.
Although Ataraxia is the result of a through-the-mail collaboration, it nevertheless conserves the aspect of two musicians playing together. We started by me recording and sending Heribert a generous amount of material improvised on electric cellotar and bamboo flutes. Heribert then recorded his parts, playing with me virtually present on CDR. I then proceeded to edit and arrange the duo material to become a series of seven pieces. The basic structure of Ataraxia being defined, I will now play in a virtual trio with Heribert, adding some bamboo flute to two of the parts (this will be my first time using two of my self-made flutes for recording), 'polish' the tracks, and master the CD.
I am exceedingly happy with the music we have created, and Ataraxia, once the final touches added, promises to become an excellent work of music on the border between improvisation and composition, both contemplative and expressive, and exploring a new musical territory.
Those of you who have read the trente oiseaux newsletter I/2005 will remember that we had also started to work on a long piece based on a field recording of three power transformers. This piece is still on our agenda but not completed yet - it will be released on trente oiseaux later this year, adding a quite different facet to our collaboration work.
As you may have guessed, TOC051 it is a re-mastered version of my second CD, first published in 1994. There is, however, a significant difference between the original release and this re-edition: I have decided to
replace the third track, Écriture Automatique (For Giancarlo Toniutti)
by a re-mastered version of Slow Gestures/Cérémonie Désir (For Heike).
Écriture Automatique no longer felt like a valid musical work to me, and
Slow Gestures/Cérémonie Désir has not been available for a long time.
Détails Agrandis as a whole now also displays a stronger structural
unity as Slow Gestures/Cérémonie Désir uses some material taken from the
second track, Stone Circles (For Richard Long). It also introduces a
sound element that later became the beginning and articulating element
of Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue (For Mark Rothko) so that listening to the
two CDs in sequence opens an interesting perspective on the development
of my musical thinking and style from 1994 to 1999.
Our second album presents 70 minutes of live recordings from three concerts in Norwich, Manchester, and London. I will not give a long description of the music here, let me just say that last night, during my obligatory test listening to the just arrived CD, last I could only think 'What a great record!' and smile a big smile. +minus has achieved the creation of a unique musical language and style (no small feat in my
humble opinion), and is one of the most gratifying projects ever in my musical life.
Please take more detailed information from the liner notes of A RAINY KORAN VERSE [UK Live] in PDF format. Mark Wastell's also incuded tour diary will give you a vivid impression of how this music has come into existance.
For this release the respected improvisation duo of Reinhold Friedl, inside piano and Michael Vorfeld, percussion and stringed instruments is joined by Bernhard Günter, electric cellotar.
Reinhold, Michael, and me first got together to play concert at the Podewil in Berlin in
November 2003. After the soundcheck as our sole rehearsal we played a really intense set,
and were astonished by how well our playing as a trio functioned. We then spent the next day
recording in the same space at the Podewil, a recording session that was both mentally and
physically so intense it left us exhausted (I still distinctly remember our hands trembling).
MESSAGE URGENT now presents these recordings.
This trio music is quite different from that of my trio +minus, it is quite dense (at times almost orchestral) and intense, although of very low volume (please resist the temptation to turn the volume up), constantly changing atmospheres and moods. The intensity of our session is well captured by the recording (as well as a bit of background noise that becomes noticeable during the most silent moments), and so the CD provides a listening experience you should not miss. We have played a concert in Strasbourg in the meantime, and I hope we will be performing together again in the future.
As the title implies, +minus [first meeting] is the result of the first meeting of bernhard günter with Graham Halliwell, and Mark Wastell. It also implies that what was intended to be a recording project has become a group, my first group since fifteen years, and named +minus:
bernhard günter: electric cellotar and composed basis tracks
Graham Halliwell: saxophone feedback
Mark Wastell: amplified textures, nepalese prayer bowls and gong
+minus' music is improvised, but not purely so: two of the four tracks on our first artist use some of my older, noise oriented pieces as their structural basis, while the two others are indeed improvised. We understand improvisation as 'instant composition', and the result is an intuitively played cross-over between electroacoustic and improvised music of generally quiet and comtemplative character. Our group name alludes to our playing ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ pre-recorded composed basis tracks.
