys or directly with my fingers, plucking or rubbing. For some time I've also placed a Zoom Hn4-recorder inside in the instrument, for recording and immediate playback, over the little built-in loudspeaker. I usually mix this with the same or similar sounds 'live', so it's not always clearly recognisable. On the recording with Birgit I also had a very good cheap kind of fan, but it didn't last very long, and I couldn't find the same model again. I'm always working on varying the combinations of all these and finding new aspects. It is indeed a large variety.

Currently I'm working on a new set-up using some electronics: a pick-up, a microphone, the Hn4 again, and a mixing board. So it's even more stuff! But things come and go, and some objects might disappear after a while, if I find that I don't use them. The spinet itself is one of the objects in a way, even though the most important one.

OK, now onto the disc. Before the music, what about the titles: Kolk, Auflast, Sediment, Geröll and Bult. What are these referring to, and why?

They're all geological terms, referring to the formation of landscape. 'Kolk' is the basin that is washed out under a waterfall, or even under very small "waterfalls". 'Auflast' is a term referring to the process in this situation. 'Bults' are small grass "islands" which occur in a marshy landscape. In a way it's the opposite of Kolk, as it's a positive form, while Kolk is a negative one. Sediment is a geological shift (material sinking to the ground and forming a layer) and 'Geröll' means boulder. All those terms describe landscape features in a certain state, as result of a long-term "sculptural" process, a process that may not be finished, but which is going on very slowly. We don't claim that the process of our music making is as slow as geological developments, but we bring the terms and the music together to achieve maybe a certain point of view. Birgit and I have known each other for a very long time, although we have not always played together during this time. But there are, for example, common "sedimental shifts" in our artistic history, and the music on the disc is the culmination of a long-term development - but as with the geological features too, it's certainly not the end of the process, but a statement of "now".

It strikes me that 90% of your music that I've heard has been in a duo setting. Is that a form that you particularly like, and if so why?

This is not a concept, but yes, I like playing in duo very much. Maybe because it's intimate, and the system of communication is simple and clear. But there are also practical reasons: it's easier to find dates, and it's easier to find possibilities to play concerts, whereas trios and of course larger groups are always more difficult to organise. I play a lot with different people, and duo-playing is the easiest way to be flexible inside the network. But I do also play in other constellations, larger groups, and I like that too! There are even some very large ones, like the IMO improvising orchestra in Switzerland, as well as my vocal ensemble Millefleurs and Carl Ludwig Hübsch's Ensemble X in Cologne. Then I also play solo, but not so much. I really want to do a solo CD as well, but I haven't yet, because I always think I can do it later... it's like visiting tourist spots in your own town: you never do it, because you think you could go there any time. So you only go there with friends from abroad - and then it's a duo again!

Yes, I certainly hear those qualities of intimacy and clear communication in your duo with Birgit. But I think there's also something else in play that I like: a kind of integrity. While, as you say, your music has undergone geological shifts over the years, neither you nor Birgit seems to follow fashions in music. You're both clearly aware of current developments in improvisation, but engage with them in ways that retain your particular history or personality intact. It's an approach that I like very much, but I wonder if it has led you into being a more marginal figure than you might have been if, say, you'd embraced 'Reductionism' as a disciple in an evangelical way?

I think what you call integrity is essential in any artistic work or career. Maybe you're right when you say that I am a rather marginal figure, but I don't know if there is a choice - artistically. There are always many possibilities, but are they really serious possibilities? I think the "freedom" in improvised music is mainly the freedom of finding one's own way, or own solution.

I was and am very aware of, for example, reductionism; it is very important music and there are extremely important ideas in it, that have of course also influenced me. But I think that none of the main protagonists has "followed the style" in order to achieve these results; rather the results are the outcome and consequence of an artistic development. I'm not explicitly trying to "keep distance from stylistic trends", I just don't copy them. There is no point in copying the styles, and I mistrust any rules which pretend to offer a final solution.

For a long time my work was much more marginal than it has seemed in the past couple of years. I learned to do my own stuff, and to follow my artistic instinct and conscience, because I wouldn't have been tempted by any "success" whatsoever. I am quite content with my situation as it is now. I can do my work, and that's fine.

Yes, that makes sense. I'm curious to know exactly how the pieces on 'Kolk' were made. Were they totally improvised, or did you agree to work in certain areas prior to recording each piece, and were they shaped later on through editing?

All pieces are freely improvised. We had recorded a lot of material in one session from which we selected the takes we liked. After this we worked on the order and chose some pieces with regard to a through form (of the cd).

