Michael Renkel / Burkhard Beins
photo by Ingo Scheffler
Activity Center
Michael Renkel : guitar /Burkhard Beins : percussion
möwen und moos
(2:13 music # 008/009 / 1999 ) hand made cover painted by Fehmi Baumbach (the CD is sold out)
This is a double CD of acoustic improv music (...) which was remixed and remade by Renkel as per below release ... both players number themselvesas part of the New Berlin Reductionism scene, and both are informed by the same spirit of adventure as all the CDs described here.Adventure- once , that used to be what improv was all about. I have heard so much contemporary improvisation where the players act as though allthe important music has already been made, and that all they need to do is make a minor improvement on it , or ( even worse ) make a musicial comment on it;how often do you hear a saxophone player happy to bask in the gigantic shadow cast by Evan Parker ? Or a guitarist who knows that his every moveis being mentally compared to the complete works of Derek Bailey ?
I'm not here to tell you that Beins and Renkel have rediscovered the key to the Garden of Eden and have entered a prelapsarian state of purity, but on this superb double set they do behave and perform with a wondrous innocence, playing as though they're discovering a language for the first time.
Exquisite music pours forth in unstoppable torrents, produced from a gentle caressing of instruments, musicians loving the small sounds, and expressing a real amazement at the simplest things - a guitar string can resonate ! A bowed cymbal vibrates ! Small rattling creaky and scraping sounds build together slowly, progressivly building up simple melodies and rhythms, rhythms like clockwork toys dancing across a parquet floor in a clunky movement.
This music adds new meaning and new vitality to the "genre" of guitar and percussion improv - in fact it ignores the genre altogether and creates something better. Other improv players dream, in their politically correct and polite way, of leaving enough space for their fellow collaborators to perform... Activity Center go one stage further, and create that space - defining huge areas of interactive possibility between the notes.
This method - and this music - guarantees your listening delight - you sit and wait in fascination.
What will come next ?
The Sound Projector Ed Pinsent
Smembrato e per nulla accomodante, l'improvvisazione di 'Mowen & Moos' poco cede all'ascolto distensivo e più si associa ad un approccio cerebrale. Un'unica lunga traccia evanescente, sfuggente: si corre il rischio di perdere il senso dell'orientamento anche nei momenti meno indirizzati verso la forma libera e perciò maggiormente 'ragionati'. Nastri che si riavvolgono e chitarre scordate che, a confronto con i remix (pur minimali) proposti da Michael Renkel (metà degli Activity Center assieme a Burkhard Beins), appaiono quasi costretti nel loro precipuo contenuto. Quest'ultimo apre il disco ad intermittenze elettroniche di varia natura facendoci imbattere in un enorme elaboratore anni '60 in piena attività di calcolo che invia onde sonore ad un ritmo bislacco e mentalmente spossante. Un continuo stimolo alla (re)interpretazione nel tentativo di (ri)comporre e (ri)assemblare gli elementi. Meno incisivo quando si limita alla semplice aggiunta di suoni e ritmi, l'album di remix spesso fornisce nuovi angoli di visione di Activity Center ed al loro lento e sprezzante incedere, dove perfino il rifluire delle onde 'entra' nella composizione e ne costituisce parte integrante.
Michele Casella ( neural )