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BARCODE QUARTET
::
Alison Blunt - violin
:: Elisabeth Harnik
- piano
:: Annette Giesriegl - vocals
:: Josef Klammer:
drums, electronics
• youtube
video - live at Soundout
Festival, Canberra 2013
• youtube
video - live at A L´ARM
Festival, Berlin 2013
• youtube
video - live at :: Stockwerk,
Graz 2013
•
youtube video
- live at ::
All Ears Festival, Oslo 2015
Foto by Peter Purgar, :: Jazz im Bild
Barcode Quartet is a free-improvising quartet that
features musicians with no or little background in jazz.
Barcode Quartet matches three Graz-based Austrians –
pianist Elisabeth Harnik (known from the DEK Trio with
Ken Vandermark and her collaborations with another
Chicagoan sax player Dave Rempis, and French double bass
master Joëlle Léandre), vocalist Annette Giesriegl, and
drummer and electronics musician Josef Klammer with
London-based violinist Alison Blunt, who collaborates
with Harnik in the interdisciplinary project “Rose is a
rose is a rose is a rose …”- Hommage á Gertrude Stein,
and is a frequent collaborator with drummer Mark
Sanders. Klammer suggested the title for this
border-crossing quartet, thinking of it as an ironic
protest by a group that defies any attempt to label or
codify its music.
Blunt is a classically trained violinist who played in
chamber ensemble and orchestras who took up
improvisation following repeated wrist injuries. Harnik
studied classical piano and composition and even
performed as a jazz singer before shifting her focus to
free improvisation. Giesriegl also studied jazz singing
but focuses on free-improvisation and is known for her
overtone and throat singing and Indian vocalizing
techniques. Klammer is busy working with sound art,
radio plays, and theater projects, expanding his drum
drum-set with electronics and sound samples.
Live in Brasil is the sophomore album of the
quartet, following You’re It (Slam
Productions, 2012), which was also recorded live on
August 2015 at Jazz na Fábrica Festival in São Paulo and
the following day at Quintavant-Audio Rebel in Rio de
Janeiro, distributed only in digital format. The live
setting and the extended, improvised format enable the
four musicians to operate freely on the spectrum between
the spontaneous and intuitive, composition in real-time
and what slowly blossoms as nuanced compositions. All
while experimenting and incorporating the highly
singular herstories/histories of the four musicians.
The opening, 35-minutes “Tranquilo”, present the quartet
in its most eccentric, inventive and imaginative mode
while maintaining a balanced and emphatic interplay.
Harnik's percussive motifs on the piano keys and strings
extend the subtle, colorful percussive work of Klammer,
both cement the erratic atmosphere of this piece.
Giesriegl's wordless vocalizations and suggestive
phrasing offer a dadaist narrative, full of sudden
dramatic twists, intensified and sometimes even
contrasted by Blunt's playing. Somehow all the chaotic,
dense playing is channeled into a powerful momentum,
gravitating towards an ecstatic conclusion. The
following “Gig Rec” begins with the fractured, rhythmic
run of Klammer, soon abstracted with even faster
rhythmic gestures of Giesriegl, Harnik and Blunt, all
employ extended vocal, bowing and hammering techniques.
But later this piece adopts a contemplative and abstract
mode that highlight the evocative and passionate
delivery of Giesriegl and the inventive, free-spirited
playing of Blunt. The São Paulo performance concludes
with a short, playful encore, “Our Toys”.
The last piece, “Audio Rebel’s Dog” deepens the wild,
chaotic vein of opening piece. The distinct eccentric
and unstable nature of this improvisation still makes
some sense. Obviously, mysterious, unorthodox and
non-linear kind of sense, but somehow all the
weird-sounding ideas fit this unique puzzle. The violin
of Blunt that quotes folk motifs, the
operatic-theatrical delivery of Giesriegl and the
percussive sparks and the sprints on the piano keys of
Harnik and the sparse drumming and strange noises of
Klammer all connect, collide, disperse and connect
again, immediately and organically. All together suggest
a rich, multifaceted sonic picture that never exhausts
you from deciphering its myriad elements.
