Berlin Heats Up
Berlin Heats Up
Burkhard Beins, Marina Džukljev, Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus, Hypersurface, Quartabê
Burkhard Beins at 60
Percussionist Burkhard Beins turns 60 tomorrow, Tuesday, October 22, and he’s celebrating this milestone with an event at Morphine Raum. The evening also celebrates the release of Eight Duos (Ni Vu Ni Connu), with five of those eight partners on hand to to play solo sets. While Beins belongs to numerous working projects, including Polwechsel, Marmalsana, Sawt Out, and Splitter Orchestra, he’s always been active in the sort of ad hoc collaborations that define the life of an improvising musician, so the eight duets recorded for the album nicely reflect that aspect of his practice in Berlin, where all of the participants live. But in a more profound sense, the triple album does a fantastic job at painting a rather expansive portrait of his overlapping sound worlds. That’s not to say that every facet of his work is represented here, but the kind of sounds he makes are covered in wildly divergent contexts across these six sides of vinyl.
Few individuals have expanded on the sort of lowercase sound aesthetic that Beins himself helped forge decades ago, transforming and developing countless techniques into new worlds on sonic inquiry. Each duo draws out different sides of his work, whether than involves him turning to electronics or even electric bass, or using very reduced tools, like the amplified cymbal and bass drum he limits himself to on “Expansion,” the opening duet with Andrea Neumann—using her “inside piano” device and mixing board. While the twenty-minute piece is marked by a wide variety of frictive and metallic sounds, it would be hard to consider that any sort of limitations were actually imposed because the evolving sprawl is so rich, varied, and fluid. He reunites with guitarist Michael Renkel, his partner in the duo Activity Center, on “Extraction,” for which they are both credited with percussion and strings. As one quickly comes to realize, abrasion is more common than striking when it comes to Beins, and that’s certainly the case on this piece, which blends tinkling tones and coarsely bowed strings of some sort, to say nothing of wobbly music box tones and berimbau-like twangs that emerge later.
One of the most surprising entries is “Excursion,” the duet with pianist Quentin Tolimieri, in which Beins plays a more conventional drum kit. At the outset the keyboardist carves out a probing strain of post-bop, abstracting familiar cadences and progressions from the 1950s, with Beins delivering a stutter kind of energy, replacing the sizzling cymbal swells of Sunny Murray with irregularly surging tom patterns to suggest a similar sensation. Halfway through Tomimieri snaps into a more familiar pose—the hyper minimalism of his brilliant 2022 album Monochromes (Elsewhere)—banging away at a single dissonant chord relentlessly until it starts wreaking havoc on our perception, as the hammering sound becomes downright psychedelic. Beins more or less maintains the same tack he started with, with stands in starker relief against the rapidly cycling piano. Eventually Tolimieri dissolves that into a sudden left-handed mass of thunderous bass, at which Beins does finally pull back in elegant contrast, shaping a splatter of precise cymbal play. You can hear it below. On “Unleash” Beins opts for analog synthesizer and samples, bringing in field recordings into a shifting morass of sound captured and sculpted by Andrea Ermke. The sounds are less tactile and physically weighted, but the sophisticated sensibility inherent in their deployment and arrangement certainly parallels what he does with percussive objects.
Duos with trumpeter Axel Dörner, pianist Anaïs Tuerlinckx, and sound artist Marta Zapparoli are no less compelling, each encounter eliciting a specific aesthetic and gestural/textural response, but I’m especially drawn to the collaboration with Tony Elieh. He and Beins play together in the trio Marmalsana, but they have also been working as a duo called Zone Null, and based on the strength of “Transformation” I look forward to hearing more. They both enhance and stretch electric basses with various electronics, beginning with splotches of distorted noises colliding with a twangy, meandering line that builds out a structure in real time. But as the lengthy piece unfolds the instrumental provenance frequently evaporates in a compelling swirl of shimmering electronic tones, from the most glassy and high pitched crackling to machine like vibrations residing in the lower end of the spectrum, usually with multiple sound streams bouncing around. Eventually a twitchy rhythm emerges, and one of the musicians moves back to bass, locking into a taut sort of dry funk that puts me in the mind of Radian—the superb Austrian trio whose drummer, Martin Brandlmayr, works with Beins in Polwechsel—before more abstract sound sculpting swerves to a satisfying conclusion.