Our first meeting led to the virtually immediate creation of a new musical vocabulary and language specific to this particular group of musicians - something I have never experienced to happen in such a short time in the past.
This release is a special re-edition of my first CD on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of it's first release in 1983. It is not identical to the original version of Un Peu de Neige Salie, but entirely re-mastered using newly acquired digital tools, resulting in more clarity, a better spatial image, and elimination of background and quantizing noises i had no means to get rid of before. The new mastering sheds a quite different on these works i still consider valid artistic statement after ten years have passed. The tracks Untitled II/92 and Untitled III/92 have been replaced by a soundtrack i created for the video project Whiteout of Tokyo based artist Takahiro Tanaka that combines the two original tracks into one larger work, reinforcing the unity of Un Peu de Neige as a whole. I have kept Takahiro's title Whiteout and dedicated the piece to him. The re-edition is completed by extensive liner notes and a collection of photos that i find to somehow relate to Un Peu de Neige Salie (though maybe more by their 'feel' than by their content). TOCSE01 is limited to 500 numbered copies (the first 200 copies are signed, as well). Even if you own one of the first two releases of this CD, it is still worthwhile to get as the definite and final version of my earliest work.
Presents one piece each in homage to Morton Feldman by Richard Chartier, Steve Roden, and me on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of his death in September 1987. I am amazed how well these pieces, in spite of being quite different in style, work together to constitute a whole. They also express the influence Morton Feldman's sublime works have had (and still have) on us in our personal ways of creating music.
Richard's HOW THINGS CHANGE is a rather intimate, pensive piece made of abstract electronic sounds and long streches of silence, while Steve's STASIS is probably the most hypnotic and atmosperic set of slowly orbiting loops he has ever created. I, who like to say that the safest to expect from me is the unexpected, have composed a piece for winter rain, small brook, and sho, titled FUYU NO AME (FOR MORTON FELDMAN), a piece that belongs to what I have called my 'musique concrète, enhanced' strain of work, but sounds like else nothing I have done.
I have mastered the CD to from a unit with the silences between the works in proportion with the silences they contain. When the master was finished I noticed that the cover I had designed beforehand actually did not fit in with the music presented, and so designed an entirely new one. This cover will be the first full color cover for Trente Oiseaux, anticipating the switch to full color covers I had planned for 2003. I believe that this release is one of Trente Oiseaux's finest, in both the music it presents, and it's attractive packaging.
Monochrome Rust, the third piece in a triptychon, initiated with the works Monochrome White and Polychrome w/Neon Nails, presents what a shiny new, digitally clean piece like Polychrome might become after fifty years of degradation and corrosion - the neon nails have become rusted, and lost their shine. Nevertheless, this study of transience is not negative - it rather contains some of the calm of handling memories of long gone events, seen in a new perspective created by the passing of time.
Differential is, in a way, the epilogue, the final touch added to the triptychon of Monochrome White, Polychrome w/Neon Nails, and Monochrome Rust that completes this cycle based on the work In Audio by British duo, Immedia.
The title Differential refers to the way I have derived its basic material: Digidesign's Sound Designer II software has a function called 'compare files' this process compares two sound files, and writes the difference between them (i.e., the frequencies they do not have in common) into a new sound file. For Differential, I had Sound Designer first calculate the difference between Monochrome White and Polychrome w/Neon Nails, then the difference between Monochrome White and Monochrome Rust, and finally, the difference between the two difference files. I listened to the resulting difference between differences, and decided that the 'drama' of the piece would be better if I reversed the whole, which I did. I then developed the appropriate panorama and equalization settings to make the entire process of the piece more apparent, and more perceptible. The final step was turning the volume down, until the piece was about half as loud as the three others in the work cycle.
Differential is a very subtle, very filigree piece, maybe even more abstract and minimalist than the three pieces it was derived from, much like a translucent version of Monochrome White. I'm quite fond of the piece, and believe it will turn this work cycle into a complete whole. It also adds to the use of the whole cycle for an eight channel sound installation.
