News about the 4th edition of the Festival that will take place in Berlin all through the year 2008. The information about the former editions that were held on 22-26 november 2006, 13-22 february 2007 and 1-29 august, 2007 are still to be found somewhere in the jungle of this blop.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

4. August Wendel, Berlin Kreuzberg


Debashis Sinha, Yannick Franck, Wolfgang Dorninger

The festival continues with three musicians that each come from a different musical background. Wolfgang Dorninger I first heard of through his nick name bike mike . When I saw the post on the phonographers list from this alias, I deleted it immediately, thinking of some weird spam. But the poster insisted. He didn`t get banned, so maybe there was a real person behind it. In fact there is. His bike mike blog shows his passion for field recordings, while the personal site shows how diverse Wolfgang`s activities are, even reaching the very borders of techno. In his own words:
< "dorninger aka bikemike" : the set starts with musical interpretations of Dorninger granulating field recordings by Dorninger's alter ego bikemike. At a certain point Dorninger's musical treatment looses its importance and the acoustic scenery ends with raw binaural recordings by bikemike. The concert consits of three scenes: church, car, nature. >


Yannick Franck will take us back to last years world championships of football when Italian supporters celebrated the victory of their country's team. Yannick lives in Liège, in Belgium, and the recording he will use for his performance was made directly from his window. It is an everyday life approach that I like very much. It connects to some moment lost in time, that can only be completed by your own fantasy. Yannick will use a tibetan bowl and radiowaves to fullfill his composition.

Debashis Sinha (in the picture)can very well introduce himself, and I feel very lucky to have `found` him at the last moment.

In his own words:

"Debashis Sinha is a percussionist who specializes in the instruments of the Arab world, Greece, Turkey and Persia. After 10 years of music performance and multiple juno nominations as a member of various world music projects, Sinha is shifting his creative focus to new media, audio installation, and audio art. He has been selected for residencies at the prestigious deep wireless festival of radio art (2006) and sound travels festival of sound art (2006). He has received funding from the Canada council for the arts, the Chalmers foundation, the Ontario arts council, and the Toronto arts council for his various projects. He is pleased to be making his European debut as a solo artist at the das kleine field recordings festival.

Wendel,* Schlesische Strasse 42, U-bahn Schlesisches Tor, Berlin Kreuzberg,

Starts 21.30

entrance fee: 5 euro


* Some words to Wendel. Visitors to the first two editions may very well remember this bar in one of the most frequented area's of Berlin Kreuzberg. Since then Wendel has changed its make-up. Most of the tables and chairs have been replaced by couches and easy chairs. A wifi connection allows visitors to check their mails in the shadow of the trees outside. The scenery is perfect for an evening of armchair travelling.

2 Comments:

Blogger felicia atkinson said...

i wish i could be there!

3:07 pm

 
Blogger rinus said...

It was as if the laptops were eager to show how imperfection can lead to great moments. First it was Wolfgang's computer that refused to start. Wolfgang spend sweat and time pushing buttons closing and opening the stubborn laptop and ended up looking like a kid who just heard that christmass was canceled this year.

Debashis started his concert victim to the random cut-ups his laptop threw in. I could see how nervous he was, still doing his best to find the right sounds to accompany the freaked out rhythm. (That I liked pretty much.) But then the flow came, and Debashis took us on a wonderfull ride through the streets of Kolkata. And in fact a bicycle ride might be the right image for his concert. Who doesn't remember his first insecure minutes, which as by magic pass into a sensation of flying?

As the concert went on, Debashis Sinha showed his percussionist background and mingled the sounds of the streets with some joyous dribblings. At one moment he was joined by firework explosions from outside. Someone in Kreuzberg was celebrating the first ever laptop performance by Debashis. And it was a glorious one.

Meanwhile Wolfgang had found an alternative for the set he had specially composed for this evening. Still a bit of delusion on his face, I proposed him to actually talk about the sounds he had recorded, thus giving the imaginary concert I am so longfully waiting for. Rightfully he refused.

Using two cd-players Wolfgang showed how much a master of sound he is. A radioman and a techno DJ as well, he managed to mix these two qualities.Radio for its intimacy and the narrative, techo for the enormous drive and sense for timing. All this resulted in a sonic adventure where the audience could witness a remix in progress. Audio portraits of a little town were played and some kitchy mozartian strings added the right Austrian melancholy.

Yannick roled out a carpet on the floor, opened his magic suitcase and exposed a variety of technical gadgets and shiny instruments. When all were silent and restfull he started with streetsounds recorded from his window. Those faded away and were replaced by slowly evolving drones. He kept moving between this outwindowly sounds and the intimate moments when a young man finds himself a dreamer and a poet alike. A poet in love perhaps.

Voices after the concert were all the same. Each one was absolutely taken by the three concerts. And each one had his own favourite.

To be continued, but where?

12:46 pm

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home