Live Capitol Brig, by Mengis Pfammatter Hagen Papaux

Live Capitol Brig

by Mengis Pfammatter Hagen Papaux

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	1.	A-I 03:42
	2.	A-II 08:21
	3.	A-III 06:22
	4.	A-IV 06:05
	5.	A-V 01:33
	6.	A-VI 06:15
	7.	A-VII 04:56
	8.	A-VIII 14:57
	9.	A-IX 06:48
	10.	A-X 02:02
	11.	A-XI 08:11
	12.	B-I 07:20
	13.	B-II 07:15
	14.	B-III 12:09
	15.	B-IV 10:16
	16.	B-V 13:35
	17.	B-VI 06:50
	18.	B-VII 09:06

about

Oftentimes the avant-garde, including the world of free-improvised music, seems to suffer from a sort of kalophobia - a puposeful avoidance of the beautiful, as if the aesthetically pleasing were to betray the artists’ integrity — not so the quartet of Manuel Mengis, Javier Hagen, Hans-Peter Pfammatter, and Marcel Papaux, who don’t shy away from elegance - an understated poise reminiscent in its opening moments of filles-de-kilimjaro-era Miles David, Mengis’ trumpet channeling the great ancestor though the logic of his playing is entirely his own — but the gracefully plaintive mood is soon undermined by the subliminally aggressive presence of Pfammatter’s synthesizer clouds and Papaux’s percussion creaks, subverting the idyll with critical commmentary — and so the (albeit slightly creepy) serenity of the music’s opening passages gradually gives way to a tenser mood, Hagen’s sneakily abstract yet emotionally charged vocal poetics interlocking with loud cymbal ambience and regular-yet-ametric sythesizer jabs — yet, somehow, despite all abandon, the elegance persists all the way to the end of the session, particularly in the drone oriented sections of the second disc — perhaps it is quintessentially Swiss that this music - even when it crosses into distortion, even when it is puncutated by audience laughter - remains a precision mechanism, pared of the irrelevant: a clockwork of unity between the musicians, connected by a common sense of purpose. It is a music of paradoxes, contradictions, but also of assured self-expression and intense listening of the musicians to one another, deserving of a similarly intense listening from its audience. Then, magical relationships of timbre, pitch, and emotion reveal themselves, rising phoenixlike from the poise and the noise. — Lukas Ligeti, 2021

Oft scheint die Musikavantgarde, darin eingeschlossen die Freie Improvisation, an einer Art Kalophobie zu leiden - einer gezielten Vermeidung des Schönen, als ob das ästhetisch Angenehme die Integrität der Künstler verraten würde. Nicht so das Quartett aus Manuel Mengis, Javier Hagen, Hans-Peter Pfammatter und Marcel Papaux, das sich nicht vor Eleganz scheut - eine unaufdringliche Gelassenheit, die in den ersten Momenten an Miles Davis' Filles-de-Kilimanjaro-Ära erinnert: Mengis' Trompetenspiel folgt zwar dem Klangideal des Meisters, doch die Logik seines Spiels ist seine ganz und gar seine eigene. Doch bald schon wird die anmutig-klagende Stimmung durch die unterschwellig aggressive Präsenz von Pfammatters Synthesizer-Wolken und Papaux' Schlagzeug-Knarren untergraben, die die Idylle mit kritischen Kommentaren unterwandern. Und so weicht die (wenn auch leicht gruselige) Gelassenheit der Anfangspassagen allmählich einer angespannteren Stimmung, wobei sich Hagens abstrakte und doch emotional aufgeladene Gesangspoesie mit lautem Becken-Ambiente und regelmäßigen, aber metrischen Synthesizer-Stößen verzahnt. Doch irgendwie bleibt die Eleganz trotz aller Hingabe bis zum Ende der Session erhalten, besonders in den drone-orientierten Abschnitten der zweiten Scheibe. Vielleicht ist es typisch schweizerisch, dass diese Musik - selbst wenn sie in die Verzerrung abgleitet, selbst wenn sie vom Gelächter des Publikums unterbrochen wird - ein Präzisionsmechanismus bleibt, der von Unwichtigem befreit ist: ein Uhrwerk der Einheit zwischen den Musikern, verbunden durch einen gemeinsamen Sinn für das Ziel. Es ist eine Musik der Paradoxien, der Widersprüche, aber auch des sicheren Selbstausdrucks und des intensiven Zuhörens der Musiker untereinander, das ein ebenso intensives Zuhören des Publikums verdient. Dann offenbaren sich magische Beziehungen von Klangfarben, Tonhöhen und Emotionen, die sich wie ein Phönix aus der Noise-Asche erheben. (Lukas Ligeti)

credits

released March 22, 2022

Manuel Mengis — Trp, Synth, El
Javier Hagen — Voc
Hans-Peter Pfammatter — Keys, El
Marcel Papaux — Perc

Recording, Live Mixing — Ulrike Mayer-Spohn
Studio Mixing — Javier Hagen
Wide Ear Records — wideearrecords.ch

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about

Wide Ear Records Zug, Switzerland

WideEarRecords is a musician-run collective, platform and record label based in Zürich. We are dedicated to releasing fresh exciting original music from the vibrant Swiss scene and from friends living abroad, leaving as much control as possible to the artists over their music and artwork. Although most of our releases so far tend to be in the field of improvised music we are stylistically open. ... more

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