Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer): Slotmachine
Gruenrekorder

Merzouga: De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
Gruenrekorder

Two wildly contrasting releases accentuate the huge range of Gruenrekorder's discography. On the one hand we have a single-track, thirty-eight-minute sound composition by Merzouga that merges philosophical musings by the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Caro (c. 99-55 BCE) with field recordings and instrumental sound treatments, on the other a wacky ten-inch by Kuhzunft (Dortmund-based dadaist Achim Zepezauer) featuring thirty forty-five-second tracks and based on the concept of an interactive slot machine.

Available in digital and CD (500 copies) formats, De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements is a recent creation by sound artists Eva Pöpplein and Janko Hanushevsky, who've operated as a duo since 2002. While their material slots itself comfortably enough within the electro-acoustic soundscaping genre, they bring an unusual slant to it in blending field recordings with Pöpplein's electronics and Hanushevsky's prepared electric bass. Certainly this recent single-movement soundscape, originally created as a commissioned radio piece inspired by Lucretius's poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), is as unusual. The text shows him to be a kindred spirit to Presocratics Leucippus and Democtrius, atomists who contend that while forms themselves have a finite lifespan, the tiny elements from which they're created are eternal; according to atomism, those micro-units collide to produce forms but then come apart and reassemble into others. Woven into the sound design are passages spoken in English and Latin by Stefko Hanushevsky taken from six Lucretius books.

Much as those micro-elements were said to assemble, de-assemble, and re-assemble, the sound particles in Merzouga's piece do the same as the material advances in an uninterrupted process of becoming and dissolving. Listening to it proves immersive when the music's lulling drift induces a trance-like response and Stefko's hushed delivery strengthens the soothing effect. As quiet as the sound design sometimes is, there are also dynamic passages suggestive of chaos and turbulence, the duo here translating into sound the violent stages of separation and collision associated with the generation of physical entities. Field recordings of water and wind are integrated into the design, in keeping with books by Lucretius titled “Water,” “Stone and Dust,” and “Waves and Wind,” and scurrying noises appear, again perhaps an allusion to physical activity occurring at the micro-level. At certain moments, Janko's bass asserts itself, reminding us of his presence, but the production design is largely dominated by electronic effects ranging from shimmering to cataclysmic and field recordings rich in nature and creature (birds, dogs, roosters, people) details. The alternation between spoken and instrumental episodes makes for engrossing listening (especially when unexpected bits such as strings and bell percussion surface), as does the change between Latin and English texts. Complementing this fascinating travelogue, the release's visual presentation is as unusual as the sound design, its artwork ink scribblings generated by tree-hanging pens and brushes that with the aid of wind made marks on paper.

Though Kuhzunft's Slotmachine release has been issued in digital and ten-inch vinyl formats (500 copies), the project's interactive concept is best served by its web-based presentation. In that format, the user's able to combine pre-produced recordings displayed in three slots, just as fruits and other elements are on a standard casino machine. Whereas the vinyl release features thirty miniatures involving contributions from thirteen artists, the online version obviously has the potential to offer many more variations. On the ten-inch, Zepezauer, credited with electronics, acoustics, and drumcomputer, is joined by a long list of provocateurs, among them Jaap Blonk (voice), John Chantler (modular synth), Rhodri Davies (harp), Gaile Griciute (prepared piano), Jérôme Noetinger (tape machine), Michael Vatcher (drums), and Simon Whetham (field recordings).

April 2019