CDs

NoC1 / NoC2 / NoC3 / Distributed by a-Musik

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Noise of Cologne 3

120 DEN / 7000 Eichen / Achim Mohné / Andreas O. Hirsch / Andreas Wagner / Andrés Quezada / Annie Bloch / Beate & Dietmar Bonnen / Bernd Härpfer / Bettina Wenzel / Bidisha Das / bleed Air / Bob Humid / C.C. Herman / chirp.crush / Claudia Robles-Angel / Clusterhead / COMBUSTION CONSTRUCTION / Croute / DANGOLOID / dennis aycicek / Echo Ho / Elisa Kühnl / Elisa Metz / Elisabeth Coudoux / EZB / Florian Zwißler / Frank Dommert / Friday Dunard / funfon / hans w. koch / Harald Sack Ziegler / Hye Young Sin / jeandado / Joel Jaffe / Julia Bünnagel / Justin / Kai Niggemann / Luís Antunes Pena / Marcus Schmickler / Martin Schmitz / Martin Weinreich / Menelaos Tomasides / Merzouga / Michael Peters / Mik Quantius / Miyake / MME dUO / Monoteur / Nathalie Brum / Neozaïre / Nils Quak / Numinos / Pedro A. Ramírez / Peter Simon / PVNCTVM / Ralf Schreiber / Roland Schappert / Roman Jungblut / Schlammpeitziger / Sebastian von der Heide / Shuoxin Tan / Siegfried Koepf / Simon Rummel / Stefan Haagen / TBZ / That Night / Therapeutische Hörgruppe / Titanoboa / Tobias Hartmann / Viola Klein / Volker Zander / Wolfram Wire

Gefördert durch Stadt Köln, Kulturamt
Format: CD, Audio / Mastered by Picapau / Produced & Compiled by Dirk Specht and Frank Dommert / Liner Notes: Theresa Nink / Translation: Tom Asforth / Photography: Frank Dommert / Liner Notes: Theresa Nink

Infotext (english)
Noise of Cologne 3

Compilation series are usually released in a sequence of several months or years. This is not the case with „Noise of Cologne“: Part 1 was released in 2010, part 2 followed in 2013 and the third part of the series is now available in 2024 – with a total of 73 one-minute contributions from various musicians, bands and projects.

The one-minute format forces the contributions to be condensed and, in total, „Noise of Cologne 3“ offers a highly varied spectrum of experimental music: from musique concrète, electronic music, field recordings and environmental music to soundscapes, no wave, computer music and post-minimal music to experimental club music, turntablism, ambient and hauntology. Above all, „Noise of Cologne 3“ offers surprises: Trance synthesisers alongside vocal acrobatics and terror drums as well as numerous „unlikely combinations“ (David Toop) – music not yet classified or labelled: noise, if you will.

The CD compiled by Frank Dommert (A-Musik) and Dirk Specht (Therapeutische Hörgruppe) brings together musicians who have been contributing to the musical map of Cologne for years and decades as well as those who are just starting out, trying things out, building something, getting loud, getting involved, contributing. You can also hear the activating influence of networks, study programmes, collectives, producing workshops and funding, which also encourage more women to assert themselves against powerful stereotypes. The eponymous term „noise“ refers to neither genre nor sound; rather, its meaning blurs in the juxtaposition of the contributions, opening up its semantic frame of reference: What does noise have to do with the city? Which instruments are used to play noise? Is noise danceable? Does noise sound utopian or dystopian? Can noise be retro or is noise always new?

Jacques Attali attributed to the organised form of sound, i.e. music, the ability not only to depict and reflect social contexts, but also to make new social orders conceivable. This evokes associations with the belief in progress that the musical avant-garde in Cologne once used to arm itself ideologically. And at a time when the media is conjuring up a historical Cologne spirit of the 80s and 90s, „Noise of Cologne 3“ demonstrates that you have to leave supposedly glorious pasts behind in order to forge paths through the undergrowth in the here (Cologne) and now (2020s) with which the old freedoms (curiosity, experimental spirit, joy of playing, art…) can be regained.