The pieces were all played as they appear on the disc - except that sometimes we edited out sequences before or after the piece. But there was no post-production work except for this selection and putting the tracks in an order. However, there was quite a lot of work mixing some small details, and I am very grateful for the help of Boris Vogeler, our sound engineer."-Another Timbre


Artist Biographies

"Christoph Schiller was born in 1963 in Stuttgart. He studied fine arts at the Kunstakademie Stuttgart and HfBK Hamburg. He later studied piano with Daniel Cholette and music theory in Basel. He has been playing concerts of improvised music on piano since 1987. In recent years the piano has been abandoned in favour of the lighter spinet, for which he has developed specific playing techniques which are influenced by inside piano techniques. Besides keyboard instruments his work with the voice has become increasingly important. He lives in Weil am Rhein and Basel."

-Christoph Schiller Website (http://www.christophschiller.net/)
3/13/2024

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

"Born 1961 in Nuremberg, she studied the visual arts, which still have an important influence on her music. Since moving to Hamburg in 1982 she has been involved in free improvisation and experimental music. Since then she has "established a distinguished grammar of sounds beyond the open trumpet" (jazzdimensions.de). She works mainly on extending the sounding possiblities of the trumpet by using splitting sounds, multiphonics and granular sounds and has developed her own extended techniques and preparations for producing these sounds. Besides this material research she is especially interested in the relation between sound and silence.Since 2006 Birgit Ulher works with radios and uses extended speakers, fed with radio noise in her trumpet mutes. The trumpet functions as an acoustic chamber and modulates the radio noise, thus the trumpet is transmitter and receiver at the same time. Her work with radio is documented on the CD 'Radio Silence No More', released 2007 on Olof Bright.The same concept is the basis of the duo with Gregory Büttner, where Büttner plays his sound contributions via a laptop with an output to a small speaker which Ulher uses a s trumpet mute.Their first CD 'Tehricks' based on this concept was released 2009.She performs solo, with dancers, working ensembles, and one-time collaborations with musicians from around the world.

She has been organising the festival of improvised music Real Time Music Meeting for over ten years.

Music performances in Europe, USA, South America, Russia and the Middle East, together with UNSK (Birgit Ulher / Martin Küchen / Lise-Lott Norelius / Raymond Strid), the Trio PUT (with Ulrich Phillipp and Roger Turner), Nordzucker (with Lars Scherzberg and Michael Maierhof), Heiner Metzger, Martin Klapper, Tim Hodgkinson, Dorothea Schürch, Rhodri Davies, Robyn Schulkowsky, Michael Zerang, Damon Smith, Lou Mallozzi, Gino Robair, Ute Wassermann, Albert Márkos, Sven Ake Johansson, Gene Coleman, Ernesto Rodrigues, Heddy Boubaker, Tim Perkis, Bryan Eubanks, Ariel Shibolet, Christoph Schiller and Sean Meehan, Forbes Graham, Leonel Kaplan, Gregory Büttner, Lucio Capece, Eric Leonardson and Bill Hsu.

Lectures/Workshops at Queen's University of Belfast, Haifa University, SAIC - School of The Art Institut of Chicago, Hochschule für Musik Basel, Workshop Area Sismica in Forlí, Italy, Workshop Anáhuac 33, Mexico City, Workshop Galeria Mérida, Mérida Mexico and Certain Sundays, Berlin.

Residencies at AIR Krems, Austria 2017, ArtInRealeases - GIS Studio - AIR Mexico 2016, Mexico City, Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop 2015, QO-2 werkplaats, Brüssel, 2010, Casa Zia Lina, Elba, Italy, Foundation Thyll-Dürr, 2001 and 2003, Boswil, MKS, Switzerland, 1994"

-Birgit Ulher Website (http://www.birgit-ulher.de/bio.htm)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Auflast 5:31

2. Sediment 6:37

3. Geroll 10:11

4. Kolk 7:43

5. Bult 4:22

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Free Improvisation
Duo Recordings
Objects and Home-made Instruments

