Günter Müller & Lê Quan Ninh - La Voyelle Liquide (2000)

Günter Müller and Lê Quan Ninh are both improvising percussionists who have worked increasingly with electronics over the past few years. Müller has released numerous records on his groundbreaking For 4 Ears label, including collaborations with Christian Marclay, Voice Crack, Otomo Yoshihide, and Erik M. Two more recent records involve Taku Sugimoto, The World Turned Upside Down (Erstwhile), which is a trio concert with Keith Rowe, and a duo released this fall, I Am Happy If You Are Happy (For 4 Ears). Earlier this year, Müller also released the gorgeous Direct Chamber (33revpermi), with Michel Doneda and Fabrice Charles. Ninh has worked extensively both in the improv and in the contemporary classical genres. His improv side has probably best been captured thus far by two superb trio projects on FMP, Burning Cloud (w/Butch Morris and J.A.Deane) and Open Paper Tree (w/ Michel Doneda and Paul Rogers), as well as by his solo tour de force, Ustensiles (For 4 Ears). As for his classical side, he's a member of the Hêlios Quartet, a percussion ensemble which recently released a self-titled CD on Vand'ouevre, containing compositions by Ninh, Jean-Christophe Feldhandler, Vinko Globokar and Toru Takemitsu. Ninh has also recorded John Cage's Ryoanji (Auvidis Montaigne), in duo with Joelle Leandre.

Müller and Ninh first met and played together in 1988, and have occasionally performed together since, most notably in the quartet Plugged in Zeit Reel with Jim O'Rourke and J.A. Deane. In January of 2000, Müller and Ninh traveled to CCAM in Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France and recorded four hours worth of material, from which the 75 minutes contained on this CD has been carefully selected. The title was inspired by a passage from L'Eau et les Rêves (Water and Dreams), a book by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. The two musicians demonstrate their seemingly limitless palettes, slipping back and forth between percussion and electronics to create endlessly inventive systems of sound.

"The collaboration of these two percussive pioneers offers some of the most inspired performances I have heard by either musician to date. While not minimizing the quality of any of their other superb records, this seems to be a culmination of their history. Müller and Ninh are percussionists of two very different styles, and that is this record's strength- the sparse to the dense, the electronic to the acoustic ... a wonderfully dynamic ride." -- Tim Barnes

A vast improv composition of ordered and soothing intimate electroacoustic sound_objects & soundscapes.

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Günter Müller, selected drums, minidisc, electronics

Lê Quan Ninh, surrounded bass drum, electronics

1. La voyelle a (04.28)
2. La voyelle e (21.27)
3. La voyelle i (13.00)
4. La voyelle o (08.04)
5. La voyelle u (08.10)
6. La voyelle y (08.36)
7. La voyelle liquide (11.16)

Recorded at Studio CCAM, Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France on 29/30 January 2000.

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V/A - Nexsound Ringtones

An useless Nexsound collection of 57 ringtones for your mobile surveillance machine, courtesy of the following artists:

Günter Müller
Francisco Lopez
Andrey Kiritchenko
Frank Bretschneider
Kotra
Kim Cascone
Roel Meelkop
Zavoloka
Bluermutt
Arturas Bumsteinas
I/Dex
Thomas Korber
AGF
Nole Plastique

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Sachiko M, Günter Müller, Otomo Yoshihide - Filament 2 (1999)

"Filament, normally comprised of the duo of Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M, is joined here by Swiss percussionist/electronicist Gunter Muller for a series of calm, sparse improvisations which are eerily evocative and strangely beautiful. By "limiting" themselves to fairly low-tech electronics and by simply relaxing and taking their time to investigate each sound-world encountered, this trio succeeds brilliantly in keeping the listener extraordinarily interested and focused, as the sounds tumble forward in logical yet surprising fashion. There tend to be high and low frequency borders established by Sachiko's sine waves and low, throbbing drones (presumably supplied by Otomo), sandwiching all manner of midrange activity by Muller on delicate percussion and Otomo's turntablism. Throughout, there's a warm and inviting quality not always found on recordings in this genre, the various hums generally taking on a consonant nature and the rhythmic patterns muted instead of harsh. But it's the non-stop inventiveness of the musicians involved which make this such a success and a superb example of the heights this type of music can achieve". Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide

