blog.Crónica

Ulteriore progetto collaborativo di Stephan Mathieu & Janek Shaefer, dopo l’esperienza al Mutek in Canada, nel 2002, prima occasione nella quale i due artisti hanno avuto modo d’incontrarsi, presto seguita l’anno successivo dalle registrazioni con Radboud Mens e Timeblind e dalla performance del 2005 in Polonia al Musica Genera Festival. Produzione ideata e messa a punto nel sud dell’Inghilterra, in una casa di campagna appartenuta ad un compositore classico (così si racconta), dove i nostri hanno rinvenuto una scatola di vecchi vinili, poi utilizzati nei passaggi assai dilatati ed ellittici, movimenti ricorrenti che nella struttura complessiva riportano ad uno stato di calma apparente, sospeso ed onirico. Agli strumenti tradizionali si sovrappongono sitar, risuonanti campanelle, sparute voci e field recording, sonorità d’una bellezza algida e sobria, poi nuovamente editate al The York Music Research Center, auditorium ben conosciuto per le sue non comuni qualità acustiche.

Aurelio Cianciotta

Inizia così, alle frontiere dello spazio uditivo, in una intensità pervasiva che in qualsiasi modalità di ascolto interferisce e penetra lo spazio acustico che ci circonda, caratterizzando il paesaggio sonoro nella trasfigurazione semantico-strutturale ricalcata dalle suggestive atmosfere della campagna inglese. É senz’altro il field recording la matrice da cui Mathieu e Schaefer prendono il largo (tuttavia in maniera non del tutto impressionista) per poi delicatamente tratteggiare le linee sfumate ed ultrasottili della loro poetica, tutta fatta di immagini sonore inafferrabili che disperdono il loro referente nell’inconsistenza della materia: la nebbia. Non è necessariamente l’ennesimo incontro tra musica e ambiente e neppure una sua restaurazione, non ha nulla di nostalgico, ne nasconde una deriva concettuale al suo interno, ma è semplicemente la risultante di una ricerca estetica portata al suo massimo grado, levigata, scolpita sin nel minimo dettaglio. Sembrerebbe neanche essere la testimonianza di una fusione a freddo di diversi marchi di fabbrica o l’elaborazione ex novo di uno stile in via di definizione… le undici tracce di ‘Hidden Name’ hanno davvero qualche pretesa in più, tra le quali quelle di essere ascoltate e con molta molta attenzione.

Antonio Sforna

Comenzó titubeante y disperso, pero cada vez parece más claro que el sello portugués Crónica quiere ocupar el lugar que dejó vacante Ritornell, la añorada subdivisión ‘rara’ de Mille Plateaux. No es casual, por tanto, que sus dos últimas lanzamientos vengan firmados por artistas que pertenecieron a la plataforma alemana. (…) estimulante resulta “Hidden Name”, el disco que grabaron Stephan Mathieu y Janek Schaefer tras encerrarse durante uns semana en una granja del sur de Inglaterra, rodeados de niebla e frío invernal. Utilizando tan sólo un puñado de instrumentos acústicos, grabaciones de campo y los pocos vinilos que encontraron en la casa (se nota la marcialidad que impone el tocadiscos de Schaefer), los dos artistas se las arreglaron para esculpir una docena de piezas densas como el puré de guisantes, pero también cálidas y detallistas, incluso luminosas (la preciosa “Fugue”, por ejemplo): mantras ambientales en los que da gusto sumergirse y dejar que pase el tiempo.

Vidal Romero

Foto di una tenuta nella brughiera del sud dell’Inghilterra. È la Manor Farmhouse di Child Okeford, residenza di un compositore colto britannico non meglio identificato, il luogo dove Stephan Mathieu e Janek Schaefer hanno realizzato gran parte del materiale basico che va a costituire questa prima collaborazione vera e propria tra i due. Le registrazioni ivi improvvisate con strumenti acustici, suoni d’ambiente, giochi e dischi trovati in loco sono state poi processate, editate ed assemblate successivamente presso lo York Music Research Center, uno studio specializzato in progetti di diffusione e spazializzazione del suono. Ne vien fuori un disco di asciutta bellezza, fosco e nebbioso, intriso dello stesso umore a un tempo grigio e pastorale delle condizioni logistiche e ambientali che l’hanno ispirato, una musica densa e melmosa, a tratti vicina alle atmosfere severamente colte di “The Sad Mac” ma pure ravvivata dalla pura invenzione timbrica, da un piccolo scricchiolio o da quel cinguettare d’uccellini messi lì quasi per caso. Fino a librarsi nell’armonia praticamente infinita e nella riverberazione ultraterrena dei venti minuti scarsi della conclusiva The Planets. (8)