I dedicate Differential to the people who have made it all possible: Darren & Vicky, Richard, and Taylor.
bernhard günter, august 2001
Redshift will be combined with Abschied on TOC021. As the two pieces are not related to each other, each has its own cover. Here are the liner notes for Abschied:
I have composed 'Abschied' in memory of Erika Kedziora, my wife's aunt, who passed away on July 28th, 2001, after a long illness, at age 70. She was a wonderful human being, friendly, and open-minded, always wishing me luck for my concerts, and succces for my music. Heike and I were very shocked, and saddened to learn that she had finally lost the battle aginst her illness.
May she rest in peace. We will remember her.
bernhard günter, august 2001
I was forming plans for a very different project in my mind when i came across a number of DAT tapes from my first sampling days in 1993, the time of 'Un peu de neige salie' - these tapes contained sounds i had not used in those days, and that i could not at all remember the origins / sources of, but that sounded interesting to my present day ears. I thus started to work with them, without the slightest idea of what might be the result, and the piece kind of made itself - the result was a structure consisting of noise sounds to which i added a complementary microtonal structure of instrumental samples to form the whole. It is difficult to describe the result, but i think it quite unique in the impression it gives - when listened to at low or medium volume (it is supposed to be), the sounds seem to come from a far distance, and create shifting impressions of space.
The associations of signals coming from far away, and transforming space it gave me led to the title Redshift, a term that describes a phenomenon discovered in the 1920's: the light of far distant galaxies is shifted to the red spectrum, and the farther away they are, the stronger the redshift is. This discovery can only be explained by a Doppler Effect implying that these galaxies are moving away from us, and that the universe is expanding. These associations are, of course, purely sub-jective - you do not have to imagine swarms of neutrinos, or radio signals from a quasar to enjoy the piece.
Originally projected to be sold exclusively at our concerts during our tour in Japan in November 2001 this split CD of Steve Roden and me will be released on TRENTE OISEAUX, along with Steve's upcoming CD for our label, because we found ourselves to fond of the pieces it contains to limit it to this use. While the three pieces differ very much in style (mine being made of noises exclusively, while the two by Steve are using concrete sounds), they work together very well.
bernhard günter, march 2001
Bernhard's first ever two CD set presents the first two in a triptychon of pieces all derived from the same basic material. The complete liner notes containing a detailed description of each work, and the history of their creation is found on bernhard's web site www.bernhardguenter.net
- available in limited quantities, and outside of the USA, and UK only (The first edition having sold out after a mere four weeks, this is the second edition coming in a slightly less luxurious package).
Crossing the River is calm, peaceful, and beautiful, guaranteed to slow you down after a busy urban day (but unlike chemical products designed to this effect, it leaves your mind clear and aware). The effect it had on me was that i bagged my elaborate liner notes about 'crossing the river' as a Buddhist metaphor for reaching enlightenment, and replaced them by this:
'Ceci est la couleur de mes rèves'
[title of a painting by] Juan Miró
('This is the color of my dreams')
For TOC014, Crossing the River will be paired with Haiku for Mu, composed for the 'lower case sound' compilation last year, now re-mastered, and embedded in silence. Being of a nightly mood, too, it combines perfectly with Crossing the River.
bernhard günter, january 2001
Then, Silence is dedicated to Morton Feldman and Luigi Nono. The experience of listening to their music has changed my understanding, my way of hearing, my thinking about, and my creating music so much that my own work would simply be unthinkable without it. Dedicating Then, Silence to them is my modest Thank You to Morton Feldman and Luigi Nono, expressing not only my admiration, but also the sadness their untimely parting causes me.
bernhard günter, august 2000
This work's main aspects are, as its title suggests, Time, and the notion of Slowness. Of complex harmonic design similar to "brown, blue, brown on blue (for Mark Rothko)" the composition uses both instrumental images and elements of a more soundscape type character, plus a non-tempered scale as the basis for the various transpositions of the sounds. Other than that, i think it speaks for itself...
bernhard günter, may 2000
I finished "Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue (for Mark Rothko)" in mid-july 1999, and it picks up where "Slow Gestures / Cérémonie Désir (for Heike)" left off (actually, the two pieces can be listened to as one large work in two parts...).
