gal - relisten (Intransitive Recordings, USA, 2001)

 

 

 

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Gal relisten

 

Released on Intransitive Recordings, USA, October 2001

Gal's third full length CD release.
...
'Top 10 of 2001' (Dan Warburton, The Wire, UK )
...

The work of Austrian sound artist Bernhard Gal is concerned with the discovery (as opposed to the imposition) of musical structures within the nuances of everyday life. The stammering in the spaces of spoken language, the ubiquitous noise of urban environments, the steady stream of buzzes and whirrs that are a byproduct of mass transportation, all become subjects examined under Gal's extraordinarily precise microscope. He explores ideas about time and language, extrapolating and enlarging and repeating the often overlooked details and minutiae until their inherent sonic beauty supersedes their typical mundane habitat.

Following last year's critically acclaimed 'Defragmentation/Blue' CD (Plate Lunch, GER), Relisten is Gal's first domestic US album. Each of the six tracks is its own self-contained piece, spurred by some personal association to the composer. However, taken all together, one can travel by sound from New York City (where Gal spent a year's residency at the Leo Baeck Institute) to the subways of Vienna and beyond. The piece lv, nv uses adaptive filters to uncover hidden musical elements always present at a Vegas casino. Another, Tong-hua yie-shi could be described as real-time musique concrete, created by walking through a Taiwanese night market equipped with a stereo microphone, DAT, and headphones.

'Relisten operates between the world's soundscapes and their detachment from context', says Gal. 'The personal discovery of music within nature as well as within the routines of everyday life keeps fascinating me. Sometimes I return to a certain place only to record its sound.'

Howard Stelzer (Intransitive Recordings, Boston)



Listen to audio excerpts (opens audio player)
       

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gal relisten (CD, Intransitive Recordings, 2001)  
                 
  #1

It's like..

05.05

mp3 . (0.47)

 
gal - relisten
#2

bee bee

14.51

mp3 ..(1.00)

#3

57A

07.12  
  #4

lv, nv

12.44 mp3 . (2.13)  
  #5

Tong-hua yie-shi

05.28

 
  #6

68th Street

14.01 real audio .(1.00)  
     
  total time: 59.30  
               
    all music by bernhard gal, except track #1 by gal and mandy morrison
   
Listen to audio excerpts (opens audio player)
     
    thanks to: christian prasser, howard stelzer, jean-paul maton, kyra stratmann, mandy morrison, xenia xien-yue hu, yumi kori
    this record is dedicated to the memory of norbert schilling.  
           

   
    supported by ske-fonds, austria. SKE-Fonds




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gal relisten

press reviews
 
 
   

(...) Austrian Bernhard Gal's "Relisten" is more immediately accessible. "It's like", a reworking of a "voice sculpture" from 1998 featuring Mandy Morrison, takes those redundant speech fragments that litter everyday discourse ("like..", "well..", "you know..") and overlays them simply but effectively to weave a rich canonic tapestry. Emerging almost imperceptibly from the ensuing silence, "bee bee" sculpts 14'51" of distant traffic sounds sourced from recordings made on the Brooklyn Bridge into a structure as impressive and grandiose as the venerable bridge itself, after which "57A" is a claustrophobic journey into the underworld of the Viennese public transport system, whose insistent rattles and clanging bells are intercut with barking guard dogs and slamming doors. Gal crafts his sound material with deadly precision, using repetition to great effect: "lv, nv" uses sounds recorded in a Las Vegas casino, but the clanging din of the gaming rooms is all but entirely filtered out, leaving only an eerie harmonic shell sporadically peppered with tiny avalanches of slot machine jackpots. It's as achingly beautiful as the high Nevada desert that surrounds the mad phantom city. "Tong-hua yie-shi" is nothing more than an unedited (almost) stroll through a Taiwanese street market at night, a hilarious mish-mash of tinny beatboxes blasting out the crappiest pop pap imaginable, before we return to the dull, threatening acoustics of the New York subway in the closing "68th Street". It's quite a journey. "Relisten" indeed you will.

Dan Warburton (The Wire, UK)

'Relisten' is one of Dan Warburton's selections for the 10 RECORDS OF 2001 (The Wire, UK )

 
   

