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Wassermann, Ute

Strange Songs [VINYL]

Wassermann, Ute: Strange Songs [VINYL] (Treader)

One of the most capable and unusual voices on the planet, German sound artist and vocalist Ute Wasserrmann emulates the most baffling of bird songs in 10 unique performances using seemingly impossible vocal technique that morphs aviary exclamation with alien and indescribable utterance, performed along with a vast collection of bird whistles; strange indeed!
 

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Ute Wassermann-vocals, bird whistles


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Label: Treader
Catalog ID: TRD 011LP
Squidco Product Code: 32557

Format: LP
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: UK
Packaging: LP
Recorded at studioboerne45, in Berlin, Germany, in 2015.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Multiphonic trills and yodels, loops of ululations, sudden percussive outburst, warbling glissandi. Ute masks her voice with bird whistles creating a hybrid vocal persona with sculptural, oscillating, swirling tone-colours. The vocal sounds seem to be disconnected from the human voice dissolving into the sounds of birds, of machines, of electronics, of fragmented language."

"Ute Wassermann's vocal practice is so unique and specialized that it seems to challenge our ability to understand it's sounds as vocal." --Aaron Cassidy, Noise in and as Music, University of Huddersfield Press, 2013

"Wassermann sings as a bird, rather than like one. And as philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari point out in A Thousand Plateaus, 'Becoming is never imitating ... The Wassermann soundworld takes form within waveflows and fluctuating particles."-Julian Cowley, Outer Limits Review, CD review radio tweet, The Wire, March 2016


Artist Biographies

"Ute Wassermann studied fine arts focusing on sound installations and performance at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg. Among her teachers were Henning Christiansen and Allan Kaprow. She continued her studies in fine arts, music and singing at the University of California, San Diego. She was a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 1993-94 and at Civitella Ranieri in Italy in 2015.

Ute Wassermann has developed her own unique vocal techniques. She explores them in different forms such as voice performances, compositions, improvisations and installations. The human voice is extended in many different ways in her work and often plays with all kinds of other sound connotations. This also results in an extensive use of bird whistles, different kinds of resonating objects and prepared loudspeakers.

She is one of the founding members of the artists collective Les Femmes Savantes Other members of this Composer-Performer-Ensemble are Sabine Ercklentz, Andrea Neumann and Ana Maria Rodriguez. She also performs with Richard Scott and Emilio Gordoa in parak.eets and with her quartet speak easy (with Phil Minton, Thomas Lehn and Martin Blume)She also often plays as an Improvisationsduo with, for example, Aleksander Kolkowski, Rhodrie Davies, Joke Lanz, Birgit Ulher, Els Vandeweyer, Charlotte Hug, Richard Barrett und John Russel.

Ute Wassermann also performs compositions by others. She has interpreted works by Chaya Czernowin, Henning Christiansen, Hans Joachim Hespos, Salvatore Sciarrino, Luciano Berio, Simon Steen-Andersen, Matthias Kaul, Cathy van Eck, und Richard Barrett."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_Wassermann)
4/10/2024

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


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Strange Song 1 (4:52)

2. Strange Song 2 (3:12)

3. Strange Song 3 (3:44)

4. Strange Song 4 (5:00)

5. Strange Song 5 (4:57)

SIDE B



1. Strange Song 6 (4:52)

2. Strange Song 7 (5:03)

3. Strange Song 8 (3:15)

4. Strange Song 9 (5:09)

5. Strange Song 10 (3:36)

Related Categories of Interest:


Vinyl Recordings
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Unusual Vocal Forms
Woodwinds
Solo Artist Recordings
New in Improvised Music
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