Kammerflimmer Kollektief

// Date: 20 April 2012
// Venue: HAU 1, Stresemannstr 29, 10963 Berlin
// Time: 19:00
// Tickets: 22 EUR / 15.80 EUR reduced, available via the HAU box office/Reservix

Program:
KAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEF
NIOBE

DAVID GRUBBS WITH ANDREA BELFI AND STEFANO PILIA


Kammerflimmer Kollektief is a German musical group, founded by Thomas Weber and consisting of Heike Aumüller, Johannes Frisch, Christopher Brunner, Heike Wendelin, and D. Wurm. They play a mixture of jazz, noise, electronic music, free jazz and experimental music. Formed in 1997, they have released to date 8 albums, and have appeared on many jazz and electronic compilation albums.
› kammerflimmer.com


Niobe is the brainchild of Frankfurt-born, Cologne resident Yvonne Cornelius, Her debut, Radioersatz (Tomlab, 2001), was a mysterious and surreal journey full of peculiar sounds, colourful arrangements and unusual vocals, and was followed by five other albums, including the most recent The Cclose Calll (Tomlab, 2011).

Niobe’s vocal style is built around “tongue sounds”; her voice wavers and quivers, contributing to an atmosphere of uneasy enchantment present throughout these songs. Her vocals are often filtered, sounding as if they were recorded using cheap microphones. Meant to act more as textures than as signs, her lyrics cryptic lyrics often defy easy interpretation.

The artist’s instrumental arrangements, which open up in broad sweeps, are also inventive and unpredictable. Surprising sounds interrupt the flow of some unusual rhythms, synthesized, live or sampled instrumentation. From the rhythm of some very jolly bass bubbles in the first track to a mellow acoustic guitar loop in the closing number, Niobe takes you on a strange and dreamlike voyage with her unique and inventive sound.
› soundcloud.com/tomlab/niobe-the-stillness


David Grubbs, composer, guitarist, pianist and vocalist, was a founding member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait. He has participated in the Red Krayola since 1993. With Jim O’Rourke, Grubbs co-directed Dexter’s Cigar, an acclaimed label that reissued out-of-print recordings by, among others, Arnold Dreyblatt, Henry Kaiser, and Merzbow. At present Grubbs directs the Blue Chopsticks record label, which has released both new and archival recordings by Luc Ferrari, Derek Bailey and Noël Akchoté, and Mats Gustafsson.

As a recording artist, Grubbs has released nine full-length solo albums and appeared on more than 100 commercially released recordings. In 2000, his album The Spectrum Between was named “Album of the Year” in the London Sunday Times. A multidisciplinary artist and prolific collaborator, Grubbs contributed music with Matmos for Thierry Jousse’s 2005 feature film Les Invisibles. He composed the soundtracks for Angela Bulloch’s installations “Z Point and Horizontal Technicolour”, his music appears in two installations by Doug Aitken, and he has also contributed music to the Red Krayola’s soundtrack to Norman and Bruce Yonemoto’s film Japan in Paris in LA as well as to the soundtrack of Braden King and Laura Moya’s film Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks its Back, and to John Boskovich’s film North.
› myspace.com/davidgrubbsbluechopsticks