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BEHRENS, MARC - Architectural Commentaries 4 & 5

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Entr'acte E45 Release Year: 2007 Note: lim. 300 in special sealed silver bag Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 More Info “An Architectural Commentary is a form of ‘reviewing’ architecture in which functional, symbolic and aesthetic aspects of a building or a bigger architectural structure are analysed. Inspiration for this cycle of compositions is drawn from architectural criticism, structures, buildings, involuntary cityscapes ‘architecture without architects’)and technological noise within buildings. One special recording session took place at Resonance FM, the London-based radio station, in June 2004. Patrick McGinley of Resonance FM and I recorded the studio equipment itself, the drive noises, ventilation, vibrations in the machines, the studio’s air conditioning, doors… This particular array of sound forms the sole and exclusive basic material for Architectural Commentary 5: Some Models for Resonant Behaviour and links the cycle to earlier music pieces I constructed with sounds from computer labs. This part was commissioned by Resonance FM. In Architectural Commentaries I composed some structures (mainly in parts 4 and 5) loosely based on Luigi Nono’s idea of ‘isole musicali’. This means that encyclopaedic variations of themes are generated and often highlighted by silent breaks, like islands, between the individual parts, all different in form and size, but topologically similar.” Frankfurt-based Behrens is presently best described as a ‘sound artist’, working across performance, installation and audio-visual recorded media. He also creates photographic works, designs record sleeves, and has even produced a bottle of white wine... First edition of 300 copies." [label notes] "There are sounds like stone on stone, for example, large stones. To the extent they offer images of cityscapes, they do so in a de Chirico sense, one of empty concrete canyons and long shadows. There’s a brief bustle or two, a sudden flurry of traffic, but then it’s back to the urban desolation. A short track separates the two main pieces; though it’s entirely of a piece with them, its concision serves to orient the listener with regard to the others. The first half of Commentary 5 is even emptier than its predecessor, a place of drips, vague, distant echoes of machinery, the occasional low thrum of some subterranean engine. Midway through, an eerie, silvery drone emerges accompanied by quasi-musical pings, backwards tape swatches and gurgles. It’s kind of like coming upon a barely functioning outpost in the ruins. It dissipates after a few minutes, bringing us back into the ozone-tinged vacuum. Behrens has created some evocative work, very effective and accomplished of its kind." [Brian Olewnick / Bagatellen] www.entracte.co.uk