For Tuesday’s concert Beins won’t actually perform, instead will play the new album, but Zapparoli, Elieh, Ermke, and Tolimieri will play solo sets, and Dörner will play a duo with fellow trumpeter Carina Khorkhordina. Beins will continue marking his 60th year with a double bill at Ausland, on Saturday, October 26, with a brand new ensemble, the not-so-coyly named the 60-Sextet (with Andrea Neumann, Chris Abrahams, Josten Myburgh, Matt Davis, and Tizia Zimmermann), and one of his oldest projects, Trio Sowari with Bertrand Denzler and Phil Durrant. It’s quite a way to (almost) bookend a week.
Serb Keyboardist Marina Džukljev Returns to Berlin
Since arriving in Berlin back in 2019 I have noticed regular appearances in town by the Serbian pianist Marina Džukljev. Unfortunately, despite her work in ensembles led by violist Szilard Mezei, I had previously failed to pay deserved attention to her work until very recently, just in time for another visit here this week. As an improviser she’s remarkably versatile, working with a wide array of collaborators from across the stylistic spectrum. She moves easily between approaches, enfolding ideas from jazz, contemporary, and experimental music in her playing, with a commitment to exploring sound for its own sake within an ensemble-oriented sensibility. Beginning Wednesday night, October 23, when she plays with Toronto saxophonist Karen Ng and Berlin drummer Marcello Busato at Hosek Contemporary, Džukljev will perform five consecutive evenings in different groupings, a varied approach reflected nicely by the disparate recordings she’s released over the last few years.
Just last week the pianist released Live in Stockholm, a stark solo recording made in 2018, where over the course of 32 minutes she produces a whirlwind of motion and texture, beginning from gamelan like preparations that recall some of Magda Mayas’ work, and moving seamlessly into more pianistic investigations, as muted, percussive tones cascade amongst flurries of more conventional tones. The performance is in constant flux, ebbing and flowing in terms of energy and density, with particular attention paid to the instrument’s lower register, from which she produces a thrumming intensity, especially when there are a couple of simultaneous patterns unfolding on the left side of the keyboard. As the work unfolds she moves down the keyboard, crafting rapidly spinning arpeggios that convey an absorbing centrifugal pull. Džukljev transmits an instinctive compositional logic, following spontaneous threads at every turn, opening up new tangents here, and pivoting from other gambits quickly when they don’t seem to engage her. While the process is spontaneous, it’s clear that she has banked a load of ideas and interests, accessed on the fly but capable of generating seriously magnetic narrative arcs. You can check out the entire performance below.
On Saturday, October 26 the pianist will play as part of a quartet at Galiläakirche with Ute Wasserman on vocals, Raed Yassin on electronics, and Michael Thieke on clarinet. In August she and Thieke released a terrific duo album titled Motionless Pool (Scatter Archive) that focuses on reduced materials and deftly integrated lines. The pianist is willing to stick with a single idea over an extended period, such as on the opening piece “Pockets of Silence,” where she peppers terse phrases subtly haloed by overtones and spiked with sparse prepared string notes, giving Thieke a rich foundation for his sere, restrained, gently blown tones, which routinely play with strident harmonic effects, including some swells of feedback-like upper register cries. The following piece, “The Shadows and Ghosts We Mistook for Her,” delivers a more abraded experience, with the clarinetist offering percussive slaps, aerated harmonics, and gnarled strands of terse notes while the pianist roots around inside her instrument, scraping, rubbing, and plucking strings in a constantly morphing swirl. The piece feels like a sonification of air turbulence—check it out below. All seven pieces delve into contrasting colors, motions, and textures arranged with architectural grace, each excursion marked by delicious internal tensions.
Elsewhere Džukljev reveals imaginative machinations on church organ in a duo recording with Austrian sound artist and cellist Noid (aka Arnold Haberl) on the 2023 album Continents (Inexhaustible Editions), where the former sticks largely to fluctuating drones that seem on the brink of phasing out in dying gasps of air, while the latter unleashes beautifully striated patterns and lines, sometimes producing ominous slabs of crushing harmony. Although it’s a bit older, I was instantly hooked by Štrudel, Džukljev’s 2021 duo album with Austrian turntablist Dieb13 in which the pair stubbornly stick to low impact, sustained rustling sounds—reduced shudders and plunks from the pianist and industrial-like hums from the turntablist—that morph and develop microscopically, yielding a stunning gentle but evocative listening experience, although it does gain energy and grit as it proceeds. You can hear it below. See the recommended shows for details on all of Džukljev’s performances this week.
Quick Hits on a Few of This Week’s Performances
Ohrenschmaus, the Berlin-based trio led by Canadian trumpeter Lina Allemano with drummer Michael Griener and bass guitarist Dan Peter Sundland, celebrates the release of its second album Flip Side (Lumo), with a performance at the Panda Theater on Wednesday, October 23. In contrast to the group’s 2020 debut Rats and Mice, the new recording feels more open and exploratory, a quality enhanced by the participation of Andrea Parkins on several tracks, contributing accordion, object, and electronics; she’ll also join the trio for the concert. The three pieces featuring Parkins are all improvised works, revealing a different side of the trio’s music: less propulsive and less melody-driven, with a new emphasis on quicksilver interplay, gesture, and pure sound. Parkins injects elusive squiggles, both from her squeezebox and electronics, but the core trio has no problem stirring up the action on its own. Its years of playing together has allowed Ohrenschmaus to pivot nicely to more abstract terrain. Even some of the material that’s composed feels much looser; on the trumpeter’s tune “Signal,” which you can hear below, her smoldering melodic lines ride over a wonderfully knotty groove that teeters to-and-fro, with Sundland pulsing irregularly as it threads Griener’s halting propulsion.
I’ve only had time to listen to Vienna (Small Forms), the latest release from the New York improvising trio Hypersurface, a couple of times, but consider me intrigued. The group includes the Italian percussionist Carlo Costa, who has been exploring a kind of friction-driven sound for years and through many different projects including Earth Tones, Natura Morta, and any number of smaller, ad hoc partnerships. In this aptly named trio he’s one of three musicians who creates different world of sound by rubbing instruments and objects. Guitarist Drew Wesely and cellist Lester St. Louis join complement that process, forging a unified mass of sustained long tones regularly interrupted by percussive punctuations and tangled single string gestures. The three-movement work was recorded live in Vienna last year, and it reveals a trio with a fully developed sensibility, proffering a tactile thrum wandering through peaks and valleys without surrendering a jagged yet fluid collective enterprise that seems to treat sound like states of matter: gas, liquid, vapor, and solid. The trio rolls through town for a performance at Sowieso on Saturday, October 26, where they will be joined by guest trumpeter Brad Henkel. Below you can hear the opening section of Vienna.
Earlier this summer I wrote about the latest release by the wonderful Brazilian quartet Quartabê, who continued to essay and transform the music of the great samba composer Dorival Caymmi with its EP Repescagem, recently issued on vinyl by the German label Fun in the Church. Since I already wrote about how much I liked the release I’ll simply point you here rather than say it all over again. The group returns to Berlin in another fine concert organized by Marie Blobel’s Jazzexzess series, sharing the bill with Peter Van Huffel’s Callisto on Saturday, October 26 at House of Music. It is worth noting that reedist Felipe Nader will be subbing for clarinetist Joana Queiroz on this tour, as the latter is currently playing in Caetano Veloso.