Search for other titles on the label:
Another Timbre.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Ulher, Birgit / Damon Smith / Chris Cogburn
The Eternity-Cult
(Balance Point Acoustics)
A building and extended set of fully free improvisation using unusual techniques, from the trio of Birgit Ulher on trumpet, radio, speaker & objects, Damon Smith on double bass and Chris Cogburn on percussion & electronics, Ulher using the trumpet as a sound source as much as a conventional instrument, as the trio builds from near silence to intensely controlled interaction.
Shippy, Mark / Alex Cunningham
Ghost Note [VINY]
(Personal Archives)
The first recorded collaboration between guitarist Mark Shippy (U.S. Maple) and improvising violinist Alex Cunningham (Apathist!, Claire Rousay, Cunningham/Cameron/Smith), together taking their instruments into strangely tumultuous and often quickly shifting territory; sometimes ethereal, sometimes cantankerous, always captivating.
Ulher, Birgit / Franz Hautzinger
Kleine Trompetenmusik
(Relative Pitch)
Translating to "Little Trumpet Music", the duo of trumpeters Birgit Uhler and Franz Hautzinger, Uhler also performing on radio & objects, use extreme techniques and approaches to their improvisations, focusing on extraneous sounds from their instruments in enigmatic and captivating ways, expansively defining reductionism in masterfully idiosyncratic ways.
Bondi, Cyril / Pierre-Yves Martel / Christoph Schiller
Hyazo
(Another Timbre)
A beautiful, melancholic soundworld created by three musicians who have a rare rapport--Cyril Bondi on Indian harmonium, Pierre on Yves Martel on viola da Gamba, and Christoph Schiller on spinet--following their previous CDs tse and awire by moving on to new territory in 3 compositions allowing for freedom from each musician, two from Schiller and one from Bondi.
Cabado, Tomas / Christoph Schiller
Unconscious Collections
(Another Timbre)
Swiss prepared spinet player Christoph Schiller and Argentine guitarist-composer Tomás Cabado, whose work is found on the Wandelweiser label, met in Schiller's studio in Basel to perform compositions from both and to improvise, recording this wonderfully relaxed but compelling music that exists in the fertile grey area between composition and improvisation.
Bondi, Cyril / d'Incise
Kirari-Kirari
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
A sextet of Cyril Bondi (vibraphone), d'Incise (metallic objects), Magnus Granberg (piano), Anna Lindal (Baroque violin), Anna-Kaisa Meklin (viola de gamba) and Christoph Schiller (spinet) perform two works composed by Bondi and d'Incise, recorded by Simon Reynell of Another Timbre, works of repetition with distinct variations that evolve as each piece progresses.
Schiller, Christoph / Eric Ruffing
Trance
(Creative Sources)
Finding common ground between the acoustic past and the electronic present, the duo of Christoph Schiller on spinet and Eric Ruffing on analogue synthesizer present two extended improvisations of tempered interaction, exploring periods of extended sound, timbre and decay, scrabbling inside playing, restrained electronic whines, and active pointillistic playing.
Schiller, Christoph
Spinet, 2016
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
Christoph Schiller performs on the spinet, often improvising with electronics and objects; here he uses the spinet alone in patiently developing compositions that emphasize the individual tones and harmonics of the instrument played on the keys and inside the instrument.
Wassermann, Ute / Birgit Ulher
Radio Tweet
(Creative Sources)
The long-standing duo of trumpeter Birgit Uhler, also on radio, speaker & objects, and free improvising vocalist Ute Wasserman, in an album of 8 unbelievable improvisations of a unique and sometimes bizarre character, holding one's attention from its outlandish nature--superb!
Taus (Klaus Filip & Tim Blechmann)
Pinna
(Another Timbre)
An improvisation for two laptop computers performed by Tim Blechmann and Klaus Filip, recorded live in Vienna at "neue musik in st ruprecht", 2010, contrasting minimal tones with massive bass rumble and frothing frequencies.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Granberg, Magnus / Skogen
Nun, es wird nicht weit mehr gehn
(Another Timbre)
Composer Magnus Granberg took influences from Schubert's song cycle "Die Winterreise", extracting tonal material, which he merged with rhythmic influences from medieval English folk music and a song by Dowland, merging them into a temporal framework for this large and subtle composition, executed by a setpet including Angharad Davies, Erik Carlsson, Henrik Olsson, d'incise, &c.
Eastman, Julius / Apartment House
Femenine
(Another Timbre)
A live recording of Julius Eastman's 1974 work "Femenine" performed by Apartment House led by cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, with Simon Limbrick on vibraphone, Kerry Yong on piano, Mark Knoop on keyboard, Mira Benjamin on violin, and Gavin Morrison and Emma Williams on flute, an ecstatic and intricate work using a repeating figure contrasted with both asynchronous and complementing backgrounds.
Davies, Angharad / Rie Nakajima / Alice Purton
Dethick
(Another Timbre)
