#expreimental

Greece, 2022

Botanical Abstractions: Untitled Macro Study - mixed media - robert matejcek - 2021

Agent Smith: “You're empty." Neo: "So are you."

- Hugo Weaving & Keanu Reeves - The Matrix

Untitled Botanical Study (Baby’s Breath and Cosmos) - anthotype (turmeric) photogram (90 minute solar exposure) - 4″x6″watercolor paper - robert matejcek - 2020

George Costanza: "I, uh, got the first name."

Elaine Benes: "You found out Kramer's first name?"

Jerry Seinfeld: "I've been trying to get it out of him for ten years. What is it?"

George Costanza: "Cosmo."

Elaine Benes: "Cosmo?"

George Costanza: "Cosmo."

- Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, & Jerry Seinfeld - Seinfeld

It only looks like art. This is the last day of November. It was a big month. The world paused and people like me got depressed, then sad, then angry. The current cabinet choices look like stuff tossed in our kitchen junk drawer. But, this isn’t a political blog so I’ll stop right here. And, leave the country. Kidding. I did say that I might return to “Laskowitz Art.” So, I did. At least for…

Derek Piotr "Tempatempat" Monotype Records Premiere: 28.04.2014

Derek Piotr is a Poland-born sound artist based currently in New England whose work focuses mainly on the voice. Has been intern to Meredith Monk; collaborated with AGF and Richard Chartier; and had works featured on ResonanceFM. His second record, Airing, was nominated by the Jury for the Prix Ars Electronica Prize 2012. www.derekpiotr.com

Derek Piotr releases his fourth solo record, Tempatempat, which means both “forging place” (tempa tempat) and “fourth place” (tempat empat) in Indonesian. Tempatempat could be seen as Piotr’s “gamelan album”; after records focused on the sound of bells (Airing, 2012) and Eastern tonality (Raj, 2013), this focus was the next logical step. Unlike Raj, where straightforward rhythms aimed to express simple, primal energy, Tempatempat sees Piotr construct deeply layered and largely complex song-based tracks, the majority of which veer close to pop territory. Piotr sings in both English on the majority of tracks, an extreme departure from his primarily wordless back catalogue.

David Moss // Hannes Strobl “At the Beach – Music for Voice and Electric Bass” Monotype Records premiere: 28.04.2014 promomix avilable here

- We enjoy the interplay of our two musical positions tremendously. I really feel this has to do with a “story-telling” or an “intuition for the narrative” that we both have. And I mean it even in the most general, abstract sense - says David Moss. Together with Hannes Strobl, they’ve found rhythmic and even philosophic connection that made the duo work, as a natural extension of their earlier project, the band Denseland, created with Hanno Leichtmann.  - I was working on a collection of pieces for electric bass, where I wanted to explore some of the different musical and sonic possibilities of the instrument, that usually can't be heard very often - says Hannes Strobl.

- When Hannes told me he had developed a number of solo bass pieces and song-frameworks that might be interesting for my voice, we easily and fruitfully created this album - explains David.

“At the Beach – Music for Voice and Electric Bass” is a story told in music. It starts with the specific sound of the electric bass, an instrument played mostly in pop, rock or jazz, but rarely found in contemporary, experimental music.

- Most of the time the instrument is played in a very traditional way, where it has to fulfill its function within the arrangement. So the player is not only playing on the instrument but the instrument is also playing on him, the tradition of the instrument. David broke with that kind of tradition as a singer and found his own unique way to use his voice, so I felt a strong connection with him right away - says Hannes Strobl. Strobl created a special way of playing the electric bass and combines his two instruments – one of them an electric upright bass – with various electronic devices. Each piece on this album brings together particular advanced playing techniques and preparations with particular electronic setups.

Together, the pieces make the impression of being a single cohesive work with an intimate quality, sometimes moving forward with a steady drive, sometimes rotating around themselves. In some places, the music is very physical and microscopic, one can hear how the strings are scraped or how the vocal sounds start. In other places it keeps the secret of its genesis, playing with the possibilities of psychoacoustics.  David Moss brings the sounds, texts, stories, narratives and ‘mystery geschichten’ out of his mind in a stream of consciousness. He uses points within the rhythmic patterns to connect to or to jump from, to dive off to new words or new sounds. The connection that the words and sounds have to meaning switches on and off.

- When Hannes developed those bass based pieces and played them for me, I started singing immediately. The first take was always as if we were playing live together, so I did not listen to the piece before I jumped into his “worlds” with my voice - says David Moss. After those live acts, David sometimes did other takes of vocals, either completely different approaches, or trying to amplify the idea of the first take. At the end, the perfect version of the voice, the one which fit the mood, atmosphere and energy of composition exactly, was chosen.

David Moss

Considered one of the most innovative singers in contemporary music, David Moss has performed solo and theater works from New York (Lincoln Center) to Venice (Theatro La Fenice) to Brisbane (Festival). In 1991 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship; in 1992, a DAAD Fellowship (Berlin). Moss sang with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Composers Orchestra, and was twice a featured soloist at the Salzburg Festival. He is vocal soloist in orchestral works by Heiner Goebbels and Helmut Oehring. He is artistic director of the MADE Festival in Umeå, Sweden and the co-founder/artistic director of the Institute for Living Voice which has conducted master classes, workshops and seminars internationally since 2001. Moss performs with the electronic trio Denseland, and the audio performance group Technologies. www.davidmossmusic.com  

Hannes Strobl

An innovative bass player, composer and sound artist living in Berlin. An important starting point for his music is the sound-based potential on the electric bass. By combining advanced playing technics with live electronics, the purely instrumental-specific repertoire of expression is expanded. Hannes Strobl works in various audio and audiovisual fields, like electronica, soundscape composition, sound art installation and music for video works and performances. In the last years an important focus on the instrument and the compositional activity, are musical forms in connection with our urban sound environment. Along with Sam Auinger, he is a co-founder of the project tamtam. Together with Dietmar Offenhuber, Auinger and Strobl, he found the artist group Stadtmusik.