By Eyal Hareuveni
Annette Giesriegl is a dynamic, exciting and creative
vocalist who is based in Graz/Austria and works in the
field of jazz and improvised music. Her studies of
overtone singing, throat singing, Indian music with an
emphasis on Indian vocal techniques, the use of
electronics and other extended vocal techniques give
line to the textural play of piano, violin and drums.
London based musician Alison Blunt has consuming
interests in making music in the moment and in
interdisciplinary explorations. Elisabeth Harnik is an
accomplished classical pianist and composer based in the
County of Styria/Austria who´s consistently proved that
academic training is no impediment to spontaneity.
Harnik and Blunt - both representing the generation of
improvisers who didn´t come to the discipline via jazz -
work within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world,
using unique preparations and extended techniques. Graz
based musician and media artist Josef Klammer has worked
continuously developing his instruments and sound since
the middle of the 80´s. His drums and subtle electronics
bring expressive punctuation and a huge range of colour,
providing the musical glue to the ensemble.
::
review:
Andreas
Fellinger, FreiStil #54, Mai/Juni 2014 (only
German)
::
HP of Alison Blunt
:: Gallery - JAZZ im
Bild (thanks to Peter Purgar)
• SAMPLE
CD "You´re it"
New release: BARCODE QUARTET - Live in Brazil
review on freejazzblog:
http://www.freejazzblog.org/2017/03/barcode-quartet-live-in-brasil-grazer.html
Track 1 - 3:
Recorded at Jazz na Fábrica Festival, São Paulo, August
28th, 2015
Bruno Correa - Technical director/ sound engineer - PA
Leonardo Marques - sound engineer - monitor
Lirinha Morini - roadie
Produced by Jazz na Fábrica Festival / SESC and Barcode
Quartet
recording engineers: Hélio Pisca
recording assistant: Renan Perobelli
Track 4:
Recorded at Quintavant-Audio Rebel, Rio de Janeiro,
August, 29th, 2015
Alex Chichoski: sound engineer
Pedro Azevedo: PA and recording assistent
Yago Franco: PA
Produced by Bernardo Oliveira, Pedro Azevedo and Barcode
Quartet.
Thanks to: Austrian Embassy Brazil, Isabella Tomás,
Ricarda Kato, Ralf Dick, Kato Booking, Bernardo
Oliveira, Manoela Wright, Paola Gatto
reviews:
From deep down below
The barcode quartet presented itself at the Grazer
Stockwerk bar some usual cast members, radical noise
clouds and free improvisation around the vocalist
Annette Giesriegl. Especially violinist Alison Blunt
showed off her multifaceted mastery of the material,
which downright made you afraid. It begins with formless
whirring: coloured dots scurry lolloped across keys,
threads of violins hang in the air like warm, sticky air
currents. If you let yourself take part in this
Avantgarde Expedition inside the gloomy heart of the
Stockwerk you needed hardwearing ears. This is where
Annette Giesriegl squats, stares and smirks with the
Barcode Quartet. Annette Giesriegl isn't a vocalist but
a dark cultist who chews up syllables bleating goat
style, spitting them out again, accompanied by unholy
monks chants...making you feel blissfully warm and at
the same time sending shivers down your spine with
foreboding. Next to her stands Alison Blunt, who drives
her bow across moaning strings, rummaging deep inside
her violin's body for the warm flesh of the sound, while
all above trembles with hypervibrato. What a relief,
when Elisabeth Harnik reverses the sound towards 'major'
with her rasping glass harp playing on her piano, Josef
Klammer uses his electric controllers to play air drum
samples and one narrowly escaped from deep down below.
F. Juracek / Kronen Zeitung / May 6th 2018 /
translated from German: Natasha Tauber
Kommen wir zu guter Letzt zu den zwei unumschränkten
Festivalhöhepunkten, die insofern über eine interessante
Schnittmenge verfügen, als an beiden die
Klavierspielerin Elisabeth Harnik maßgeblich beteiligt
ist. So imponiert der kräftige Einsatz ihrer Mittel bei
frappanter Beweglichkeit ihres Spiels am und im
Instrument sowohl im Barcode Quartet mit Alison Blunt,
Annette Giesriegl & Josef Klammer als auch im
Zusammenwirken mit Dave Rempis, Tim Daisy & Gigi
Gratt – der nebenbei noch einen hinreißenden
Kinderworkshop mit dem lokalen Nachwuchs zu verantworten
hat, auf den er die reiche Erfahrung seines monatlich im
Alten Schl8hof Wels Gruppen - improvisation
praktizierenden GIS Orchestra ummünzt. Es ist die kaum
fassbare Homogenität, resultierend aus dem oftmaligen
Zusammenspiel, die das Barcode Quartet kennzeichnet.
Extrem elastisch gestaltet man die Organisation der
Klänge zwischen Elisabeth Harnik, der Sängerin Annette
Giesriegl, der Bratschistin Alison Blunt und der
federnd-tänzerischen Perkussion von Josef Klammer, der
zudem originelle Elektronikgimmicks ins Spiel bringt.
Andreas Fellinger / :: FreiStil #54,
Mai/Juni 2014
The Barcode Quartet’s You’re It is a meeting of musical
minds from the Graz and London new music scenes, Alison
Blunt (violin) and Elisabeth Harnik (piano) representing
the latter, Annette Giesriegl (vocals) and Josef Klammer
(drums) the former. Recorded live in Frohnleiten near
Graz, the foursome’s interplay is intricately balanced,
inherently exciting without overt melodrama, often
ending in sudden hushes. So imbricated are the
improvisations that it can be difficult to distinguish
individual instruments. Ranging in mood from quiet
‘chamber jazz’ to extroverted power-rock pulsing, tracks
like “Oxford Street”, “Alpenglow”, “Driver”,
“Aaahdrenalin” and “Wondering” all realize an immensely
satisfying musical gestalt.
:: New York Jazz
Record
BARCODE QUARTET [ALISON BLUNT/ANNETTE
GIESRIEGL/ELISABETH/HARNIK/JOSEF KLAMMER] - You're It
(Slam 288; UK)
Ein
ähnlich dichtes Zusammenspiel wie auf dem Opener
„You’re it!“ erlebt man in der improvisierten
Musik nur selten. Auf den ersten Blick überrascht
daher die knappe Beschreibung auf der CD-Hülle:
Das Barcode Quartet lebe von der Vielfalt der
musikalischen Herangehensweisen, von dem
Aufeinanderprallen unterschiedlicher Charaktere
auf der Bühne. Nach eingehender Beschäftigung
werden jedoch tatsächlich zahlreiche Gegensätze
hörbar, die dem Album seine Spannung verleihen. So
streben auf „Oxford Street“ zwar alle Musiker in
dieselbe Richtung, doch die Geschwindigkeiten, die
gewählten Abzweigungen variieren. Elisabeth
Harniks Piano klammert sich an kleinste motivische
Zellen, Alison Blunts Violine schneidet sich den
Weg frei und Josef Klammer sprintet, stolpert,
trommelt hinterher. Über all dem schwebt Annette
Giesriegls beschwörend experimenteller Gesang.
Hier wird musikalische Individualität gelebt, ohne
das Gesamtergebnis aus den Augen zu verlieren.
Zwar sind nicht alle Stücke dieses
Live-Mitschnitts ähnlich intensiv, und vor allem
die kurzen Verschnaufpausen lassen zündende Ideen
vermissen. Doch das vermag den Gesamteindruck nur
unwesentlich zu trüben, zumal das Quartet am
Schluss des Albums doch noch beweist, dass es auch
die Kunst der ruhigen Töne beherrscht: Das knapp
zehnminütige „Wonder“ klingt wie ein
Konzertabstecher auf den Meeresgrund, wie ein
Freejazz-Konzert in Zeitlupe. Das Konzept des
Openers wird ad absurdum geführt, das straff
gespannte Korsett gelockert und die Töne in die
Weiten des Ozeans entlassen.
eder :: freiStil
BARCODE QUARTET [ALISON BLUNT/ANNETTE
GIESRIEGL/ELISABETH/HARNIK/JOSEF KLAMMER] - You're It
(Slam 288; UK)
Barcode Quartet is of Alison Blunt on violin, Elisabeth
Harnik on piano, Annette Giesriegl on voice and Josef
Klammer on drums & electronics. This quartet
features two Brits (Alison & Elisabeth) and two
musicians from Austria (Annette & Josef) and was
recorded live in Austria in July of 2011. We know of Ms.
Blunt from discs on the Emanem and PSI
labels that she is on while Mr. Klammer has recorded
with Martin Philadelphy. International free improv has a
way of reaching across borders so that musicians who
can't understand the same vocal or written language can
still communicate ideas via music. It would no doubt be
nearly impossible to figure where exactly where any of
these
musicians came from by listening to what they do here.
Not that it really matters. What does matter is the end
results which are spirited, creative and focused into a
group sound. For those of you who have a problem with
improvised vocals (I don't), Ms. Giesriegl is integral
to the quartet's sound, blends strongly and never takes
over. Ms. Blunt plays acoustic violin and like Szilard
Mezei is a gifted improviser who consistently adds
sparks and flourishes to quartet. There are some
sections on this disc where the quartet really take off
and soar, swirling around one another to an ecstatic
conclusion. Truly strong medicine for the tough times
present and ahead.
Bruce Lee Gallanter, ::
Downtown Music Gallery
BARCODE QUARTET / You're It (SLAM Productions)
Improvisation libre avec Alison Blunt (violon),
Elisabeth Harnik (piano), Annette Giesriegl (voix) et
Josef Klammer (batterie, électroniques). Un quatuor à
trois femmes, c'est rare en impro! EtYou're Itest un
fort joli disque. Enregistrement en concert. Des pièces
courtes qui combinent le caractère abstrait de
l'improvisation libre britannique et une légère tendance
jazz aux racines suisso-autrichiennes (dans "Wondering",
en particulier). Les interactions entre violon et piano
sont particulièrement intéressantes.
Free improvisation with Alison Blunt (violin), Elisabeth
Harnik (piano), Annette Giesriegl (voice) and Josef
Klammer (drums, electronics). That's a quartet with
three women, a rarity in free improvisation. And You're
Itis a very fine disc. A live recording. Short pieces
that blend the abstract nature of Biritish free
improvisation and a certain Swiss/Austrian jazz feel
(especially in "Wondering"). The interactions between
violin and piano are particularly interesting.
:: François Couture
BARCODE QUARTET / You're It (SLAM Productions)
Il live, registrato al festival Kunsthaltestelle
Streckhammerhaus in Austria, vede all´opera un quartetto
austro-inglese che fa dell´improvvisazione totale
radicale la sua bandiera. Nonostante l´apparente
osticità della proposta la musica ha un che di caloroso
e vibrante, dato dall´esperienza dei musicisti in questo
settore. Provengono tutti da esperienze di musica
contemporanea, non necessariamente di matrice jazzistica
ma conoscono l´arte dell´improvvisazione e
dell´interazione. La pianista Elisabeth Harnik lancia
dei suoni presi dall´interno del suo strumento e subito
la voce di Annette Giesriegl ed il violino di Alison
Blunt trovano un punto di accordo, un dialogo serrato
con quelle note, entrambe al di fuori di quella che è
l´ortodossia dei loro strumenti. Ed il batterista Josef
Klammer, anche agli effetti elettonici, aggiunge la sua
parte alla bolgia di suoni, a volte sottili ed
invitanti, come il lungo dialogo tra voce e violino di
Fractured. Ci sono i polifonismi di Oxford Street,
insomma non mancano le sorprese ad ogni passo, frutto di
idee comuni con precise tracce per svolgerle. Ad ogni
brano arriva quella sorpresa che solo l´avanguardia sa
dare. A volte scomposta, emozionante, radicale,
appassionata. Ma sempre avanguardia, in grado di
smuovere l´ascoltatore, di creargli dei dubbi sulle sue
certezze musicali. Sull´ultimo brano Wondering c´è
Denovaire, musicista che ha studiato in India gli
strumenti di quella tradizione, ad aggiungere un tocco
di esotico con il suo esraj al già stimolante collage di
suoni del quartetto.