"A post-Ground Zero Yoshihide and Sachiko Matsubara square off against For 4 Ears proprietor Gunter Muller in this superior sequel to 1998's Filament 1 (Extreme). Matsubara again works solely with the sine wave emissions of a sampler emptied of all memory. Her choice of sounds may be limiting, but she resourcefully bends and tweaks the clean, shrill frequencies in sympathetic response to Muller's ultra-sparse freeform percussion and spattering of electronic crackle. An uncommonly restrained Yoshihide, acting anything but the plunderphonic dervish, supplies the tiniest fragments of sampled CD and vinyl grooves. Throughout the first two pieces, the trio's improvisation is surgically precise - an exacting, controlled performance that produces just enough audible information to suggest the memory traces of music and maintain a peripheral conscious presence. An infrequent blip quickens the pulse; a frugal drum-machine tattoo or the ghost of a recorded voice pricks the ears like a lance. The busier "Filament 2-3" and "Filament 2-5" are genuinely exciting. Matsubara and Muller's electronics fall in unpredictable anti-patterns, sounding on the former like the enigmatic growlers and whistlers heard in VLF-shortwave spheric recordings and mimicking Xenakis-like packets of compressed computerized sound-data in the latter. Yoshihide isn't quite as stingy with his well-chewed sound-bites in these later "Filament"s, and the plentiful bits of microscopic sound begin to form macroscopic clumps. Muller, an experienced improviser whose seemingly haphazard and disposable contributions here are in fact the backbone for the process of cohesion, is the key to Filament 2's success. His dry clicks, so prominent as to suggest an almost techno-minimalist grid on "Filament 2-4," corral the dispersed sampledelic debris. Like a vigilant sheepdog, Muller drops a percussive signal or an admonishing bleep to redirect the flow of the improvisation whenever he senses that Matsubara or Yoshihide has strayed from the instinctive course". Gil Gershman

Sachiko M - sampler with sinewaves
Günter Müller - electronics, selected drums
Otomo Yoshihide - records, cds

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Christian Marclay & Günter Müller - Live Improvisations (1994)

"All live improvisations should be this much fun. This live date between turntablist and electronic weirdmeister Christian Marclay and percussionist and electronics tinkerer Günter Müller is what the art of improvisation is supposed to be: fun, continually compelling textually, and inspired. While many intellectuals have made wild pronouncements about Marclay and his art -- and it is art, make no mistake -- writing all sorts of blather about how he strips the adult century bare by his cutting up of vinyl records and pasting them together with parts from other vinyl records, they never seem to mention that these sound collages of his are charming, very human, and quite often intentionally hilarious. When Marclay is paired with a mischievous percussionist like Müller, anything can happen and always does. Here, swathes of "beautiful music" from the likes of the Bert Kamphert Singers and Orchestra are layered against throbbing drum machines and slamming garbage can lids. There are snippets from the Wizard of Oz recordings, laid in swathes against thundering tom toms and shimmering cymbals, and then scratched against backwards recordings of "Diddy Wah Diddy" done by a bubblegum teen choir as sheets of glass shatter and the sounds of John Wayne movie gunshots punctuate the mix. Yeah, yeah. Marclay and Müller may sift through the detritus of dead cultural artifacts to make something new, but it's not to make a political statement -- it's because it sounds cool as hell". Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

01. Piñata

02. Dea ex machina

03. Pfiff
04. Sunny-side up
05. Sore Eros
06. Je ne vous oblierai jamais
07. The ransom note
08. Dreh-moment
09. Love gasoline
10. Vitalium
11. A rose is a rose is a rose...
12. Rififi
13. Arrivederci

Günter Müller: drums, electronics
Christian Marclay: turntables, records

Recorded live in France, Germany and Switzerland 1992-1993.
Design and collages by Christian Marclay. Type design by Tom Recchion.

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