#003 / One – Deer

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Hans Koch has quit his career as a recognised classical clarinetist to become one of the most innovative improvising reed-players in Europe. He has been working with everyone from Cecil Taylor to Fred Frith since the eighties. As a composer he has shaped the sound of Koch-Schütz-Studer since the beginning as well as working for radio-plays and film. Since the nineties he has been working with electronics as an extension of the saxes/clarinets as well as with sampling/sequencing/Laptop. As a reed-player he is always working on his very own vocabulary and sound, which makes him a very unique voice on the actual scene.

Silber Ingold has made his studies on tenor saxophone at the «Swiss Jazz Scool» and with Paul Jeffree at the «Berklee Scool of Music». Since the nineties he combines his instrument with electronic devices. In this period he has worked with his TrashPunkMetal-Band «Cyberbitch». He has played in projects with Werner Lüdi, Hans Koch, Martin Schütz, Simon Ho, The «Nits», strøm… He has curated since 2007 headphone concerts (kopfhoerer). He has built soundinstallation at «Fri-Art» and at the «Kornschütte» (Lucerne) and he has played in the band of «The Bridge» (öfföff). Beside his powerful playing he is also involved in quieter contexts, the «Biennelectronic Orchestra» and the duo «Notmusik».

Christian Müller is clarinetist and electronic-musician with a strong love for experimental noise, transdisciplinary collaborations and being en route. He completed his classical studies at the Conservatory for Music & Theater in Berne and works since then as improvising electronic-musician, electro-acoustic bass-clarinetist and composer with a conceptual approach. He realized numerous works with the duo Strøm (with Gaudenz Badrutt) and also in national and international projects. As member of Strøm and as a solo musician he created several sound installations and audiovisual pieces and also worked in multimedia-based contexts with dancers and performers. He collaborates and has collaborated in diverse constellations for concerts, a. m. o. with the musicians Christian Kobi, Tomas Korber, Jacques Demierre, Kurt Liedwart, Ilia Belorukov, dieb13, Cristián Alvear, … Since 2010 he works with the writer Regina Dürig as Butterland, an interdisciplinary project that combines text and sound. He composed the music for more than 30 theater pieces and dance performances, he works regularly with the director Barbara-David Brüesch and the Vienna based mexican-swiss dance and performance company nadaproductions.

www.hansko.ch
www.christianmueller.me

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Reviews/Reception

«Here we have three players of the bass clarinet and electronics. They all play the same single note, for about forty minutes. Sounds boring? Wrong. Sounds fascinating. I never heard of these three players, Hans Koch, Christian Müller (well, I did hear his work as Strøm, with Gaudenz Badrutt) and Silber Ingold, all from Switzerland, all from the field of improvisation, live electronics and modern classical music. This is also what meets up in ‹One›. It starts out, for quite some time actually, in a regular drone fashion, a minimalist piece of layered bass clarinet sounds. After about seven minutes we are finally in the more audible part of the pieces and from there on it stays on pretty much the same level for about fifteen minutes. Then it starts building more and more and it ends in a very loud, noise scape, with a fast descrecendo. That whole build up, the final twelve minutes, is pretty much predictable and not so much to my liking. The whole piece towards say minute 25 is something I enjoyed very much. Densely layered drone music, in which real time playing merges with the electronics. Everything stays close together but is at the same time pretty much well defined. That makes a great, tightly knit sound pattern. Not minimal in the sense of say Phill Niblock, but maximal in the sense of, well, Deer, I guess. I could easily live without those twelve final minutes and have that replaced with a further deepening of the first twenty-five minutes. Excellent, most of the times. (FdW)»
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 890

«Hmm… Deer est un trio de clarinettes basses: Silber Ingold, Hans Koch et Christian Müller. One consiste en une seule pièce de 40 minutes qui, elle même, consiste en une seule note, soufflée par les trois clarinettes basses, et passée à travers de multiples effets afin de créer un bourdon évolutif. Un exercice de style, en quelque sorte, plutôt réussi. Facile de monter le son et de plonger dans cet univers vrombissant, d’y demeurer lové et d’écouter attentivement pour percevoir les modulations.
Hmm… Deer is a trio of bass clarinettists: Silber Ingold, Hans Koch, and Christian Müller. One consists of a single 40-minute piece itself consisting of a single note, blown by all three bass clarinets, and sent through various electronic effects to produce a slowly changing drone. A call it an exercise in style, and a rather successful one at that. It’s easy to turn up the volume and get sucked into this soundworld, to stay comfortably tucked into it and to listen attentively to the subtle changes.»
François Couture, Monsieur Délire

«Hans Koch, Christian Müller et Silber Ingold – Biennois aux clarinettes basses augmentées par l’usage de machines – prennent, pour leur première collaboration sous le nom de DEER, le prétexte d’une note unique, que l’on dira de concordance et soupçonnera hommage au brame.
Non pas de synthèse même si ondulante, non pas de didgeridoo même si endurante : la note tremble et dessine des vagues que le ressac nourrira d’éclats ornementaux et vivifiants, le drone et son lent retournement provoquant une série de glissements et de roulements qui se jouent autant des surfaces que d’un espace qu’ils renversent dans son entier. Nombreuses et pas toutes perceptibles, les couches qui composent One en font un ouvrage fascinant, accaparant même.»
Guillaume Belhomme, Le son du grisli

«…EIN Ton. DREI Stimmen, aber nur EIN Ton. Und doch nicht eintönig. Eigentlich klar, wo doch selbst ein Atom ein ganzes Universum umfasst. Hans Koch, Christian Müller & Silber Ingold vereinen, wie die Ghostbuster ihre Energiestrahlen, ihre Bassklarinetten in einer gemeinsamen Note, einem sonor brummenden Summton wie von einem Didgeridoo. Nein, selbst die prächtigsten Hirsche können nicht so schön röhren. Es ist wirklich ein Ton, so wollig und samtig, wie es nur geht. Das wäre an sich ja schon Clou genug. Aber nachdem man da so ne knappe Viertelstunde mitgesummt hat bei diesem OMMMM, wird allmählich deutlich, dass der Ton zu wachsen und zu pulsieren beginnt. Und das weit mehr, als man es bloß psychedelischer Einbildung zuschreiben könnte. Tatsächlich laufen die drei Quellflüsse dieses OMMM permanent über elektronische Devices, was mehr und mehr zu einer Schichtung des Dröhnens und einer Verstärkung des Rauschens führt. Das auch nach 20 Min. noch in, seiner Substanz konstant, ‹ein-tönig› summt. Aber eben in seiner (Dröhn)-Minimalistik zunehmend anschwillt. Nicht so sehr in der Lautstärke als solcher, als vielmehr im Volumen. So wie der Mond bis zum Vollmond, wobei das ja auch nicht seine Mondheit vermehrt. Aber wie dessen Sichtbarkeit, so wächst hier die Hörbarkeit derart, dass nun auch jaulende, wellige oder auch metallisch knarzige und brausend aufrauschende Bestandteile dieses OMMM deutlich werden. Als ob sich das Inneres des Tones auftun würde. Oder sein Wellenspektrum sich über den bisher externen Standort des Hörers hinaus ausgedehnt hätte. Der lang nur anbrandende Dopplereffekt schneidet ganz ganz langsam mitten durchs Hirn. Als ein brausender Orgelcluster, der in die Unendlichkeit weiter driftet, abdunkelnd, abschwellend, oder einfach nur sich entfernend. Ein kapitaler Vierzehnender ist das, ein Prachtstück an jeder Wall of Sound.»
Rigo Dittmann, Bad Alchemy 78