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Noise of Cologne 2

01. Andreas Wagner – Schwarm der Mischwesen
02. Titanoboa – Ante Sapina
03. Nils Quak – Momente des fragmentierten Lebens
04. Anthony Moore – Trans Cologne Tramway
05. Natalie Bewernitz / Marek Goldowski – Heterodyne Visuals 1xy2
06. Echo Ho – The Song You Hear Is The See
07. Merzouga – HARBOUR
08. Gregor Schwellenbach – Timon of Athens
09. Volker Zander – Reise ins Risorgimento
10. Lu Katavist – Alsonac
11. Achim Mohné – LiveSet@Studio672,Cologne (Excerpt)
12. Harald Sack Ziegler – MFF 100
13. Bettina Wenzel – plan_b
14. TreeSpeedMusic – Luziolenschrauber
15. Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln – Nectar of the Gods
16. Hannes Hoelzl – arleBots

Gefördert durch Stadt Köln, Kulturamt
Format: CD, Audio / Mastered by Joker Nies / Produced & Compiled by Frank Dommert / Design: Frieda Luzcak / Photography: Frank Dommert / Liner Notes: Joachim Ody

Reviews

Infotext (english)
Noise of Cologne 2
Around 40 years ago, just as the world of new media was taking shape, a particular phrase was much bandied about to describe one aspect of this world’s artistic possibilities – we talked of “music as cut-up time.” Karlheinz Stockhausen adopted the idea with his “Hymnen” and “Kurzwellen,” as did the representatives of Musique concrète and the utopian brigades who championed a progressive musical language going beyond compositional principles. The phrase traced a mutual feedback loop between political and aesthetic experience – staking this claim in a forthright, even stubborn manner. The renowned music critic Rudolf Frisius formulated the statement that music is “cut-up time” to take in the whole spectrum of sound, notes and noise – and thus the formulation heavily depends on revolutionary developments in montage, including segments of collage.
In such a context, white noise and the associated visual imagery do not indicate the breakdown of the machine or the monitor screen, the television tuned to a dead channel, but rather total sound, the most immense noise imaginable, the optimum of acoustic Nothingness. What have its effects been, four decades on and more, after this Cologne audio piece and after all the recordings made meanwhile, the many mix-tapes cut together – most of them, and for very good reason – in the studios of Cologne? Suppose, just hypothetically, that we were to try to unpack that white noise in our own day, prise open that “sphericality of time” (let’s leave Frisius for a moment, and use a phrase from the Cologne composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann), open up some airways, make it more porous, split it into its integral parts, take it to pieces and then set each fragment in a frame that shows off its facets – perhaps we would find just what we find showcased here on “Noise of Cologne.” This second release in the series opens up another glorious grab-bag of contemporary music from Cologne, turning aside for a moment from the folksier forms of musical tradition to look at the B-side of the city’s distinctive sound, the many and varied activities of the free scene. There are still hints of the contrast with the old-established Neue Musik ideals of the past, such as could be heard at moments on “Noise of Cologne”, Part 1, but the artists assembled here have shrugged off much of the burden of the past – we can certainly see this as the latest phase or face of a creative scene that does just as it pleases. Electronica is the common element here, but these artists use modern media, including computer and laptop technology – playing with the tech without needing to break new ground at any price. 16 recording artists, each in his or her own way creating a diverse mash- up from the colourful, kaleidoscopic world that is made in Cologne: Short compositions and miniatures spat out from the computer, sound sculptures and scattered improvisations, Pop Art ornaments and vocal experiments, bone-shaking blare and chilled-out ambient noise, concrete tone poems and unorthodox performances on classical instruments and “found objects.” We are on familiar ground in the here and now, and then in the blink of an eye we are in terra incognita. To an extent, “Noise of Cologne 2” is by now a tradition in its own right, but if we are to hear and make new discoveries, we should keep an open ear. “Noise as cut-up time anno 2013.”
Joachim Ody (Translation: Samuel Willcocks)