Nicola Catalano

Having met for the first time back in 2002 at Canada’s infamous MUTEK festival, Stephan Mathieu and Janek Shaefer developed a deep appreciation of each other’s music. Three years later, they finally performed together at the Musica Genera Festival in Poland. Few month later, they spent a whole week together in a lovely manor farmhouse in the south of England [house apparently belonged to a classical composer], where they made the sounds that make up the whole of this project. They found a box of old records in the attic and used them well. “Maori Love Songs” features some deeply moving female vocals from a scratched up record. Whether the source record actually comes from Maori or not is not the point. Point is, the piece serves as a break between long movements of sparse, stillness. Piano, clarinet, cello, flute, trumpet, accordion, sitar, singing bowls, bells, voices were all used as source materials. Delicately moving passages full of drawn out cello motifs and gently harkening accordion overtones are consumed up with the sense of tranquility the two musicians must’ve been drawn to at this beautiful manor house. “Fugue” best encapsulates the feeling of the whole record. Its washed-over, stillness represents an unhurried nature the music making process was for these two men. “Belle Etoile” is a brief little dibbling on the piano that sounds distant, removed. With the sounds of the rain outside, it resembles a final concerto of a piano player who’s about to swallow some harsh poison. If anything, there are no crescendos, no downward spirals. While you feel a certain sort of melancholy and sadness, the music just is. Comparisons to ambient atmospherics of days gone by are worthless. Whoever says they’re reminded of Eno is simply not listening to the intricate details every living second offers up. Ask no questions and make no assumptions about anything from your past life. Welcome these sounds as if they were a part of your own self.

Tom Sekowski

Hidden Name (Crónica 027), eine Zusammenarbeit von STEPHAN MATHIEU & JANEK SCHAEFER, entstand in Manor Farmhouse, Child Okeford, dem südenglischen Domizil von Sir John Tavener, Englands Echo auf die spirituellen Musiken von Strawinsky, Messiaen und Pärt. Die Erklärung dafür liefert der Mädchenname von Taveners Ehefrau Maryanna – Schaefer. Janek Schaefer, Jahrgang 1970, hat sich seit Mitte der 90er zunehmend profiliert als Fieldrecorder und Turntablist mit einer Reihe von Releases auf (K-RAA-K)3, FatCat, Audiosphere, SIRR.ecords und dem eigenen AudiOh!-Label und nicht zuletzt durch seine Kollaborationen mit Robert Hampson (Comae, 2001) und Philip Jeck (Songs For Europe, 2004). Mathieu, 1967 in Saarbrücken geboren, spielte Ende der 90er Drums & Electricity mit Stol (w/ Olaf Rupp), bevor er sich auf die Electronic konzentrierte und beginnend mit Wurmloch Variationen (2000) und weiteren Veröffentlichungen bei Ritornell, Brombron & Korm Plastics, Lucky Kitchen, Fällt, Mutek, BiP HOp, Häpna oder ebenfalls SiRR.ecords sich als Landschaften- und Atmosphärendigitalisierer profilierte. Der dröhnminimalistische Zusammenschluss mit Schaefer ist getränkt mit der Ferienstimmung im idyllischen Child Okeford und nutzt auch Taveners Sammlung von LPs und Instrumenten, klassischen wie exotischen (Sitar, Singing Bowls, Bells), um die Erfahrungen und Stimmungen dieser Woche einzuschmelzen. Auf Taveners Spuren entklingt ein ‘Quartet for Flute, Piano and Cello’, eine ‘Fugue’, das verregnete ‘Belle Etoile’. Die weißen Schwingen des Sounds tragen einen ans andere Ende der Welt (‘Maori Love Songs’), ab in den ‘Cosmos’, zu ‘The Planets’, auch wenn dazu nur ein Tonarm durch LP-Rillen furcht. So scheint sogar Sir Taveners Faszination durch Blake und Russisch-Orthodoxe Mystik mitzuschwingen in Hidden Name (Laurent Mettraux hat 2002 sein mystisches Oratorium ebenfalls Le Nom Caché genannt), wenn Mathieu & Schaefer uns niederknien lassen vor dem Throne of Drones – jeder Ton ein Nachhall des Urklangs Om/Aum. Bevor dieser feinstoffliche Wurmbefall mich innerlich verflüssigt, schnell eine Radikalkur – Stols 1996er Debut-3″ Semi Prima Vista z.B., mit Olaf Rupp & Rudi Mahall!

