This latest project by the Hamburg-based musician, composer, and futurist, Felix Kubin, (his second release on Dekorder) is a collaboration with the contemporary music chamber group, ensemble Intégrales, and the reknowned German underground pop producer and sound engineer, Tobias Levin.
Echohaus was recorded in and around Levin's Electric Avenue studio in the basement of WESTWERK, a former squat and cultural centre for non-commercial art and music in Hamburg. A special recording technique was developed for the project whereby the musicians played simultaneously in separate rooms, connected to one and other only by headphones. This was done in order to achieve a lively,“cinematic" sound that made use of the particular dynamics of the rooms and amplified mechanical details. The rooms, each of which had a different acoustic character, were used as natural echo chambers. Kubin and the composer Burkhard Friedrich, former member of ensemble Intégrales, provided the musicians with simple graphic scores or basic descriptions of the compositions; all subsequent material was developed on the fly. Kubin was in the mixing room giving instructions and suggestions, while the musicians played and improvised, adding their own ideas to the project.
No artificial reverb or effects were added to the recordings. The different types of rooms and microphones, noises inside and outside of the studio, as well as the unusual interrelationship between the physically isolated players became part of the process. All the tracks were recorded in one take without any additional layers or track-by-track recordings. After a five-day recording session Kubin and Levin created various mixes which Kubin then edited over a period of several months.
The final results mark yet another radical departure from Kubin's trademark Sci-Fi Pop sound, blending the aesthetics of academic contemporary music, film soundtracks and improvised music with a strong focus on room-specific natural acoustics.
Felix Kubin has released highly acclaimed albums on A-Musik, Dekorder and his own Gagarin label. He has recently been featured on the front cover of The Wire magazine, released his first short movie collection, directed several radio plays and is currently finishing the production on his forthcoming Sci-Fi Pop album.
Burkhard Friedrich (born 1962 in Berlin) is a composer of several musictheatres, film music and chamber music, performed by ensemble Intégrales (D), Phoenix Ensemble (CH), The Austrian Ensemble (A) and others, saxophonplayer and improvising musician. He is regularly collaborating with Video-artists and theatrical directors. For further information please go to: www.burkhard-friedrich.com
Ensemble Intégrales was founded by Burkhard Friedrich and Barbara Lüneburg. Their repertoire includes classics by Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Alfred Schnittke, Giacinto Scelsi, Steve Reich, Alvin Lucier, György Ligeti, Frederic Rzewski, James Tenney, Morton Feldman, Cornelius Cardew, Mauricio Kagel and new music from China, Austria and the UK.
Tobias Levin is a german producer and engineer. The bands and musicians he has worked with range from pop to avantgarde, including Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Charles Curtis, To Rococo Rot, Tied & Tickled Trio, Christian Naujoks, Christoph Kurzmann & John Butcher, Augsburger Tafelconfect & Lol Coxhill or Kreidler. He is also a founding member of legendary avant pop group Cpt. Kirk &.
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