MIMO REVIEW by Fabricio Carvalho On Friday, November 17s night German Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Swiss Christopher Chaplin gave one of the most enigmatic, polemic, and instigating concerts of MIMOs history. With some help from a piano, a few keyboards, synthesizers, and projected images, they built delicate pieces of abstract electronic music, of a cosmically and cold strangeness, that contrasted with the rococo lush of Igreja Matriz de Santo Antônio, this jewel of the colonial architecture. The audience liked, complained, and was stunned - there wasnt room for indifference. Aged 79, Roedelius has, nowadays, the status of a kind of living legend. His importance as one of the pioneers on the underground scene of the late 60s in Germany is internationally recognized. Generically labeled krautrock by the press, the works of that scene of artists marked the retake of the creative force to the music produced in Berlin, Köln, and other cities. That force was lost after the catastrophe of the WWII and the following americanization of the culture in Germany. Searching for inspiration in various sources, from hindu music to the electronic avant-garde, those artists built their own path for the German music on the last decades and, during this path, spread their ideas and sound thru a spectrum that goes from the classical field to the pop culture. From the 90s on, they entered to the canon established of the west music, being subject of academic researches, press recognizing, documentaries, and new editions of their albums. Roedelius is one of the most productive names of that scene, with a huge and varied discography, and a permanent restlessness that keeps him active up to this days. During the workshop that happened this morning at Sesi Tiradentes, he told us about how did he meet Christopher Chaplin (yes, he is the youngest son of Chaplin... and grandson of Eugene ONeill) in 2010 at Gugginger Irrationen 2, a festival near Vienna, Austria, dedicated to experimental music and, later on, being invited by the BBC to do a piano concert that would be recorded and remixed by an artist that he could choose, so he decided to invite Christopher to the job. This first collaboration between them was broadcasted by BBC Radio 3, in June 2011, at a program called Late Junction Session. One year after the concert the album that was the basis for this concert at MIMO, King of Hearts, was born. Each one of the compositions are far from the traditional structures of the popular songs and also from the classical pieces that we are used to know. The emphasis here is on the texture, on the expressive possibilities of a single note on the piano processed on and on by the softwares and electronic equipments. A dialogue between analog and digital that summarizes a considerable part of the creative difficulties and possibilities of the contemporary musical context. At the heat of Tiradentes, in an almost absolute silence that takes over its hills and alleys at night, the music of Roedelius and Chaplin sounded like the soundtrack for a future made of drones and electronic pulses, but also with a sacred side.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:18:28 +0000
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