It is dedicated to my favorite painter, Mark Rothko, and the title is taken from one of his paintings that has accompanied me for a long time as print hanging beside my bed. I finally got a chance to see this painting in an exhibition of Rothko's works at the Musée de l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1999 and was more deeply touched by it than i can express in words.
These strong feelings have found their way into the composition i began working on immediately after my visit at the museum - it is not intended to describe the painting itself, but rather the emotions it inspired. The itinerary the work takes is, in some respect, a reversed mirror image of the development of Rothko's painting during his life: where Rothko began his characteristic style with bright colors and ended in dark grays and blacks, i am starting with dark colors implying his tragic death to end in a kind of celebration of his greatness being recognized by so many people now, and the heritage of wonderful works he has left us.
bernhard günter, October 1999
It is very difficult for me to speak of this work, since it is getting very close to my goal of creating a kind of language free space. I thus prefer to let it go without further comment other than that I dedicate it to my companion Heike - each gesture is both speaking of her, and speaking to her, without words.
This piece, created by bernhard günter in 1998, is based on material from a performance of the American artist Jeph Jerman, a.k.a. "hands to". It is a work that is subtle and concise, concrete and abstract at the same time like a Japanese Haiku, silence and sound in balance. Fittingly, it has been released by the Japanese label Digital Narcis in Osaka, run by our friend Koji Marutani.
For this CD, bernhard has remixed his 1997 piece "un lieu pareil à un point effacé, 1ere partie", which had been released on a CD that accompanied the American HALANA magazine, and reworked "un lieu pareil à un point effacé, 2eme partie", never released before. He has also made a new version of his piece "the ant moves / the black and yellow carcass / a little closer", a piece mainly based on sounds from New York based artist John Hudak, who also wrote the title Haiku. This new version has been selected to receive one of the twelve "honorary mentions" of the 1999 PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA. The fourth piece is titled "vertige hasard", created in january 1999.
This long awaited and highly acclaimed collaboration features one single piece inspired by Samuel Beckett's libretto for Morton Feldman's chamber opera "neither". The combination of the distinctive styles of the two artists has resulted in music that you have never heard quite like this before...
"Best record of 1996!" Jim O'Rourke in THE WIRE.
(Note: The remaining copies of TOC064 are coming in the new TRENTE OISEAUX Maxi CD box packaging with a new cover. It will not be reprinted.)
On "Scumtron", Merzbow remix compilation CD.
On "Night Passage demixed" compilation.
with John Hudak, 1996, on
"A fault in the nothing", 2CD compilation by Ash International, uk
with frans de waard, asmus tietchens, achim wollscheid and giancarlo toniutti
Re-released 1999, table of the elements, usa [new cover]
remastered re-release 1996, table of the elements, usa [new cover]
bernhard günter / heribert friedl ATARAXIA TOC053 [2005, trente oiseaux, germany]
Although Ataraxia is the result of a through-the-mail collaboration, it nevertheless conserves the aspect of two musicians playing together. We started by me recording and sending Heribert a generous amount of material improvised on electric cellotar and bamboo flutes. Heribert then recorded his parts, playing with me virtually present on CDR. I then proceeded to edit and arrange the duo material to become a series of seven pieces. The basic structure of Ataraxia being defined, I will now play in a virtual trio with Heribert, adding some bamboo flute to two of the parts (this will be my first time using two of my self-made flutes for recording), 'polish' the tracks, and master the CD.I am exceedingly happy with the music we have created, and Ataraxia, once the final touches added, promises to become an excellent work of music on the border between improvisation and composition, both contemplative and expressive, and exploring a new musical territory.
Those of you who have read the trente oiseaux newsletter I/2005 will remember that we had also started to work on a long piece based on a field recording of three power transformers. This piece is still on our agenda but not completed yet - it will be released on trente oiseaux later this year, adding a quite different facet to our collaboration work.
bernhard günter détails agrandis TOC051 [2005, trente oiseaux, germany]
As you may have guessed, TOC051 it is a re-mastered version of my second CD, first published in 1994. There is, however, a significant difference between the original release and this re-edition: I have decided to
replace the third track, Écriture Automatique (For Giancarlo Toniutti)
by a re-mastered version of Slow Gestures/Cérémonie Désir (For Heike).
