6 piece live band from Berlin meets Nonplace hard drives
The experiment took place in June 2003. The formation Shank, a group of
6 passionate improvisers from Berlin set up their equipment in the
large session room: drums / bass / guitar / percussion / trumpet /
samplers and an insane amount of fx processors. The purpose: play music
out of nothing. Shank actually is a pure live instrumental Band.
Over the past 5 years they were touring Brazil, India, USA, Turkey and
Europe; they were part of the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival in New York
1999 and performed on various European Jazz Festivals. The motto is
always the same: invent tunes from scratch. Their grooves are embedded,
melting in the music, overlapped by suspense filled melodic and
harmonic lines. During a live show in Berlin 2003 the Nonplace label
decided to let Burnt Friedman produce Shank.
In another studio
space prepared for recordings Burnt Friedman hooked up his computer and
hard drives. The sessions took one week, the following editing process
3 months. The first 2 probes of this hard disc improv mayhem are
included on "Difficult Easy Listening" (non14/tracks 1,5), the previous
Nonplace release. Former Recordings with Shank members include Teo
Macero, Kevin Coyne, Jazzanova, Micatone, Orientation, Paul Brody Octet
and Tanmoy Bose´s Taaltantra. Tanmoy Bose is Ravi Shankar´s tabla
player and one of India´s top Tabla-Players. Besides the musicians are
known for the musical participation in award winning radioplays,
dance-, theatre- and film-projects.
As you can hear Shank think
and act globally ; hence, the music on this nonplaced disc entitled
"Do" can be described as Abstract Global Music combining acoustic,
electrically amplified and electronic sound sources. Their independency
from any determining musical categories is one of their greatest
achievements.
Personnel: Andreas Weiser (perc), Andreas Advocado
(bg), Matthias Trippner (dr), Michael Rodach (g), Martin Klingeberg
(tp), Sebastian Demmin (keys), Burnt Friedman (dubs)
Reviews:
"Shank's
press release informs the reader: "6 piece live band from Berlin meets
Nonplace hard drives" and "Shank actually is a pure live instrumental
band." Such declarations are initially met with scepticism. Nonplace is
the label run by German electronica artist Burnt Friedman whose
previous releases include a painstakingly assembled fascsimile of a
live concert (Con Ritmo) as well as collaborations with the likes of
Atom Heart and Jaki Liebezeit. In fact Friedman's considerable oeuvre
is marked by a playful seriousness which frequently addresses notions
of identity and authenticity as well as exploring the interstices
between programming, sampling and live playing. Shank's music bears a
consumately professional sheen and is both rather lovely and subtly
anonymous. Vibes tiptoe about, occasionally sounding out melodies while
drummer Matthias Trippner plays delightful stutter rhythms. Dub is a
perennial fascination for Friedman and there's a stoned, but
wide-awake, outernational feel to this music. Bass and drums are to the
fore throughout: Friedman is a former drummer whose earlier work was
marked by a particular emphasis on rhythm though in recent years an
increasing balance has revealed greater attention to melody as well.
Shank's Do is sunny, strange and resolutely un-teutonic: it's an
intriguing new instalment in Friedman's always interesting career."
(review by Colin Buttimer / eleventhvolume)
