By
Martin Schray
August 1, 2019, Berlin
The A L'armé! Festival has always had acts that have a tendency to play very
long, which can be a real challenge for the audience. I remember
Steamboat Switzerland in 2013 or Caspar Brötzmann /Alexandre Babel /
Massimo Pupillo in 2017, whom, frankly speaking, both missed the
point to end their performances in due time. This year Practical Music (Oscar
Hoogland, Jasper Stadhouders and Christian Lillinger) were the ones, opening with a two-hour long sound installation. However, in contrast to the
other bands just mentioned, the sheer length of their set was part of the
artistic concept and it really worked.
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| Practical Music |
For the festival organizers it was obvious that the project, which was
originally conceived as a one-off at Amsterdam's October Meeting 2016 at
the Bimhuis, must be continued. Equipped with a whole army of sound-making
devices like turntables, slot machine, analogue synth, electric clavichord,
megaphones, tape recorders, intonarumori, sirens (Hoogland), electric,
acoustic and bass guitars, mandoline and kologo (Stadhouders) and drums,
percussion and piano (Lillinger) they just opened the festival when the
audience was allowed to enter the location. The transition from the private
to the artistic was to take place immediately, which had the effect that
the musicians, some of whom walked through the hall playing music, almost
collided with the incoming spectators. When Hoogland and Stadhouders
circled the stage with bells and string instruments, it had something of
the beginning of a proclamation on a medieval fair. The performance
character of the festival already became clear here (it was to be continued
with the next act). The artistic character, however, was at the centre, as
far as the music was concerned, it mainly was about generating sounds,
there were hardly recognizable structures, the whole thing was rather
collage-like, a permanent coming and going on stage, a conglomeration of
noises: bird chirping, bicycle bells, sirens, flutes, moans, muezzin calls,
etc. It was like a huge painting that came to life and everyone was part of
it.
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| Tristan Honsinger’s Hopscotch |
Practical Music started with a performance-like show, and Tristan
Honsinger’s Hopscotch was a real one. What makes Honsinger's work unique
and really special is his idea of combining music and theatre in an
unprecedented way that he describes as “making music and theatre one“. This
sounds quite simple, but for Honsinger it has been the core of his work
throughout his whole career. Apparently he has been influenced by Samuel
Beckett's and Eugène Ionescu’s theatre of the absurd and his work with
Cecil Taylor, who integrated dance and poetry to his music. Honsinger,
however, also seems to have a weak spot for dadaist poetry. Hopscotch, the name of his A L'armé! project, derives from the children's
jumping game and brought together some of the best musicians of the Berlin
Echtzeit network. e.g. Tobias Delius, Axel Dörner and Antonio Borghini
(among others). The musicians were augmented by lots of special guests such
as the Japanese Butoh heroine Hisako Horikawa, tap dancer Mano Hiroki and a
chef. In general, it was like a collaboration of David Lynch, Robert Wilson
and the ICP Orchestra, as to music it was reminiscent of Alfred Schnittke’s
polystylistic approach, there was swing, free jazz, new classical music all-in-one. The audience liked it a lot.
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| Hanna Schörken/Rieko Okuda |
What followed was a double concert with Rieko Okuda/Hanna Schörken on the
one hand and Super Jazz Sandwich on the other. According to the liner notes
of the festival Hanna Schörken (voice) and Rieko Okuda (piano) presented
their very own freedom of speech between the impressionist aesthetics of
new music and the expressive spirit of free jazz. The music of the duo was
completely improvised, Schörken is obviously informed by Phil Minton and
Iréne Aebi, while Okada seems to have listened to Cecil Taylor, Howard
Riley and Marilyn Crispell a lot. Schörken gurgled, hissed, panted and
snapped, which Okuda sometimes counteracted with tender passages as well as
with wild runs.
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| Super Jazz Sandwich |
Finally, Super Jazz Sandwich delivered a real contrast. Trumpeter Flavio
Zanuttini, saxophonist Florian Walter and drummer Simon Camatta tried to
combine freely improvised music with more traditional varieties of jazz,
which resulted in a DIY punk jazz aesthetic reminding me of the Flying
Luttenbachers or John Zorn’s early Ornette Coleman projects. For their new
program, they tried to turn the psychological concept of the Enneagram, a
nine-step model of personality description and development, into music.
Their music reached from structured improvisation to game-pieces to complex
compositions, which was both funny and intellectually challenging. It was a
very postmodern approach that quoted a lot of styles and philosophies, once
(in a game piece) they even quoted Sam Rivers’ conducting technique.
Nothing new, but great fun.
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| Els Vandeweyer/DJ Illvibe/Hamid Drake feat. Real Geizt/Splidttercrist |
The evening was closed by Els Vandeweyer/DJ Illvibe/Hamid Drake feat. Real
Geizt/Splidttercrist.
The set referred to Anguish’s show the night before trying to integrate
hiphop into a free jazz surrounding. For this, according to the liner
notes, marimba, vibraphone, metal plates, drums, record players, and voice
boxes had to be turned inside out. Belgian vibraphonist Els Vandeweyer,
American drummer Hamid Drake, turntablist DJ Illvibe (for those who don’t
know: he’s Alexander von Schlippenbach’s son) and rapper
Real Geizt / Splidttercrist tried to explore unknown territories. Visually,
this was interesting, since Real Geizt (German for real spirit) actually
appeared like a ghost (see the picture). Musically Vandeweyer, DJ Illvibe
and Drake worked together very nicely, with Vandeweyer even playing blues
riffs on the marimba in the beginning, which created an fascinating groove.
When Real Geizt conjured himself, there was a different spirit, since he
seemed to me like a comic version of hiphop, rather contributing some kind
of poetry than real hiphop. This was foiled by DJ Illvibe’s beats and
Drake’s grooves.
All in all a very challenging and exciting day of music.
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