S’ils ont partagé de nombreuses fois la scène, ce n’est que l’an dernier que l’Anglais Janek Schaefer et l’Allemand Stefan Mathieu ont décidé de mener à bien un projet commun. Un délai qui semble long au vu de l’évidence immédiate d’une telle collaboration qui mettrait en valeur le goût du détail et de l’infime de chacun. Enregistré “en résidence” dans la demeure rurale d’un compositeur classique dans le sud de l’Angleterre, Hidden Name prend sa source dans la vaste collection d’instruments aussi bien classiques que plus étranges, présents sur place, dans une caisse de vinyles trouvée au grenier et aussi dans de nombreux enregistrements d’ambiances captées un peu partout dans la maison et ses alentours. Le résultat, oscillant entre (dé)composition électronique de partitions existantes, chant’s d’oiseaux, crépitement de flammes et même de rares passages réellement “musicaux”, donne à entendre l’érosion du temps qui passe, les rapports, pas toujours si conflictuels entre la musique enregistrée et l’environnement sonore quotidien, mais également la création, en direct, d’un univers partagé où chacun, au-delà de ses spécificités (jeu sur la vitesse et la lenteur pour Schaefer, soustraction pour Mathieu), apporte sa part à un édifice qui ne révèle certes pas son nom caché, mais en évoque beaucoup d’autres.

Jean-François Micard

Häufiger noch, als in purer Form auf einen Tonträger montiert zu werden, dienen Field Recordings als vermittelndes Element zwischen abstraktem Sounddesign und organischer Wärme. So bei STEPHAN MATTHIEU & JANEK SCHAEFR, die auf “Hidden Name” (Crónica/A-Musik) die entspannende Umgebung des englischen Herrenhauses, in dem diese Musik entstand, in die Stücke einbezogen haben.

Hidden Name, a collaboration with the percussionist, composer and graphic designer Stephan Mathieu, was conceived in even more surprising surroundings than In the Last Hour. It’s the product of a midsummer week that Schaefer and Mathieu spent at composer’s John Tavener’s home in a small village in rural Dorset. During their time there, the two younger composers made free with Tavener’s collection of classical and exotic music instruments, delved into a box of vinyl that they found in his attic, and made a series of environmental recordings in and around the house. Armed with this treasure trove of raw material, they headed to the York Music Research Centre, where a process of editing, combining and arranging produced the finished record.

Hidden Name shares with In The Last Hour a playing time of exactly one hour, but it divides that span into 11 (for the most part) much shorted individual pieces. Some are very brief – “Cosmos”, for example, could be an excerpt from a Chris Watson field recording, consisting as it does of a couple of minutes of unadorned birdsong (wood pigeons, jackdaws) with the occasional sound of footsteps brushing through grass. It’s an astringent contrast to the gaseous ambience of the title track which immediately precedes it.

Some pieces combine environmental and studio-processed material, like the radiant opener “White Wings / Child Okeford”, where shimmering drones are suddenly supplanted by the evocative appearance of church bells; others wryly acknowledge Tavener’s profession by making a gentle joke about formal compositional models. “Quartet for Flute, Piano and Cello”, for example, strays far from the conventional structure that its title suggests — in fact, it’s perhaps the most radically manipulated piece on the record, a swirling confection of backmasked chimes, distorted harps seemingly recovered from some ancient wax cylinder, and buzzingly insistent, almost abrasive guitar drones. The final piece on the disc is another nod to the English musical tradition; entitled “The Planets”, it takes over where the Holst piece left off, with the haunting, evanescent choir of “Neptune” transfigured into a slow, starlit spangle, which hovers majestically for a full 20 minutes.

Schaefer suggests that In The Last Hour is his favourite among all the discs that he has released, but Hidden Name can’t be far behind in his affections. Both projects manage to achieve that most magical of effects: conjuring from close compositional attention, meticulous placement and ruthless editing the glorious illusion of rapturous, serendipitous drift.