Écriture Automatique no longer felt like a valid musical work to me, and
Slow Gestures/Cérémonie Désir has not been available for a long time.
Détails Agrandis as a whole now also displays a stronger structural
unity as Slow Gestures/Cérémonie Désir uses some material taken from the
second track, Stone Circles (For Richard Long). It also introduces a
sound element that later became the beginning and articulating element
of Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue (For Mark Rothko) so that listening to the
two CDs in sequence opens an interesting perspective on the development
of my musical thinking and style from 1994 to 1999.+minus a rainy koran verse [uk live] TOC043 [2004, trente oiseaux, germany]
Our second album presents 70 minutes of live recordings from three concerts in Norwich, Manchester, and London. I will not give a long description of the music here, let me just say that last night, during my obligatory test listening to the just arrived CD, last I could only think 'What a great record!' and smile a big smile. +minus has achieved the creation of a unique musical language and style (no small feat in my
humble opinion), and is one of the most gratifying projects ever in my musical life.Please take more detailed information from the liner notes of A RAINY KORAN VERSE [UK Live] in PDF format. Mark Wastell's also incuded tour diary will give you a vivid impression of how this music has come into existance.
REINHOLD FRIEDL / BERNHARD GÜNTER / MICHAEL VORFELD message urgent TOC042 [2004, trente oiseaux, germany]
For this release the respected improvisation duo of Reinhold Friedl, inside piano and Michael Vorfeld, percussion and stringed instruments is joined by Bernhard Günter, electric cellotar.
Reinhold, Michael, and me first got together to play concert at the Podewil in Berlin in
November 2003. After the soundcheck as our sole rehearsal we played a really intense set,
and were astonished by how well our playing as a trio functioned. We then spent the next day
recording in the same space at the Podewil, a recording session that was both mentally and
physically so intense it left us exhausted (I still distinctly remember our hands trembling).
MESSAGE URGENT now presents these recordings.This trio music is quite different from that of my trio +minus, it is quite dense (at times almost orchestral) and intense, although of very low volume (please resist the temptation to turn the volume up), constantly changing atmospheres and moods. The intensity of our session is well captured by the recording (as well as a bit of background noise that becomes noticeable during the most silent moments), and so the CD provides a listening experience you should not miss. We have played a concert in Strasbourg in the meantime, and I hope we will be performing together again in the future.
GÜNTER / HALLIWELL / WASTELL +minus [FIRST MEETING] TOC041 [2004, trente oiseaux, germany]
As the title implies, +minus [first meeting] is the result of the first meeting of bernhard günter with Graham Halliwell, and Mark Wastell. It also implies that what was intended to be a recording project has become a group, my first group since fifteen years, and named +minus:bernhard günter: electric cellotar and composed basis tracks
Graham Halliwell: saxophone feedback
Mark Wastell: amplified textures, nepalese prayer bowls and gong
+minus' music is improvised, but not purely so: two of the four tracks on our first artist use some of my older, noise oriented pieces as their structural basis, while the two others are indeed improvised. We understand improvisation as 'instant composition', and the result is an intuitively played cross-over between electroacoustic and improvised music of generally quiet and comtemplative character. Our group name alludes to our playing ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ pre-recorded composed basis tracks.
Our first meeting led to the virtually immediate creation of a new musical vocabulary and language specific to this particular group of musicians - something I have never experienced to happen in such a short time in the past.
