Anyone can make music on a computer. You just press some buttons, right? What happens when those who have chosen electronic machines as their musical instruments team up with some of Sweden’s most prominent instrumentalists.? What happens when the instrumentalists, that went through eduction and daily practice most of their lives meet composers that can’t write a score and create music by moving symbols on the computer screen?
Electronic music of today is divided into so many sub-genes that it’s almost impossible to overview even for the musicians. The electronic musician doesn’t go to the same school as classic musicians and composers. So there is not so much interaction between non-achademic electronic musicians and classic ones, att the same time as the computer is getting more and more present in serious music. Chambertronica provoces a collision between electronica and instrumentalists within conteporary classic music. The result is new music without limitations.
Chambertronica live is chambermusic at a techno-club. Unknown sonic worlds and strong visual impressions. Tradition and technology. It’s music never heard before. Maybe Chambertronica is the start of a new musical genre?
The Composers:
Håkan Lidbo has a show on national Swedish Radio and makes many different styles of electronica. He has released more than 200 record, from glitchy minimilism to straight up pop and he doesn’t have any musical education. His studio is his method of composing. He records the rehearsals and creates mixes that becomes sounding score for the instrumentalists.
Lisa Nordström is one half of the internationally acclaimed electronica group ”Midaircondo”. She is a part of the art collective ”I am so are you” and manages the REX music and art gallery in Gothenburg. She is a trained fluitist. Lisa works mostly with imporvisation when composing. She starts with rough scetches and give the instrumentalists freedom to create material that she later processes in the studio.
Olle Cornéer, internationally established artist within electro and house that also make sound art and installations. Olle has a musical education but normally don’t write score and partitur when composing. But this time he made an attempt.
The Instrumentalists:
George Kentros is frequently awarded for his musical skills and his work for conteporary art music. His main ensemble is Pearls For Swines and he manages the experimental club Sekt. George has played in every corner of the World.
Anna Petrini plays medieval, renaissance and baroque music as well as contemporary repetoar. She is active as a soloist and chamber musician in Sweden and abroad. In 2007 her group Trio Stravaganti won the Swedish competition ”Young and Promising” . In the Chambertronica project Anna plays the contrabass recorder.
Mika Takehara is a percussion soloist, specialized in conteporary music and she plays chamber music with Maestro Seji Ozawa, Mika often work with dance, recently in a performance with the dancer and choreogrpapher Virpi Pahkinen. She released hte debut album Thirteen Drums 2004 on BIS records.
About the music:
1. Escher
A picture of monks walking down a staircase is one of the most well-known pictures by the graphic artist M.C. Escher. Through a clever optical illusion the stair goes down in a square shape but alway ends up in itself. So here is no end, the monks never reach the end of the stairs. ”Escher” is a musical experiment that does exactly the same thing. The rhythm slows down and the key falls constantly but it never goes anywhere, it never stops. In the middle section the piece changes into an upwards movement with overlapping identical loops. But the music leads nowhere. The violin, the contrabass recorder and he logdrum play continiuosly acceleratinr or retardating gestures without getting anywhere. It’s a sonic illusion if you call it that?
2. IAMSOAREYOU
Lisa Nordström and Mika Takehara meet in a musical piece about sisterhood. Two passionate and uncompromising musicians meet and make music together for the first time.
The lyrics is about closeness and about creating a story together. About a ”now” that becomes a ”then”. Lisa has worked with the relation between the acoustic sound and the recorded sound. What story emerges when the sounds merge together and are manipulated and appears again in layers of echoes, repetitions and samples?
Starting from the lyrics and a basic scetch, the music has grown from improvised recording sessions that Lisa manipulated and mixed. The sonic material has travelled between Lisa’s stdio in Göteborg and Mikas percussion cottage by the sea – and shaped into a live version of the piece ”IAMSOAREYOU”
3 & 4. Slice and Repeat I & II
In ”Slice And Repeat” the violin, the marimba and the contrabass recorder play together with the most glorified icon of electronic music; the Roland TB-303. The squeeky sound from this little silvery box is the fundament of a whole musical genre – and an attitude to music that has proved to be as revolutionary as once the Punk music movement.
Olle Cornéer does not only mix two different sonic worlds but also forces the musicians to play their musical instruments as if they were glitching samplers. And the TB-303 creates irregular, organic pads instead of the Acid-House loops it’s normally used for.
In ”Slice And Repeat” the humas are forced to be machine-like and the machines are orced to be as lively and unpredictable as possible. Does this sound like a caold and hard vidion? Maybe so. But the result is still beautiful – the same way as a polluted sunset behind a glittering skyline is more beautiful than nature itself. This way ”Slice And Repeat” reflects the time we live in.
5. GK.vs.HL.
In this duo, George Kentro’s violin meets Håkan Lidbo’s computer, so they can get to know each other. It’s a conversation where the violin makes the first careful attempt to contact the computer with tentative phrases. When the violin understands that there is a connection it tries out more complex ”words”. Just like when two humans from different civilisations meet, first paralyzed by the different languages but then realizing that they have everything in common -- because theyre both human. The violin and the computer come to the same conclusion; they are both sophisticated musical instrument and therefore they can dance together.
6. Enter/Pause/Exit
The piece is about rooms, humans and time. Lisa describes a number of persons in action at a non specific place. These scenic instructions together with a film-like soundscape transferres the listener to a situation created by his/her own memories, fantasies and associations. The pauses can be opportunities for everyone to fill this sound track with their own personal imagninary films.
7. >&<
This sextet is both the musicians and composers interpretation of ”>&<”, the title of the piece. The opposite arrows represent the collision between different musical worlds, between acoustic and electronic music, betwen different approaches to music. The ”&” sign stands for the meeting, the collaboration and the new possibilities. The arrows can also be read in a more traditional way; like the symbols for diminuendo and crescendo. And the ”&” sign like a musical gesture. Maybe a G-clef that has ben hit by a truck -- or executed in an electric chair.
More info on www.chambertronica.com
A short presentation + a song from the rehearsals: