IRMLER & LIEBEZEIT – Flut
"That these guys are still making music, with or without notes, and still hurtling off in chaotic new directions like the kosmische travellers they are, is something for which we should be hugely grateful".
Mark Roland, Electronic Magazine
"The result is music in its purest, most savage form: still light years ahead over 40 years later".
Kris Needs, Classic Rock Magazine
"Ein hypnotischer Strudel an Klängen und Rhythmen, ein kolossaler Trip!"
Faze Magazine July 2014
"But once this spacious groove gets to you, you might never want to leave this trip".
Vital Weekly 940
"Hier haben wir ein fantastisches Werk zweier Altmeister, die es fertig bringen sich nicht selber zu verleugnen oder ohne jede Inspiration zu kopieren."
Wolfgang Kabsch, Musikansich.de
"Für die Can/Faust Supergruppe IRMLER LIEBEZEIT ist die 'Flut' – und damit wahrscheinlich und um beim Thema zu bleiben: die Natur -, der sie sechs ziemlich atemberaubend virtuose und doch vertraute und nostalgiefähige Keyboard Drums-Jams widmen, vor allem immer noch das was sie selbst lostreten, nichts, hinter das man zurücktreten oder in das man hineinkriechen müsste: "Ein perfektes Paar" (Songtitel) und eigentlich die Platte, die ich mir immer von Mike Ratledge und Robert Wyatt erhofft hätte: Keyboard und Drums als postphallisches Körpermodell mit schönen wobbligen Effekten und gnatzigen Extensionen."
Diedrich Diederichsen, Spex
"Nicht weniger als ein Meisterwerk des modernen Impro-Avantgarde Genres entsteht, wenn die zwei großen Namen IRMLER und LIEBEZEIT aufeinandertreffen. 'Flut' ist der Titel dieses Meisterwerkes, das auf Klangbad erscheint. Zwei Namen, die für Qualität stehen und die man eigentlich nicht weiter erklären muss."
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The Faust Studio is situated in a spacious factory building
right on the bank of the Danube river. Here, 2670km past of the river’s mouth at the Black Sea, the current seems relatively weak, however past accounts of severe flooding are enough to dispel any doubts of its power. One can spend hours staring out from the studio’s wood-panelled windows at the current, pondering the fact that you never observe the same
water twice.
Jochen Irmler and Jaki Liebzeit met in the town of Scheer last July to prepare for an upcoming concert at the slaughterhouse in Sigmaringen as well as for a subsequent appearance in the Kammerspiele in Munich. However, they quickly decided to stop rehearsing and instead record FLUT – an album that regroups six improvisations between organ and percussion. FLUT adds another chapter to Irmler’s collaborations, which aim to explore, whenever possible, the hidden potential that lies dormant in the clash between prepared organ and drums. The series includes previously-published collaborations with Gudrun Gut programmed beats, with FM Einheit’s percussive bass-string playing, and with Christian Wolfarth’s uncategorizable drumming, pushing the limits of harmony
and tuning to ever more complex results. A special energy is released through the clash between Irmler, one of Krautrock’s main driving forces ever since his work with Faust, and his sparring partner Jaki Liebezeit, the living legend from Can, whose unrivalled hypnotic drumming has earned him a reputation as one of the most avant-garde percussionists,
and as a human drum machine. Says Jochen Irmler: "I started jamming with Jaki as a means to play the organ very differently. On one hand he challenged me, on the other we shared an almost ESP-like non-verbal communication. A new horizon had opened up before us."
One hears elements of this statement in the piece "Sempiternity" and in the subsequent "Washing Over Me", where organist and drummer create a synergy greater than its parts; a trio rather than a duo seem to be at work. The effect is partly conjured by Irmler’s touch; his distorted right-hand melodies often sound like electric guitar, while his left hand finds unusual ways to elicit organ-like chord structures. Irmler’s relentless sonic clusters crash spectacularly against Jaki Liebzeit’s drums. Always stoic at their core, Liebzeit’s rhythms are struck with playful outbursts of groove, especially on the cymbals. Here we see a minimalist with an extremely controlled love of collisions at work. Repetition and its minute refinements are transferred with great discipline in a stream
of consciousness that both sets the stage and upstages his opponent. "We play without notes. In places where notation systems do not exist, the rhythm holds a much more dominant role in music, for example as is the case in Africa. Here people make music differently than those who think in terms of notes and bars. Musical bars are like prison bars. Playing without notes means that you must play repetitively, and repetition is rhythm. At the same time repetition does not really exist here, because you never quite play the same thing twice."
(Jaki Liebzeit)
Through three consecutive days of noon-to-night sessions in July 2013, Irmler and Liebzeit recorded a hypnotic maelstrom of an album. They contemplated the Danube between takes, and felt the sun sink daily over their endless improvisations. Always another stream, never the same river.
(Max Dax)
Release Date: 18.07.2014 GER, 21.07.2014 UK
C: Klangbad 2014
P: Faust Studio 2013
Cover: Olivier Kowald & Rebecca Harris
Mixed by: Andreas Schmid & Jan Wagner
Produced by: Hans Joachim Irmler
Photo: Manuel Wagner
Tracklist:
1. Amalgam
2. Golden Skin
3. Ein Perfektes Paar
4. Sempiternity
5. Washing Over Me
6. König Midas