BERNHARD GÜNTER un peu de neige salie TOCSE01 [2003, trente oiseaux, germany, 10th anniversary limited edition]
This release is a special re-edition of my first CD on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of it's first release in 1983. It is not identical to the original version of Un Peu de Neige Salie, but entirely re-mastered using newly acquired digital tools, resulting in more clarity, a better spatial image, and elimination of background and quantizing noises i had no means to get rid of before. The new mastering sheds a quite different on these works i still consider valid artistic statement after ten years have passed. The tracks Untitled II/92 and Untitled III/92 have been replaced by a soundtrack i created for the video project Whiteout of Tokyo based artist Takahiro Tanaka that combines the two original tracks into one larger work, reinforcing the unity of Un Peu de Neige as a whole. I have kept Takahiro's title Whiteout and dedicated the piece to him. The re-edition is completed by extensive liner notes and a collection of photos that i find to somehow relate to Un Peu de Neige Salie (though maybe more by their 'feel' than by their content). TOCSE01 is limited to 500 numbered copies (the first 200 copies are signed, as well). Even if you own one of the first two releases of this CD, it is still worthwhile to get as the definite and final version of my earliest work.RICHARD CHARTIER / BERNHARD GÜNTER / STEVE RODEN (for morton feldman) TOC024 [2002, trente oiseaux, germany]
Presents one piece each in homage to Morton Feldman by Richard Chartier, Steve Roden, and me on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of his death in September 1987. I am amazed how well these pieces, in spite of being quite different in style, work together to constitute a whole. They also express the influence Morton Feldman's sublime works have had (and still have) on us in our personal ways of creating music.
Richard's HOW THINGS CHANGE is a rather intimate, pensive piece made of abstract electronic sounds and long streches of silence, while Steve's STASIS is probably the most hypnotic and atmosperic set of slowly orbiting loops he has ever created. I, who like to say that the safest to expect from me is the unexpected, have composed a piece for winter rain, small brook, and sho, titled FUYU NO AME (FOR MORTON FELDMAN), a piece that belongs to what I have called my 'musique concrète, enhanced' strain of work, but sounds like else nothing I have done.
I have mastered the CD to from a unit with the silences between the works in proportion with the silences they contain. When the master was finished I noticed that the cover I had designed beforehand actually did not fit in with the music presented, and so designed an entirely new one. This cover will be the first full color cover for Trente Oiseaux, anticipating the switch to full color covers I had planned for 2003. I believe that this release is one of Trente Oiseaux's finest, in both the music it presents, and it's attractive packaging.
BERNHARD GÜNTER monochrome rust/differential LINE009 [2002, line, usa]
Monochrome Rust, the third piece in a triptychon, initiated with the works Monochrome White and Polychrome w/Neon Nails, presents what a shiny new, digitally clean piece like Polychrome might become after fifty years of degradation and corrosion - the neon nails have become rusted, and lost their shine. Nevertheless, this study of transience is not negative - it rather contains some of the calm of handling memories of long gone events, seen in a new perspective created by the passing of time.Differential is, in a way, the epilogue, the final touch added to the triptychon of Monochrome White, Polychrome w/Neon Nails, and Monochrome Rust that completes this cycle based on the work In Audio by British duo, Immedia.
The title Differential refers to the way I have derived its basic material: Digidesign's Sound Designer II software has a function called 'compare files' this process compares two sound files, and writes the difference between them (i.e., the frequencies they do not have in common) into a new sound file. For Differential, I had Sound Designer first calculate the difference between Monochrome White and Polychrome w/Neon Nails, then the difference between Monochrome White and Monochrome Rust, and finally, the difference between the two difference files. I listened to the resulting difference between differences, and decided that the 'drama' of the piece would be better if I reversed the whole, which I did. I then developed the appropriate panorama and equalization settings to make the entire process of the piece more apparent, and more perceptible. The final step was turning the volume down, until the piece was about half as loud as the three others in the work cycle.
Differential is a very subtle, very filigree piece, maybe even more abstract and minimalist than the three pieces it was derived from, much like a translucent version of Monochrome White. I'm quite fond of the piece, and believe it will turn this work cycle into a complete whole. It also adds to the use of the whole cycle for an eight channel sound installation.
I dedicate Differential to the people who have made it all possible: Darren & Vicky, Richard, and Taylor.
bernhard günter, august 2001
BERNHARD GÜNTER abschied TOC021 [2002, trente oiseaux, germany]
Redshift will be combined with Abschied on TOC021. As the two pieces are not related to each other, each has its own cover. Here are the liner notes for Abschied:
I have composed 'Abschied' in memory of Erika Kedziora, my wife's aunt, who passed away on July 28th, 2001, after a long illness, at age 70. She was a wonderful human being, friendly, and open-minded, always wishing me luck for my concerts, and succces for my music. Heike and I were very shocked, and saddened to learn that she had finally lost the battle aginst her illness.