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Noise of Cologne 1

In kaum einer Stadt wurde das dort beheimatete musikalische Wirken so fleißig dokumentiert wie in Köln. An Dom und Rhein ist man stolz auf seinen „Sound of Cologne“, und meistens meint man damit Elektronika oder Minimal Techno. Solche Musik ist es auch, der die gleichnamige Compilation-Reihe gewidmet ist. Natürlich verweist der Titel der nun vorliegenden Zusammenstellung „Noise of Cologne“ (NoC) auf die genannten Köln-Sampler und damit auf ein Trademark, das die Stadt sich selbst gegeben hat. Aber mit NoC wird keine Identität stiftende Szene proklamiert, sondern ein musikalisches Schaffen beleuchtet, das bislang vom Kölner Clubsound etwas übertönt wurde. Wobei hier nicht ausschließlich der Musikstil Noise mit seiner rohen Energie und Körperlichkeit gemeint ist. Es geht nicht um Lärm im Wortsinn. Vielmehr wird mit NoC die Vielseitigkeit experimenteller Musik aus Köln dargestellt. Und der Fundus an komponierter und spontaner kölnischer Experimentalmusik ist derart reich, dass man mit NoC eine freudige Überraschung nach der nächsten erlebt.

Zum Beispiel Harald Muenz‚ Rückwärts-Version von Ravels Boléro, die sich im Zeitraffer ebenso steigert wie das Original. Oder die Werkssirenen-Synthesizer von Volker Hennes. Wir hören ein konzeptionelles Werk um die Zahl 6; ein sehr handfestes Stück Neue Musik für Klavier, kleines Ensemble und Elektronik, mit Thema und Variation. Oder freundlich-verquere Synthesizer-Musik. Musik gewordenes Unterwegs-Sein mit der Zug-Komposition „Das Ohr am Gleis“ von C-Schulz und F.X.Randomiz. Die energetischen, ereignisreichen „Überschreitungen des Pragmatismus“ von Lehn und Schmickler. Oder aber ein schier unfassbares Stück von Bernd Härpfer für sechs Sprechstimmen.All das macht NoC zu einem sinnlichen und intellektuellen Vergnügen der besonderen Art. Denn einerseits lässt man sich gerne mitziehen vom Sog dieser immer wieder überraschenden Zusammenstellung. Andererseits besteht ein Extraspaß darin, anhand der erhellenden Linernotes von Joachim Ody Komponisten für sich zu entdecken oder Kompositionstechniken nachzuvollziehen.

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Noise of Cologne I

01. Harald Münz – Orèlob 80
02. Volker Hennes – Arsen
03. Frank Barknecht – Beauty
04. Siegfried Koepf – Square
05. Pirx – High Noon
06. Michael Beil – Und Sechs (Exzerpt)
07. Männer mit Motoren – Blasenwerfer + Phasendrescher
08. Peter Behrendsen – Atem des Windes (Exzerpt)
09. C-Schulz & F.X.Randomiz – Das Ohr am Gleis – Part 2 (Edit)
10. Frank Schulte – Durchmessung
11. Lehn / Schmickler – Überschreitungen Des Pragmatismus (Exzerpt)
12. Bernd Haerpfer – Mazwi
13. Robert Vater – Ügüg
14. Roland Schappert – Ausgeludert
15. Matthias Mainz – Quiet Noise
16. hans w. koch – [X∞ = op (X∞)]2
17. Joker Nies – Suite for modified Q-Chord

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Herausgegeben von:
Mark e.V., Kleiner Greichenmarkt 28-30, 50676 Köln
markev (at) reihe-m (dot) de

reiheM – Konzertreihe für Gegenwartsmusik, Elektronik und neue Medien wird veranstaltet von Mark e.V. und gefördert durch das Kulturamt der Stadt Köln und vom Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.

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