Cristian Vogel - Eselsbrücke

[Amen Lare]

 

Pretty weird record from Cristian Vogel on famous 'avant-garde' label Sub Rosa, which previously released his choregraphic score work.

 

http://www.subrosa.net/en/catalogue/new-series-framework/new-series-framework-17--cristian-vogel.html

 

Full listen on bandcamp:

 

http://cristianvogel.bandcamp.com/album/eselsbr-cke

[Franciscus]

[perunamuusi]

big fan of vogel and sub rosa..... sounds like a good idea

[th555]

Bookmarked - never heard of any of these things, except the Robert Davies album.

[Redruth]

i'more excited with cristian vogel's bang-boom sounds. this is noisy and has not caught my ear straight away, but i've not really listen much so.. i'll withhold my opinion. the packaging is pretty

[kichiguy]

crystalline production as always

[Amen Lare]

http://www.hz-journal.org/n18/vogel.html

 

An essay by Vogel on the creative and technical process behind this album

 

In modern music, especially recorded music, the responsibilities of interest and attention often get reduced to the narrow scope of pleasure-seeking, 'like' or 'don't like'. Because of this tendency, the existential angst of responsibility gets repeatedly zapped over time. For the listener this can lead to impatience and boredom, triggered by a narrow expectation of musical value. For the composer, such suppression of reasoning can lead to severe frustration, an apparent lack of any deeper significance informing the myriad of choices that have to be made to work in music. If the composer does not begin to realise that there may be more to taking decisions than just habit or 'likes', work will become increasingly more difficult as the options for measuring success taper out. Output could eventually stop. It is not easy to break habits, indeed it is not a good situation for practice, when doubts build around the minutiae of method, especially in an art form where the recombinance of output with its ecology, plays a vital role. Improvisation, indeterminacy, algorithms, repetition and drinking are all methods composers have experimented with for regulating the build-up of pressure coming from the responsibilities inherent in compositional choices, whilst continuing to produce output. For my 15th album "Eselsbrücke", I was drawn away from the pub and towards number theory, in search of new means with which to handle some of the decision procedures involved in the composition.

 

 

[BobDobalina]

^ interesting stuff, a lot of truth in that pull quote. Can anyone recommend a vogel album (or albums) as an entry point into his music? I vaguely recall trying several years ago (don't remember with what) but it didn't click at the time.

[Amen Lare]

^ interesting stuff, a lot of truth in that pull quote. Can anyone recommend a vogel album (or albums) as an entry point into his music? I vaguely recall trying several years ago (don't remember with what) but it didn't click at the time.

 

It's difficult to recommend specific album as Vogel was once at the forefront of 'no future' techno, which wasn't by itself a timeless thing. I would strongly recommend The Never Engine LP, if you're into repetitive music, and if you're not so - i guess Station 55, which i don't like much. After The Never Engine you could go chronologically from 1994's Beginning To Understand without skips. There is nothing quiet like this stuff.

[kichiguy]

^Second that Never Engine recommendation. I thought last years LP was dope too.

[Gretsky 3D]

http://www.hz-journal.org/n18/vogel.html

 

An essay by Vogel on the creative and technical process behind this album

 

In modern music, especially recorded music, the responsibilities of interest and attention often get reduced to the narrow scope of pleasure-seeking, 'like' or 'don't like'. Because of this tendency, the existential angst of responsibility gets repeatedly zapped over time. For the listener this can lead to impatience and boredom, triggered by a narrow expectation of musical value. For the composer, such suppression of reasoning can lead to severe frustration, an apparent lack of any deeper significance informing the myriad of choices that have to be made to work in music. If the composer does not begin to realise that there may be more to taking decisions than just habit or 'likes', work will become increasingly more difficult as the options for measuring success taper out. Output could eventually stop. It is not easy to break habits, indeed it is not a good situation for practice, when doubts build around the minutiae of method, especially in an art form where the recombinance of output with its ecology, plays a vital role. Improvisation, indeterminacy, algorithms, repetition and drinking are all methods composers have experimented with for regulating the build-up of pressure coming from the responsibilities inherent in compositional choices, whilst continuing to produce output. For my 15th album "Eselsbrücke", I was drawn away from the pub and towards number theory, in search of new means with which to handle some of the decision procedures involved in the composition.

 

 

 

 

Preaching to the choir. A listener who doesn't take the effort to seek out the different dimensions of music that gives the impression of being boring, isn't going to change his mind just by reading an fucking essay. I usually prefer it when musicians express themselves through their music and don't bother with intellectual mumbo jumbo about how frustrating it is that many people like to have a certain level of entertainment to be drawn into a work of art.

 

Is it really putting that much pressure on a musician to know that some people are not THAT interested in the mathematical processes behind their noises?

 

I appreciate many of the releases by respectively sub rosa and vogel, but they sure do take themselves a bit too seriously, it seems.