Three free improvising women--Angharad Davies, Rie Nakajima, and Alice Purton--met in the church in the tiny hamlet of Dethick, near Matlock, Derbyshire, over the course of two days developing the ten pieces of this album using an impressive set of stringed and percussive instruments, objects, and mysterious sources to create these fascinating sonic evocations.
Fages, Ferran
Un lloc entre dos records
(Another Timbre)
Submerging the listener into the immediacy of pure perception through the economy of materials and atemporality, Catalan guitarist Ferran Fages presents the 3rd piece of his trilogy for guitar and sinteones, referencing Feldman, Lucier and Szlavnics as he specifies tunings for the guitar accompanied by pure resonating sinetones used as memory vehicles or shadows.
Smith, Linda Catlin
Wanderer
(Another Timbre)
Eight sophisticated chamber pieces composed by Linda Catlin Smith and realized by the Canadian Apartment House ensemble, including a solo piano performed by Philip Thomas, a piano duo with Thomas and Mark Knoop, and works for percussion & cello, 2 quintet pieces for strings, percussion and winds, and two 7-piece conducted works with two percussionists, strings and brass.
Granberg, Magnus
Es Schwindelt Mir, Es Brennt Mein Eingweide
(Another Timbre)
An hour-long work for an ensemble of six musicians by Swedish composer Magnus Granberg performed by Anna Lindal on baroque violin, d incise on vibraphonen electronics, Cyril Bondi on percussion, Anna Kaisa Meklin on viola da gamba, Christoph Schiller on spinet, and Magnus Granberg himself on prepared piano, transforming material from a song by Franz Schubert.
Cage, John
Winter Music
(Another Timbre)
John Cage's 1957 composition in a visceral realisation for four pianos, played by John Tilbury, Philip Thomas, Mark Knoop and Catherine Laws, using chance procedures to assign each of the pianist's five of the twenty pages of the score, the pianists agreeing on an overall duration of 40 minutes and preparing their parts independently, performed without rehearsal.
Insub Meta Orchestra
13 & 27
(Another Timbre)
Coordinated and composed by d'incise and Cyril Bondi, this incredible Swiss-based collective of 30 to 40 experimental musicians was founded in 2010 and has presented concerts and recordings since; this CD presents two works, "13 unissons" splitting the orchestra into 13 subgroups; and "27 times" where each musician plays 27 times in 30 minutes; phenomenal.
Frey, Jurg
Collection Gustave Roud [2 CDs]
(Another Timbre)
A double CD with five beautiful pieces that engage with the work of the extraordinary French-Swiss poet Gustave Roud, with performers including Dante Boon, Stefan Thut, Andrew McIntosh and Jurg Frey himself, 10 compositions that Frey wrote in the manner that Roud would, roaming with a sketchbook and developing the pieces based on impressions of his surroundings.
Feldman, Morton
Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello
(Another Timbre)
Morton Feldman's final composition, originally premiered in 1987, here performed by pianist Mark Knoop, violinist Aisha Orazbayeva, violist Bridget Carey, and cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, recording a year after their successful performance at London's Cafe Oto, maintaining focus and concentration on this large, unhurried work of micro-variations.
Szlavnics, Chiyoko
During a Lifetime
(Another Timbre)
Three works from Canadian composer Chiyoko Szlavnics, two electroacoustic compositions incorporating sinewaves, one with a saxophone quartet and the other with two accordions, two flutes and two percussionists; and a string trio of long sustained tones and slow glissandi.
d'incise / Cristian Alvear
Appalachian Anatolia (14th Century)
(Another Timbre)
A composition for solo 'modified guitar' from Swiss composer d'incise peformed by guitarist Cristian Alvear, music "at the confluence of sound, melody and rhythm. Something quiet but somehow driven by a pulse, existing somewhere between the electroacoustic and the tonal conceptions of music."
Harrison, Bryn
Receiving the Approaching Memory
(Another Timbre)
Bryn Harrison's highly acclaimed, labyrinthine composition for violin & piano from 2014, expertly realised by violinist Aisha Orazbayeva and pianist Mark Knoop, for whom this 5-part work of beautiful repetitions reflecting tapestries of sound was written.
Frey, Jurg
Circles and Landscapes - works for solo piano played by Philip Thomas
(Another Timbre)
Five new or recent pieces from composer Jurg Frey, alongside his 1993 work "In Memoriam Cornelius Cardew", all performed by pianist Philip Thomas, presenting slowly unfolding compositions emphasizing the physical space and time within which sounds are situated.
Feldman, Morton played by John Tilbury & Philip Thomas
Two Pianos And Other Pieces 1953-1969 [2 CDs]
(Another Timbre)
"Two Pianos" is one of Morton Feldman's most experimental and radical works, performed here by John Tilbury & Philip Thomas; plus lesser known works including 'Piece for Four Pianos', 'Between Categories', 'False Relationships and the Extended Ending' and 'Two Pieces for Three Pianos'.
BEFOREHAND (Lazaridou / Wastell)
Live at Hundred Years Gallery
(Confront)
The duo of Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga on zither and Mark Wastell on his electronics set including bowls and shruti box, formed for the release concert for Angharad Davies' "Six Studies" in 2014, recording this excellent improvised dialog of rich and unusual sound.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC