CHRISTOF KURZMANN / BURKHARD STANGL
Neuschnee
(Erstwhile - ERSTPOP02) CD $14.50 (Out-of-stock)
Stangl and Kurzmann combine the former's acoustic guitar and the latter's electronic sound manipulation. Following concerts throughout Europe and Asia, they began incorporating song structures and pop vocals into their “delicate musical architecture,” yielding their live album schneelive, an elongated and meticulously structured version of a Prince song. Neuschnee is more complex, recorded over a four-year period; five tracks form an ambitious meta-song suite, with various lyrics and international musical styles that reconcile “experiment and tradition … thoughtful silence and expressive celebration of each moment … worlds of noises and clearly defined harmonies.”
CHRISTOF KURZMANN / BURKHARD STANGL
schnee_live
(Erstwhile - ERSTLIVE03) CD $14.40 (Out-of-stock)
The final show in Berlin on the last night of AMPLIFY 2004: addition, documents how much Stangl and Kurzmann's duo has changed since the initial recording of schnee in 2000, which was followed by numerous concerts over the intervening four years throughout Europe, the US, and Asia. “One might think that the incorporation of an existing song -- by Prince, no less -- into a context of austere eai experimentation is guaranteed to drag the music down into a swamp of postmodernism bordering on the kitsch,” explains Paris Transatlantic, “But nothing could be further from the truth. Gentle diatonic harmony [has long been] a feature of Stangl's guitar playing … and Kurzmann's own tastes in music are catholic enough…. [E]ven when Stangl drifts off into nostalgic Jim Hall comping, Kurzmann's oppressive loops drag him back into focus.”