Recommended Shows in Berlin This Week
October 22: Burkhard Beins, percussion, with Andrea Ermke, mini-discs, samples, Axel Dörner, trumpet, Quentin Tolimieri, grand piano, Carina Khorkhordina, trumpet, Tony Elieh, acoustic bass-guitar, and Marta Zapparoli, antennaes, treatments, 8:30 PM, Morphine Raum, Köpenicker Straße 147, 10997 Berlin (Hinterhof 1. Etage)
October 22: Fanfare Ciocarlia, 8 PM, SO36, Oranienstraße 190, 10999 Berlin
October 23: Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus (Lina Allemano, trumpet, Dan Peter Sundland, electric bass, and Michael Griener, drums), with guest Andrea Parkins, accordion, objects and electronics, 8 PM, Panda Theater, Knaackstraße 97 (i.d. Kulturbrauerei, Gebäude 8) 10435
October 23: Karen Ng, alto saxophone, Marina Džukljev, piano, and Marcello Busato, drums; Hada Benedito, piano, spinet, Liz Allbee, electro-acoustic trumpet, Kellen Mills, electric bass, 7:30 PM, Hošek Contemporary, Motor Ship HEIMATLAND, close to Fischerinsel 3, 10179 Berlin
October 23: Ensemble Mosaik play Jack Sheen’s Ceremony Container (2023/24), and Ricardo Eizirik’s organize/dissolve (2023/24), 8 PM, Betonhalle, Silent Green, Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin
October 24: Joe Hertenstein Trio (Joe Hertenstein, drums, Michael Moore, clarinet, alto saxophone, and Michael Formanek, double bass), with Ray Anderson, trombone, 8 PM, Institut Français Berlin, Kurfürstendamm 211, 10719 Berlin
October 24: The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, 8 PM, Lido, Cuvrystraße 7, 10997 Berlin
October 24: Carl Stone, electronics; Carl Stone, electronics, and Liz Allbee, trumpet, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin
October 24: Marina Džukljev, piano, and Raed Yassin, electronics, 8:30 PM, Morphine Raum, Köpenicker Straße 147, 10997 Berlin (Hinterhof 1. Etage)
October 24: Joshua Abrams, double bass, Tony Buck, drums, Axel Dörner, trumpet, Jessie Marino, violin, Mauricio Takara, percussion, and Havard Wiik, piano, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
October 25: Anthony Pateras, piano, electronics, and Anthony Burr, clarinet, electronics, solos and duos, 8:30 PM, KM28, Karl Marx Straße 28, 12043 Berlin
October 25: Karen Ng, saxophone, Marina Džukljev, piano, Joel Grip, double bass, and Devin Gray, drums, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
October 25: Felicity Mangan; Hanna Hartman; Matthias Koole; Peter Cusack, 9 PM, Ausland, Lychener Str. 60, 10437 Berlin
October 26: Marina Džukljev Quartet (Marina Džukljev, piano, Ute Wassermann, vocals, Michael Thieke, clarinet, and Raed Yassin, electronics), 8 PM, Jugend[widerstands]museum Galiläakirche, Rigaer Str. 9/10, 10247 Berlin
October 26: Callisto (Peter Van Huffel, baritone saxophone, electronics, Lina Allemano, trumpet, Antonis Anissegos, piano, electronics, and Devin Gray, drums); Quartabê (Maria Beraldo, clarinet, bass clarinet, Felipe Nader, baritone and alto saxophones, Mariá Portugal, drums, and Chicão, keyboards), 8:30 PM, House of Music, Revaler Str. 99, 10245 Berlin
October 26: Hypersurface (Drew Wesely, guitar, Lester St. Louis, cello, and Carlo Costa, percussion) with guest Brad Henkel, trumpet, 8:30 PM, Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
October 26: Burkhard Beins 60-Sextet (Andrea Neumann, inside piano, Burkhard Beins, percussion, Chris Abrahams, dx7, Josten Myburgh, saxophone, Matt Davis, trumpet, Tizia Zimmermann, accordion); Trio Sowari (Phil Durrant, modular synth, computer, Bertrand Denzler, tenor saxophone, Burkhard Beins, percussion, objects), 9 PM, Ausland, Lychener Str. 60, 10437 Berlin
October 27: Jon Raskin, alto saxophone, Magda Mayas, piano, and Tony Buck, drums, 8:30 PM, Morphine Raum, Köpenicker Straße 147, 10997 Berlin (Hinterhof 1. Etage)
October 27: Marina Džukljev, piano, Christian Weber, double bass, and Michael Griener, drums, 8:30 PM, Kühlspot Social Club, Lehderstrasse 74-79, 13086 Berlin
October 28: Conny Bauer, trombone, and Jon Raskin, alto saxophone, 8 PM, Terzo Mondo, Grolmanstraße 28, 10623 Berlin