Schnee
Снег
12” Vinyl (140g) & Download
Cat. no. Mikroton 94
Release Date: Jan 5, 2021
A1. Frozen
A2. World
A3. Time
B. Live In Kaliningrad
Tracks A1, A3 and B recorded by Kurt Liedwart at soundcheck and during the concert on September 25, 2018 in Kaliningrad at Mikroton Mikroten. Track A2 recorded by Maxim Khaikin during the concert on September 28, 2018 in Dom at Mikroton Mikroten. Mastered by Mikhail Myasoedov. Lacquer cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Graphic design: SETKA design. Artwork: Julia Voronina.
“I love plainness in colour, monotony, snow is rather a monotonous tune. Why should colour not give an impression of singing? White is like a murmur, a whisper, a prayer." (Robert Walser). The first Schnee record appeared in 2000. 20 years later their fourth album, the first coming on vinyl (!), on Mikroton. In between these years, the laptop player, saxophonist and singer Christof Kurzmann and guitarist Burkhard Stangl went different ways, but met again and again in projects such as Schnee, together with the American spoken word recording artist Ursula Rucker or in the context of Bernhard Fleischmann's “The Year Of”. Guitarist Burkhard Stangl was a member of the electroacoustic supergroups Polwechsel and efzeg and collaborated among others with Christian Fennesz as well as with Taku Unami, Taku Sugimoto, Angélica Castelló or Mario de Vega. Besides his fantastic reinterpretations of several Robert Wyatt numbers, Christof Kurzmann is known as the founder of the Orchestra 33 1/3 and the legendary label charhizma and — together with Fennesz — the forefather of electroacoustic improvisation music in Austria. Among many others he currently works regularly with John Butcher, Mats Gustafsson or Ken Vandermark. Schnee is concerned with the actual sensory non-cerebral experience: the relationship between colour, image and sound. Schnee sets music to imaginary films or makes music that relates to films that have not yet been shot. The invisible film as a drama of a possibly liberated life, embedded in the soft, cold dress of sound creative avantgarde or experimental electroacoustic improv. Furthermore, songs are also repeatedly implemented in the instrumental electroacoustic dispositive of Schnee, which reveals references to literature, pop culture, politics and writing conceived as speaking about the unspeakable. “If there was ever a battle, it must have been the one between the guitar and the computer”. Schnee has long fought the battle and maybe even won it. Why? Because poetry and resistance revolve in the record groove.
Schnee
After knowing each other for many years, Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann started "Schnee" in 1999. They went into Vienna's Amann studios and recorded a cd with 4 tracks that was released by erstwhile records. Their first album, inspired by moviefavorites as well as by Robert Walser´s poetic meditations, sat the prismatic splendor including its smallest facets and compact crystal worlds to music and created great response within the improvised music world because of its, by that time very rare, correspondence of acoustic guitar and electronic sound manipulation. So the duo continued their work with concerts played in Austria, Germany, Poland, Italy, Slovenia and the Netherlands and tours in China and Japan. At the same time they started to experiment with their new approach within so called "new" or "improvised" music, to incorporate songformat and pop vocals into their compositions. These experiments led to the recording of a second album, "Schnee Live", which again was highly acclaimed within th e community. Besides further concerts in Austria, Germany, Spain, Southafrica and the U.S. and various cooperation's with Irene Laviña, Taku Sugimoto, Gunter Schneider, Barbara Romen, Andrea Neumann, Annette Krebs, Kai Fagschinski, Klaus Filip and others. Schnee meanwhile can be called one of the longest working groups within improvised music and one of their most intriguing, yet still experimenting formations.
Schnee
Снег
12” Vinyl (140g) & Download
Cat. no. Mikroton 94
Release Date: Jan 5, 2021
A1. Frozen
A2. World
A3. Time
B. Live In Kaliningrad
Tracks A1, A3 and B recorded by Kurt Liedwart at soundcheck and during the concert on September 25, 2018 in Kaliningrad at Mikroton Mikroten. Track A2 recorded by Maxim Khaikin during the concert on September 28, 2018 in Dom at Mikroton Mikroten. Mastered by Mikhail Myasoedov. Lacquer cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Graphic design: SETKA design. Artwork: Julia Voronina.
“I love plainness in colour, monotony, snow is rather a monotonous tune. Why should colour not give an impression of singing? White is like a murmur, a whisper, a prayer." (Robert Walser). The first Schnee record appeared in 2000. 20 years later their fourth album, the first coming on vinyl (!), on Mikroton. In between these years, the laptop player, saxophonist and singer Christof Kurzmann and guitarist Burkhard Stangl went different ways, but met again and again in projects such as Schnee, together with the American spoken word recording artist Ursula Rucker or in the context of Bernhard Fleischmann's “The Year Of”. Guitarist Burkhard Stangl was a member of the electroacoustic supergroups Polwechsel and efzeg and collaborated among others with Christian Fennesz as well as with Taku Unami, Taku Sugimoto, Angélica Castelló or Mario de Vega. Besides his fantastic reinterpretations of several Robert Wyatt numbers, Christof Kurzmann is known as the founder of the Orchestra 33 1/3 and the legendary label charhizma and — together with Fennesz — the forefather of electroacoustic improvisation music in Austria. Among many others he currently works regularly with John Butcher, Mats Gustafsson or Ken Vandermark. Schnee is concerned with the actual sensory non-cerebral experience: the relationship between colour, image and sound. Schnee sets music to imaginary films or makes music that relates to films that have not yet been shot. The invisible film as a drama of a possibly liberated life, embedded in the soft, cold dress of sound creative avantgarde or experimental electroacoustic improv. Furthermore, songs are also repeatedly implemented in the instrumental electroacoustic dispositive of Schnee, which reveals references to literature, pop culture, politics and writing conceived as speaking about the unspeakable. “If there was ever a battle, it must have been the one between the guitar and the computer”. Schnee has long fought the battle and maybe even won it. Why? Because poetry and resistance revolve in the record groove.
Schnee
After knowing each other for many years, Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann started "Schnee" in 1999. They went into Vienna's Amann studios and recorded a cd with 4 tracks that was released by erstwhile records. Their first album, inspired by moviefavorites as well as by Robert Walser´s poetic meditations, sat the prismatic splendor including its smallest facets and compact crystal worlds to music and created great response within the improvised music world because of its, by that time very rare, correspondence of acoustic guitar and electronic sound manipulation. So the duo continued their work with concerts played in Austria, Germany, Poland, Italy, Slovenia and the Netherlands and tours in China and Japan. At the same time they started to experiment with their new approach within so called "new" or "improvised" music, to incorporate songformat and pop vocals into their compositions. These experiments led to the recording of a second album, "Schnee Live", which again was highly acclaimed within th e community. Besides further concerts in Austria, Germany, Spain, Southafrica and the U.S. and various cooperation's with Irene Laviña, Taku Sugimoto, Gunter Schneider, Barbara Romen, Andrea Neumann, Annette Krebs, Kai Fagschinski, Klaus Filip and others. Schnee meanwhile can be called one of the longest working groups within improvised music and one of their most intriguing, yet still experimenting formations.