May she rest in peace. We will remember her.
bernhard günter, august 2001
BERNHARD GÜNTER redshift TOC021 [2002, trente oiseaux, germany]
I was forming plans for a very different project in my mind when i came across a number of DAT tapes from my first sampling days in 1993, the time of 'Un peu de neige salie' - these tapes contained sounds i had not used in those days, and that i could not at all remember the origins / sources of, but that sounded interesting to my present day ears. I thus started to work with them, without the slightest idea of what might be the result, and the piece kind of made itself - the result was a structure consisting of noise sounds to which i added a complementary microtonal structure of instrumental samples to form the whole. It is difficult to describe the result, but i think it quite unique in the impression it gives - when listened to at low or medium volume (it is supposed to be), the sounds seem to come from a far distance, and create shifting impressions of space.The associations of signals coming from far away, and transforming space it gave me led to the title Redshift, a term that describes a phenomenon discovered in the 1920's: the light of far distant galaxies is shifted to the red spectrum, and the farther away they are, the stronger the redshift is. This discovery can only be explained by a Doppler Effect implying that these galaxies are moving away from us, and that the universe is expanding. These associations are, of course, purely sub-jective - you do not have to imagine swarms of neutrinos, or radio signals from a quasar to enjoy the piece.
BERNHARD GÜNTER / STEVE RODEN japan TOC015 [2001, trente oiseaux, germany]
Originally projected to be sold exclusively at our concerts during our tour in Japan in November 2001 this split CD of Steve Roden and me will be released on TRENTE OISEAUX, along with Steve's upcoming CD for our label, because we found ourselves to fond of the pieces it contains to limit it to this use. While the three pieces differ very much in style (mine being made of noises exclusively, while the two by Steve are using concrete sounds), they work together very well.bernhard günter, march 2001
BERNHARD GÜNTER monochrome white/polychrome w/neon nails LINE005 [2001, line, usa]
Bernhard's first ever two CD set presents the first two in a triptychon of pieces all derived from the same basic material. The complete liner notes containing a detailed description of each work, and the history of their creation is found on bernhard's web site www.bernhardguenter.net
- available in limited quantities, and outside of the USA, and UK only (The first edition having sold out after a mere four weeks, this is the second edition coming in a slightly less luxurious package).
BERNHARD GÜNTER crossing the river (night music) TOC014 [2000, trente oiseaux, germany]
Crossing the River is calm, peaceful, and beautiful, guaranteed to slow you down after a busy urban day (but unlike chemical products designed to this effect, it leaves your mind clear and aware). The effect it had on me was that i bagged my elaborate liner notes about 'crossing the river' as a Buddhist metaphor for reaching enlightenment, and replaced them by this:
'Ceci est la couleur de mes rèves'
[title of a painting by] Juan Miró
('This is the color of my dreams')
For TOC014, Crossing the River will be paired with Haiku for Mu, composed for the 'lower case sound' compilation last year, now re-mastered, and embedded in silence. Being of a nightly mood, too, it combines perfectly with Crossing the River.
bernhard günter, january 2001
BERNHARD GüNTER then, silence TOC011 [2001, trente oiseaux, germany]
Then, Silence is dedicated to Morton Feldman and Luigi Nono. The experience of listening to their music has changed my understanding, my way of hearing, my thinking about, and my creating music so much that my own work would simply be unthinkable without it. Dedicating Then, Silence to them is my modest Thank You to Morton Feldman and Luigi Nono, expressing not only my admiration, but also the sadness their untimely parting causes me.bernhard günter, august 2000
BERNHARD GÜNTER time, dreaming itself TOC003 [2000, trente oiseaux, germany]
This work's main aspects are, as its title suggests, Time, and the notion of Slowness. Of complex harmonic design similar to "brown, blue, brown on blue (for Mark Rothko)" the composition uses both instrumental images and elements of a more soundscape type character, plus a non-tempered scale as the basis for the various transpositions of the sounds. Other than that, i think it speaks for itself...bernhard günter, may 2000
BERNHARD GÜNTER brown, blue, brown on blue (for mark rothko) TOC001 [2000, trente oiseaux, germany]
I finished "Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue (for Mark Rothko)" in mid-july 1999, and it picks up where "Slow Gestures / Cérémonie Désir (for Heike)" left off (actually, the two pieces can be listened to as one large work in two parts...).It is dedicated to my favorite painter, Mark Rothko, and the title is taken from one of his paintings that has accompanied me for a long time as print hanging beside my bed. I finally got a chance to see this painting in an exhibition of Rothko's works at the Musée de l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1999 and was more deeply touched by it than i can express in words.
