PRICE:
$26.00
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Con-Struct
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
BB 408LP BB 408LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
11/11/2022

LP version. Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010s, label honcho Jens Strüver was granted access to this audio library. Strüver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album, he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler's unique world of sound. Since 2014, Baal & Mortimer is the project of Alexandra Grübler, sonically exploring questions of resistance, autonomy, matter and speculation. The debut album Deixis was released on Bureau B in 2020 (BB 344CD/LP).

Grübler on the release: "Conrad Schnitzler's music came to me first in Düsseldorf at Salon des Amateurs, roughly 2007 or 2008, most definitely in the early morning hours, in the shape of his track Das Tier. I remember his name coming up quite a bit, deeply rooted in a specific experimental/Kraut discourse and I liked listening to his records, but working with his archive added an entirely different, physical intensity. Instead of reworking the material on its own, I chose to find traces of melodies, harmonies, notes within it, using them as seeds to add and derive new compositions. Schnitzler's archive became the foundation and departure point from which a process of accumulation and chiseling away started. Through playing things on wrong speed, stretching, or warping, fractal structures appeared, one unfolding out of the previous one, almost like chaos magick set in motion. I tried to internalize his work mode of not having any rules before the first note is played, no key, no meter, just following through with the evolving linearity of the sound. I tried to not focus too much on the fact that Schnitzler is from a different generation or that I'm not from a Krautrock or Post-Krautrock generation. Then again, my age and background pose different urgencies, questions and conditions, so I took the liberty to meet his material on a level that reflects the specific present surrounding me. Through living in Berlin, Schnitzler's (and Roedelius') short lived Zodiak Free Arts Lab was interesting as a concept and in that collaborative spirit I invited a few people to contribute their instruments and languages to the record. It was exciting to break open existing material, peeling something out of the past and thus transgressing it and opening portals."