artists: Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit
title: unlimited edition
formats: vinyl EP 45rpm
cat. no: MDM 25746 non24
release date: 18th July 2008
tracklisting
A
183-7
B
120-5
After numerous concerts and intensive studio sessions Friedman and
Liebezeit are presenting two new pieces as a foretaste of their third
album due for release in September. The two musicians worked more as a
team than ever before, meaning the new tracks testify less to
post-processing and editing techniques than to the physicality and
treatment of the instruments played.
Liebezeit’s drums are immortalized with maximum force. If it is still possible to establish a link with his past as a member of CAN,
then it lies in the spirit with which he seeks, then as now, new
musical forms. The post-CAN Liebezeit not only created his own
cycle-based drum system but also developed an innovative drumset that
concentrates on the essentials and permits a mode of playing that was
already theoretically honed to be physically implemented in optimum
fashion.
Friedman’s mostly programmed, pseudo-natural sequences
and placeless sound particles adhere to the same understanding of
rhythm, allowing the two heterogeneous sound generators to perfectly
intermesh and form a unit – both acoustically and electronically, in
terms of improvisation and concept alike. Friedman and Liebezeit came
together in Cologne in 2001, having recognized that they were on the
same musical wavelength and exploring the territory beyond the current
style reproductions, that is to say: working remote from retro or
recycling !
Both share a preference for so-called Secret
Rhythms, which means that the rhythms are not hidden but less common,
often foreign to western culture. The artists have consciously turned
away from Western European, Anglo-American regulated rhythm (based on
4) in order to enrich their vocabulary with all globally relevant
rhythms (on this ep: 7 and 5 against 4).
Jaki Liebezeit: “It
possibly incorporated many elements of this earth without featuring any
specific elements. The individual elements have been made abstract, no
ethnic or national character remains, there’s nothing typical to
Seville or Istanbul, but the properties held in common by all types of
music have been abstracted and processed.”
Following
a concert they gave together, Tim Motzer joined Friedman and Liebezeit
in the studio and crucially influenced the two ep titles. Motzer
already appeared on the predecessor cd (Secret Rhythms 2, non19) and
also provided guitar accompaniment to Friedman’s contributions to the
Nine Horses (with David Sylvian and Steve Jansen, samadhisound).
Originating from the Philadelphia Jazz scene, the guitarist’s
activities include a creative partnership with Ursula Rucker and King
Britt. It is Motzer’s acoustic guitar that links up with the 2005 vinyl
ep (Out In The Sticks, non17), on which Motzer likewise played an
important role.
In addition, Joseph Suchy again plays a major
part as his extreme sounds, which seldom recall the guitar, move
through the interspaces of the individual instruments, knowingly fusing
the rough elements of the music with the fine details of the ambient
textures within the music.
The two adventurous arrangements
unfold an uncommonly hypnotic effect for respectively 10 minutes: a
monstrous production, tapped from the instruments with the maximum
possible degree of immediacy, and psychedelized by Friedman’s notorious
dub technique.