These strong feelings have found their way into the composition i began working on immediately after my visit at the museum - it is not intended to describe the painting itself, but rather the emotions it inspired. The itinerary the work takes is, in some respect, a reversed mirror image of the development of Rothko's painting during his life: where Rothko began his characteristic style with bright colors and ended in dark grays and blacks, i am starting with dark colors implying his tragic death to end in a kind of celebration of his greatness being recognized by so many people now, and the heritage of wonderful works he has left us.
bernhard günter, October 1999
BERNHARD GÜNTER slow gestures / cérémonie désir (for heike) TOC993 [1999, trente oiseaux, germany]
It is very difficult for me to speak of this work, since it is getting very close to my goal of creating a kind of language free space. I thus prefer to let it go without further comment other than that I dedicate it to my companion Heike - each gesture is both speaking of her, and speaking to her, without words.
BERNHARD GÜNTER buddha with the sun face/buddha with the moon face DNCD005 [1999, digital narcis, japan]
This piece, created by bernhard günter in 1998, is based on material from a performance of the American artist Jeph Jerman, a.k.a. "hands to". It is a work that is subtle and concise, concrete and abstract at the same time like a Japanese Haiku, silence and sound in balance. Fittingly, it has been released by the Japanese label Digital Narcis in Osaka, run by our friend Koji Marutani.BERNHARD GÜNTER univers/temporel/espoirs TOC991 [1999, trente oiseaux, germany]
For this CD, bernhard has remixed his 1997 piece "un lieu pareil à un point effacé, 1ere partie", which had been released on a CD that accompanied the American HALANA magazine, and reworked "un lieu pareil à un point effacé, 2eme partie", never released before. He has also made a new version of his piece "the ant moves / the black and yellow carcass / a little closer", a piece mainly based on sounds from New York based artist John Hudak, who also wrote the title Haiku. This new version has been selected to receive one of the twelve "honorary mentions" of the 1999 PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA. The fourth piece is titled "vertige hasard", created in january 1999.BERNHARD GÜNTER impossible grey MKCD 023 [1997, metamkine, france]
JOHN DUNCAN / BERNHARD GÜNTER home, unspeakable TOC964 [1996, trente oiseaux, germany]
This long awaited and highly acclaimed collaboration features one single piece inspired by Samuel Beckett's libretto for Morton Feldman's chamber opera "neither". The combination of the distinctive styles of the two artists has resulted in music that you have never heard quite like this before..."Best record of 1996!" Jim O'Rourke in THE WIRE.
(Note: The remaining copies of TOC064 are coming in the new TRENTE OISEAUX Maxi CD box packaging with a new cover. It will not be reprinted.)
BERNHARD GÜNTER untitled 2/96 code [1996, blast first, uk]
On "Scumtron", Merzbow remix compilation CD.
BERNHARD GÜNTER untitled 1/96 011 [1996, dorobo, australia]
On "Night Passage demixed" compilation.
BERNHARD GÜNTER / JOHN HUDAK the ant moves/the black and yellow carcass/a little closer ASH 2.6CD² [1996, ash international, uk]
with John Hudak, 1996, on
"A fault in the nothing", 2CD compilation by Ash International, uk
BERNHARD GÜNTER itinéraire SCD016 [1995, selektion, germany]
with frans de waard, asmus tietchens, achim wollscheid and giancarlo toniutti
BERNHARD GÜNTER details agrandis code [1994, selektion, germany]
Re-released 1999, table of the elements, usa [new cover]BERNHARD GÜNTER un peu de neige salie TotE31 [1993, selektion, germany]
remastered re-release 1996, table of the elements, usa [new cover]