Birgit Ulher: trumpet, radio, mutes, speaker
Lucio Capece: bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, preparations, mini-megaphone
1. physical 9:13
2. chance 28:09
3. orbital 4:51
audio excerpt
Another Timbre
On this album Lucio Capece plays bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, as well as various prepared things, and Birgit Ulher can be heard on trumpet and radio. Among many musicians Capece has collaborated with Radu Malfatti, and this may give you a hint of the approach no firm conventions. The shimmer of the minutest sound is examined.
More and more Ulher proves to be one of the most remarkable trumpeters in the new generation of reevaluating instrumentalists, and when the two play together remarkable things happen. It is a music that comes in dense structures. For start, it can be heard clearly who is who. Actually, it can be heard all the way, but not in the way we are used to.
Inspired by each other the playing becomes a kind of echo-game. A call is matched by a truncated response. Where are you? - are you ... Affinities of sounds arises, captured and processed by the qualities and possibilities of their instruments.
The result is a slow and snaking stream of sound that also is remarkably rhythmic. Yet, how does this shimmer? It is streaming as a flow of light, where mirror images are complementing the reflections. The result is undeniably irresistible. It is an impressionistic art of sound without impressionism, where the only thing that is left is the light. The music of this duo is so dense that it reminds of the tension in the air that arouses by unexpected pauses. It sounds incredibly fresh and clear.
Thomas Millroth (translated by Johan Redin), www.soundofmusic.nu
Closer is a fine illustration of its creators’ individually stated concerns. Birgit Ulher is an improviser committed (according to a statement on her web page) to the development of a “grammar of sounds beyond the open trumpet”. Based in Hamburg, she also organises the cities’ Real Time Music Meeting festival for improvised music. Lucio Capeche (on his blog) describes his art as “no narrative music (no start-no ending-no developments)…sound in its most granular characteristics and its extremes”. Across the duration of its long central live recording and two flanking studio takes, the “Choices” album is an even-handed work of close interplay between these two perfectly matched instrumentalists. They sometimes do little more than exploit the raw sonic potential of their reeds and brass. At other times the effects they produce are much more refined, noises shaped to sound out in playful rumination or pure abstract beauty. In either mode, the duo extract from their instruments all the various tonalities of a larger ensemble, exploiting percussive potentialities to remarkable effect and drawing upon a range of breath sounds from plosive and guttural to ethereal. They coax from their ostensibly limited instrumentation a more astonishing range of effects than many talented musicians can manage with sophisticated sound processing equipment.
Tim Owen, www.thejazzmann.com
Four discs of improvised music, twice a duo and twice a trio. (...) Two instruments more closely together is the bass clarinet, soprano saxophone and preparations of Lucio Capece and the trumpet, radio and speaker of Birgit Ulher. Three pieces, two captured in Capece's studio and one in concert, all in 2010. These two players use extensively their instruments as objects. Its not always easy to believe that these sounds are produced by these instruments, but its in the capable hands of Capece and Ulher that it works well. An excellent combination of improvised music and electro-acoustic sounds. Minimal, but never soft, or rather, much more noise based than I thought it would, anticipating their reputation. Much of that is duo to the use of feedback/sine wave like sounds which are a main feature on this release. A highly vibrant release, bursting with energy. Of these four new releases (Spiral inputs by Sophie Agnel, Bertrand Gauguet & Andrea Neumann / Horsky Park by Tiziana Bertoncini & Thomas Lehn / Grape Skin by Michel Doneda, Jonas Kocher & Christoph Schiller / Choices by Birgit Ulher & Lucio Capece) on Another Timbre its the two duo releases that have the greatest impact.
Frans de Waard, vitalweekly, 781
Electronic impulses in microtonal settings characterize the improvisations advanced by Hamburg-based trumpeter Birgit Ulher in a duo with Argentina-born reedist Lucio Capece on Choices (Another Timbre at41 www.anothertimbre.com <http://www.anothertimbre.com> ). Reducing her horn’s output to muted shakes, buzzes and vibrations amplified by a radio set up, Ulher proves that cunning can be substituted for stamina to produce notable improvisations. With the timbres of Capece’s bass clarinet or soprano saxophone filtered by preparations as air is harshly forced through the body tube, Ulher’s capillary pressures and metallic reverberations produce sympathetic polyphony. Chance is the most extended example, with both sound sources juddering and undulating as they combine for both chalumeau growls and strident squeals. With sonic suggestions of a hamster running on a wheel or of wisps of wind wafting upwards, the results are collective not individual. Although distinct strategies such as Ulher's use of a metal plate as a mute to create maximum vibrations, or Capece’s reed bites and tongue stopping elongating tones without resorting to electronics appear, fascination results from tracing the evolution of this disassociated and dissonant sound picture not the ending. Yet the bubbling, shaking, straining and squeaking eventually produce tones that are satisfyingly cumulative and cooperative.
Ken Waxman, www.thewholenote.com
Hamburgbaserade Birgit Ulher tillhör de musiker som under senare år har slagit sönder de traditionella instrumentens klangliga konventioner. Inte för att söka efter dramatiska effekter utan för att hitta nya ljudliga former att arbeta med. I en intervju i den brittiska tidningen The Wire säger Ulher exempelvis att trumpetens möjligheter inom mer expressiva musikaliska former som frijazz, i vilka hon också verkat, är begränsade. Detta eftersom förändrade och utvecklade tekniker på just trumpeten jobbar alldeles för lågmält och tyst för att kunna hävda sig. Kanske är detta ett av svaren till varför just detta instrument är så väl representerat inom den så kallade lågdynamiska improvisationsmusiken med utövare som Axel Dörner, Sabine Ercklentz, Franz Hautzinger, Greg Kelley som några trumpetande exempel. Förutom Birgit Ulher då.
Senast ut i Ulhers omfattande skivkatalog är en duoskiva (inspelad 2010) med den argentinske saxofonisten/klarinettisten Lucio Capece, nu boende i Berlin. Ulher på trumpet, radio, sordiner och högtalare och Capece på basklarinett, sopransaxofon, preparationer och minimegafon. Mellan dem finns ett starkt släktskap i uttrycket. Ledord är mikrotonalitet, cirkulär andning, klangliga streck, koncentration och annorlunda tekniker att frambringa ljud. Vanligtvis inom musik finns en rörelse som leder den framåt som melodier, rytmik, dynamik eller andra dramaturgiska grepp samt angivna starter och avslut. Fascinerande nog saknas mycket av detta i Ulhers och Capeces märkvärdiga musik. Själva essensen är istället ljuden i sig, och naturligtvis hur de förhåller sig till varandra.
Det tycks mig som att varken Ulher eller Capece fullständigt vill främmandegöra instrumentens konventionella klanger. Även om det inte alltid är så, är det ofta man tydligt hör att det är just trumpet det handlar om, eller basklarinett eller sopransax. Luftens vägar genom instrumenten färgar av sig. Klangliga streck ritas upp försvinner nya linjer dras. Ibland, men förhållandevis sällan, närmar sig klangerna de elektroniskt ljudande. Det är mycket flyktigt. Med detta sagt är det märkligt hur stor dragningskraft musiken ändå har. En av förklaringarna till detta är hur bra Ulher och Capece passar ihop, deras långa klanger löper parallellt, tvinnas samman och rör sig inom samma områden. Båda har dessutom ett rikt och spännande uttryck i deras respektive instrument.
Magnus Nygren, Nutida Musik (No 2, 2011)