|
|
|
|
"Schnitt!"
is a live-performance with open-reel analogue tape machines. |
|
|
|
"Schnitt!"
is a live-loop-scratch-concert, a noise- and sound-composition,
a sound-play |
|
|
|
"Schnitt!"
is a composition with sounds of nature, everyday-life sounds,
machine sounds, heart beats and sine tones. |
|
|
|
The
instruments of the "Schnitt!"-performance
are two tape recorders:
1.)
a conventional analogue open-reel stereo-machine with
prepared sounds, tones and noises on conventional analogue
open-reel stereo-tapes,
2.)
an analogue open-reel 8-track recorder, on which a tape-loop
is spinning round.
|
 |
Like
a DJ Frank Niehusmann mixes samples, cuts, fragments and
passages from his prepared stereo-tapes into the circular
course of the 8-track loop, thereby creating a dense, rhythmic
network of sound-cuts and noise-combinations.
The original sound of drummers on the Marrakech market stands
equally to the bass tone of industrial machines in Germany,
synthetic frequency-modulation, scottish bagpipers, dolphins,
laughing children, rain drops, Diesel engines and much more.
One sees Niehusmann plays with the buttons and knobs of
the machines: forward, rewind, start, stop, play, changing
the loops, play again, scratch, dacapo ... |
|
|
|
Reviews
on SCHNITT!-concerts: |
|
|
|
The
Order of the Loop
The
stage set-up is as minimal as it is thought out: sound
material from Niehusmann's extensive archives is played
from a 2-track tape machine onto 8 tape loops, one at
a time, on an 8-track tape machine in which the 8 tape
loops of varying lengths are threaded. The system itself
– a loop in which you can watch the sound material
moving, so to speak; the manipulation stations are open
for everyone to see. This transparency is the basis for
Niehusmann's concept, which he presents strictly as a
ritual. Carefully threads the tape, starts, bends to the
right towards the 8-track machine to record, mix and delete
with a precision that can be read in the language of his
body, turning the sounds into 8 noise scenarios whose
basic rhythms are determined by the length of the tape
loop, broken and compressed innumerable times through
his DJ-like treatment. The shaman appears in the music,
while the presentation does not drop the ritual even in
the intervals between the pieces: each of the looped tapes
is handed over to a guest – a highly abstract object
of devotion, as he had pointed out that the loop is empty
both before and after the piece.
Niehusmann himself is a component of his system, forces
himself onto the audience – and that is a rarity
in the world of noise music where the artists tend more
and more to disappear, together with their laboratories,
behind white fluorescent apples, compensating for a lack
of stage presence, if at all, in multimedial form. A video
does not sweat – he does, a little, and later, in
the lobby, he snorts in satisfaction about the performance,
which impressed even the most cunning of the Experimental
veterans: even they! had never used a tape machine like
that; ... Musique concrète for the knowledgeable
and for the neophyte ...
Sonia
Roelke about the "Schnitt!"-concert at
"Hoerbar" (Hamburg/Germany), 26 April 2002,
in:
"tba fanzine", appears monthly,
editors of this issue:
Luka Skywalker and Sonia Roelcke,
address letters to tba-redaktion@web.de |
|
|
|
The
highlight ...
...was
Frank Niehusmann's performance of "Schnitt!"
He used two tape decks (you read right -- Tape Decks).
One contained a reel of carefully indexed and marked samples.
The other played a loop onto which Frank carefully and
rhythmically recorded samples from the reel, creating
an evolving texture that was exhilerating -- and wonderful
to watch ...
(David
Mooney about the "Electronic Music Midwest Festival"
2002 in Kansas City, in: CECDISCUSS, March 2002;
[ http://cec.concordia.ca/words/cecdiscuss.html
] and
[ http://cec.concordia.ca/forms/cecdiscuss.htm
].
CECDISCUSS is a forum created for the Canadian Electroacoustic
Community CEC) |
|
|
|
Sound-magician
at the tape-record ...
...
Frank Niehusmann started a strange ceremony ... the feeding
of the big tape recorder with an empty tape loop ... -
Dextereously and masterly Niehusmann transferred noises,
snatches of voices and other components of his sound material
from prepared stereo tapes to various tracks of the eternal
loop. All this intensified swiftly to both poetic an amusing
structures. The result you could listen to was a highly
complex playing with addition and subtraction, intensity
and decomposition ... - How he arranges these sounds ...
is highly artistic. And this fascinating sound-magician
has definitely complete command of his art ...
(Sven
Thielmann, in: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 28.10.1999,
Essen/Germany) |
|
|