The live recording at the festival Kunsthaltestelle
Streckhammerhaus in Austria, sees the work an
Austro-English quartet that makes total radical
improvisation its flag. Despite the apparent osticità
the proposal that the music has a warm and vibrant, as
the experience of musicians in this area all come from
experiences of contemporary music, not necessarily die
but know the art of jazz improvisation and of
'interaction. The pianist Elisabeth Harnik launches
sounds taken from her instrument and immediately the
voice of Annette Giesriegl and violin of Alison Blunt
find a point of agreement, a close dialogue with those
notes, both outside of what is the orthodoxy of their
instruments. And the drummer Josef Klammer, including
the electronic effects, adds his part in the bedlam of
sounds, at times subtle and inviting, like the long
dialogue between voice and violin Fractured. There are
polifonismi of Oxford Street, in short, no shortage of
surprises at every turn, the result of shared ideas with
precise traces to perform them. Each song comes as no
surprise that only the vanguard can give. Sometimes
broken, exciting, radical, passionate. But more
advanced, able to move the listener, to cause him any
doubts about his musical certainties. On the last song
Wondering there Denovaire, a musician who has studied in
India, the tools of that tradition, adds a touch of
exotic esraj to the already exciting collage of sounds
of the quartet.
:: MUSICZOOM /
Vittorio lo Conte
Annette Giesriegl è una vocalist di origine austriaca
che nel corso della sua carriera ha esplorato ogni
possibile declinazione della voce, compresi studi sui
sovracuti e tecniche vocali utilizzate nella musica
indiana. Attorno alla figura di questa spericolata
improvvisatrice ruota il Barcode Quartet completato
dalla violinista inglese Alison Blunt, studi accademici
alle spalle musica sperimentale come filosofia di vita,
dalla notevole pianista Elisabeth Harnik e dal
batterista Josef Klammer, profondo conoscitore e
studioso delle applicazioni elettroniche allo strumento.
Con quattro personalità del genere, riunite in concerto
nel luglio 2011 in Austria, il risultato non poteva che
essere perlomeno sorprendente. You're It è
improvvisazione radicale allo stato puro, esasperazione
timbrica, corde di violino che vengono (mal)trattate per
provocare straordinarie sonorità, il piano percosso non
solo sui tasti ma anche nella sua pancia, la batteria
improbabile metronomo dal timing impazzito. E quella
voce, che ringhia, sussurra, si accende improvvisa,
diventa incandescente, per virare successivamente verso
tonalità impossibili, acide e gutturali, ataviche e
futuriste.
Ma ci sono un'anima ed un cuore in questo vortice di
suoni e di gesti disarticolati, in apparenza frammentati
e frammentari, senza logica manifesta eppure così a
proprio agio nella loro aleatorietà. Anima e cuore che,
dapprima sotterranei, esplodono definitivamente nel
conclusivo "Wondering," brano nel quale l'amata "India"
irrompe grazie alla presenza dell'esraj (arpa indiana),
e dove la voce di Griesriegl diventa ambrata come miele,
con un retrogusto speziato che sa di incenso.
::
All About Jazz / Italia / di Vincenzo
Roggero
order under: :: SLAM Productions
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