Christoph Gallio - Soziale Musik (Vexer Verlag, 2010)

When you think you've heard it all, you're wrong. Here is music you can make yourself. Hence the title of the album "Soziale Musik", easily translated into "social music".

The project is Christoph Gallio's idea : he plays his usual soprano and alto saxes on not less than 147 snippets of music, electronically altered and played in loops. On some he is accompanied by other musicans, to know: Andrea Neumann on piano, Kazumi on voice, Hans Benda on electronics, Helmut Erler on voice and field recording, Sven-Åke Johansson on drums, Jan Roder on double bass, Olaf Rupp on guitar, and Oliver Steidle on percussion.

The snippets come on different formats :
1. a CD with 94 pieces
2. two 7'' vinyl singles with 12 to 15 pieces on each side.

The liner notes say that you are allowed to play the 7'' singles at 45 or 33 rpm.

So, what's social about this music? Well, you can sample them however you want, play along with them, or make a collage with the various pieces.  You can go to the specifically created website of "Soziale Musik" and play the various pieces in random order or whichever way you choose.

The liner notes explain : "The essential and the incidental become one, the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident become obsolete. The repetitive inner structure of the individual pieces prevents narrative links without violating the linguistic character of the music. Rhetorical figures can be read out of the individual measure: between melancholy and loneliness, intimacy and agitation, pain or simply boredom".

Most pieces are between five to thirty seconds long, except for the last track, which lasts for a surprising two minutes. Great ingredients, yet it's not a full meal : you are the cooks. The concept is not new, as Boubaker points out in the "comment" section. French saxophonist Michel Doneda has done it before : here is the link.

Ye it is all quite unusual. Just play along. It is really great fun.


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