Sonic Pieces is 10 this year, and the first celebration took place at ausland, Berlin on the 20th of February featuring 3 duos that never played together before. Label owner Monique Recknagel even performed for the first time. In a duo with F.S.Blumm they together weaved an almost Musique Concrete like performance with tools and material usually used to craft the handmade covers. In the second set, Christoph Berg & Midori Hirano materialised an extended set of piano, sounds and prepared violin. For the ones who don´t know ausland, the venue is an experimental music institution in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin, where also the Sonic Pieces HQ is located. Exactly 10 years ago on the date, Monique was setting up a show at the same space, just a couple months prior to the first release on her own label. With this in mind, the third duo of Jasmine Guffond & Erik K Skodvin was especially suited, as Jasmine already performed on that evening 10 years ago. They started after an extra long break due to ausland´s toilets being under construction. The crowd had to use a single temporary outside toilet, lit by a light chain in the darkened front-yard. To some this was a welcome escape from the heat produced in the venue packed with people. At close to 23h the last duo entered the stage. Erik on electro-acoustic guitar + devices and Jasmine on max-msp improvisations. The 30 minute performance went through intense electronic minimalism, loud abstract peaks and a final duet on piano solo vs chopped sampling.
The evening ended with Jens Alder (of Morr Music) finishing up his compiled playlist set of 2009 tracks before Monique & Erik took over the decks with a small selection of jazz, Japanese music and soundtracks. We´re very happy with the evening and would like to thank everyone who came or took the trip over to celebrate with us. We also apologise to the ones we had to turn away at the door. More celebrations are on the way later in the year.
Listen to 15 minutes of excerpts from the 3 performances.
First 3 minutes by Monique Recknagel & F.S.Blumm.
03:07 - 08:17 Midori Hirano & Christoph Berg.
08:18 > Jasmine Guffond & Erik K Skodvin.
More photos of the evening from Udo Siegfriedt here