[Amen Lare]

 

http://www.hz-journal.org/n18/vogel.html

 

An essay by Vogel on the creative and technical process behind this album

 

In modern music, especially recorded music, the responsibilities of interest and attention often get reduced to the narrow scope of pleasure-seeking, 'like' or 'don't like'. Because of this tendency, the existential angst of responsibility gets repeatedly zapped over time. For the listener this can lead to impatience and boredom, triggered by a narrow expectation of musical value. For the composer, such suppression of reasoning can lead to severe frustration, an apparent lack of any deeper significance informing the myriad of choices that have to be made to work in music. If the composer does not begin to realise that there may be more to taking decisions than just habit or 'likes', work will become increasingly more difficult as the options for measuring success taper out. Output could eventually stop. It is not easy to break habits, indeed it is not a good situation for practice, when doubts build around the minutiae of method, especially in an art form where the recombinance of output with its ecology, plays a vital role. Improvisation, indeterminacy, algorithms, repetition and drinking are all methods composers have experimented with for regulating the build-up of pressure coming from the responsibilities inherent in compositional choices, whilst continuing to produce output. For my 15th album "Eselsbrücke", I was drawn away from the pub and towards number theory, in search of new means with which to handle some of the decision procedures involved in the composition.

 

 

 

 

Preaching to the choir. A listener who doesn't take the effort to seek out the different dimensions of music that gives the impression of being boring, isn't going to change his mind just by reading an fucking essay. I usually prefer it when musicians express themselves through their music and don't bother with intellectual mumbo jumbo about how frustrating it is that many people like to have a certain level of entertainment to be drawn into a work of art.

 

Is it really putting that much pressure on a musician to know that some people are not THAT interested in the mathematical processes behind their noises?

 

I appreciate many of the releases by respectively sub rosa and vogel, but they sure do take themselves a bit too seriously, it seems.

 

 

Vogel released 14 albums prior to this one and to my knowledge none of them was complemented with an essay. He had something to write down and he did it. Did he wrote that somebody should change their mind? Or you can't live with the concept of academic writing? I'm sorry to say, but without academic writing there would be no electronic music in its current form, if you look into pioneers' work. That's a helpful way of communication in such cases.

 

Musicians can express themselves in various ways. Vogel himself releases techno for 20 years, which is the form of ultimate entertainment in clubs. I find it dull that you're dissing Vogel for doing marginal work here. Like there aren't enough people, who don't take themselves too seriously. Why should he? I would argue it isn't a bad thing for an artist to take his work, not himself, seriously.

[neurp]

I see a lot of humor in what he wrote, I would not say he takes himself too serious.

[Gretsky 3D]

 

 

Like there aren't enough people, who don't take themselves too seriously.

 

 

 

There are too many who do.

 

The music speaks for itself; you don't need an essay to hear the link with the electronic pioneers, or to understand that the scientific approach behind it and the sonic complexity that flows from that approach is more important here than cheap dancability or melodic recognizability or stuff like that.

 

The need to justify why he made this album in this way (I say "why", not "how". The "how" part of the essay is pretty interesting actually (though still not essential for the listening experience)) just makes the entire package seem more pretentious than it probably is.

[Amen Lare]

 

Like there aren't enough people, who don't take themselves too seriously.

 

 

 

There are too many who do.

 

The music speaks for itself; you don't need an essay to hear the link with the electronic pioneers, or to understand that the scientific approach behind it and the sonic complexity that flows from that approach is more important here than cheap dancability or melodic recognizability or stuff like that.

 

The need to justify why he made this album in this way (I say "why", not "how". The "how" part of the essay is pretty interesting actually (though still not essential for the listening experience)) just makes the entire package seem more pretentious than it probably is.

 

If you're talking only about quoted passage of an essay, i can relate to you. There is some bullshit ideology, but i personally have no troubles with that, at least he said what he thinks loud. It's just introductory talk, it's almost always awkward.

 

Regarding the need for essay, well, it's specialist to specialist network, not audience-oriented. Edition of 50, after all.

[awepittance]

I dig the music that comes off Sub Rosa, but I can't shake the fact that some of things they do seem unethical to me. For example, the compilations of anthologies they put out often times are bootleged songs that they didn't get permission to use. It states this in the linear notes itself, they aren't hiding it but they charge a pretty ridiculous amount of money for those compilation cds, ive seen them retailing for $30 new in record stores. Also they put out a weird cd in the early 90s that literally had instructions on it to 'file under Coil' int he record store but yet it was also released without Coil's permission. I never quite understood what was on the CD, but anytime i'd go to Tower Records or a mainstream record store in the 90s, they would usually only carry one Coil cd it was that one. and finally i was pretty bummed out when they put out a record by an artist I'm friends with, i wanted to grab 20 copies of it, paid them in full. And apparently the package got bounced back because the address was wrong, and it was return to sender. They offered to send it back but only if i paid what seemed like a highly exorbitant shipping fee. I refused to pay anymore because their wholesale prices and original shipping price seemed pretty marked up in the first place. I felt pretty burned after that, never got any of the cds i paid for. Just thought i'd put that out there, doesn't mean the music they release isn't any good, quite the contrary. They put out more interesting stuff than 99% of experimental music labels out there

[KGW]

Cool story...

[Guest Hanratty]

I remember he had some nord modular patches being shared at one point, when I had one. They were really good, and I became a fan at that point. He's a real technician I think.