Sound art and conceptual sound work from radio art to field recordings and soundscapes have always intrigued me. At their best, they guide me through a topology of the real world in sound, perhaps modified in subtle ways to re-code my expectations of the particular situation; at their brilliant moments, the move from the real to the imaginary and allow me to conjure visions of forms and colours or spectacular alien worlds from the sounds drifting through my ears. Bernhard Gal's Relisten is every bit a complex and detailed work of sound art that not only embraces some of the best the "genre" has to offer, but also glides through a variety of projects that explores the versatility of the artist. The first piece, "It's like…", explores the idioms of American language: "It's like," "Stuff, "Um…", etc. While perhaps not the best piece to begin the album with-it is mildly irritating for a North American English speaker; Gal is from Vienna and so the language is alien to him in that respect-it pursues its objective without overextending its point. At 5 minutes, it is a fascinating look at all the little things we are constantly saying that mean absolutely nothing at all. The next track, "bee bee," is processed from field recordings of the Brooklyn Bridge. Slowly rising out of silence and into the audible, the processed bridge hum is overlaid atop itself to bring out sonic resonances that take on the formation of swarming bees. The effect is sublime and restrained, allowing the listener to ingest the soundscape over a course of 15 minutes and preparing the ears for the sharp punctuations of train sounds and bells that begin the next piece, "57A," which moves in and out of abstract interpretation through the staccato of the train sounds itself. But abstraction is where the next piece goes: "lv, nv" investigates the harmonics found in processing field sound through what appears to be a granular generator. Although pleasant to listen to as it explores the curves of the harmony, the 12 minute length of the piece calls for a deeply meditative listen, and I cannot help but wonder if Gal simply processed the entire file through Audiomulch or Max/MSP, playing with a few filter and resonance cut-offs. At times it sounds that way, and to the studio-ear, it lacks somewhat in originality. As if to reveal what is behind most of the work-a reminder of the sounds found in the real-"Tong-hua yia-shi" is a raw field recording from a Taiwanese market, an inquisitive wander through a busy Canto-Pop infused confusion of what is to me a variety of hectic alien languages. The recording is high-quality, and Gal seems to be sliding about the space, placing his mic in the right spots to give a real taste of the heat, the dripping meat and slippery sidewalks, the music and cheap Hello Kitty toys. "68th Street" is the last piece and, like "bee bee," combines the best elements of traditional "soundwalks" (a la Hildegard Westerkamp) with contemporary sound processing. Dark thunks and echoing scratches lightly punctuate wavering synthetic tones and hums, giving way to morphed and indistinguishable voices and background chatter, high frequencies contemplating the destruction of low demonic rumbles, sculpting less a topology of the space-although that can be imagined in the title-than the emotion of the street and the interpretation of that violence into sound: the overwhelming presence of the city, the people, masses of people, the cars and the pollution, busy bees, all working, the city humming, producing, producing…

Tobias V. (Incursion, Canada)

   

On Relisten, Viennese sound artist Bernhard Gal unearths the underlying musical structures within the sounds of everyday life. To create the six pieces on this disc, Gal looked for the hidden patterns in recordings of American idiomatic speech, traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, a Las Vegas casino, urban transport and a busy market. In less skilled hands, this could easily be rather pedestrian fare, but Gal frames these six pieces with amazing acuity. With the exception of "Tong-hua yie-shi," which is a real-time recording of a walk through a Taiwanese street market, Gal uses filters and various other techniques to focus on or heighten particular musical elements (be they sounds or patterns) within the raw recordings. On the opening piece, "It's like.," Gal breaks up a female voice repeating oft used space-filling phrases of American English (e.g. It's like., you know, well, why?). The result (all stutter and filler) is both jarringly funny and embarrassingly familiar. With the aptly named "bee bee" the relentless hum of traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge is transformed into a labyrinthine hive of buzzes and drones. One of the most disconcerting pieces is "lv, nv" in which Gal discovers haunting glasslike tones within the din of money and slot machines in Las Vegas. Overall a subtle and intriguing release. Highly recommended.

Susanna Bolle (Weekly Dig, USA)

   
 

Sprachklangskulpturen aus 15 verschiedenen Idiomen zwischen Baskisch und Urdu, mit der Ambivalenz von semantischer und rein klanglicher Wahrnehmung spielend: Diese auf der CD "Bestimmung New York" (Durian) versammelten sonischen Experimentgebilde verschafften dem Wiener Komponisten und Elektroakustiker Bernhard Gál alias Gal anno 1999 schlagartig Aufmerksamkeit.

Nach Defragmentation/blue (2000) knüpft er in seiner jüngsten Veröffentlichung "Relisten" anfangs erneut an jene Praxis der Sprach-Analyse an, diesmal jedoch in anderem Kontext: Gals Reise geht in die Tiefen des eigenen Gedächtnisses, wo Erinnerungen an bestimmte akustische Alttagssituationen aus aller Welt mittlerweile ei eigendynamisches Leben entwickelt haben. Die digitale mit der biologisch gespeicherten Version in ihren wesentlichen Charakteristika durch entsprechende Bearbeitung zu resynchronisieren, war folglich der spannende Konzeptansatz jener CD:

So hüllen den Hörer plötzlich die durch diverse Filter geschickten Sounds der Brooklyn Bridge wie ein gewaltiger, dunkel brummender Hummelschwarm-Drone ein. Oder er taucht in eine filigrane Collage rund um das schwebungsgleiche Flirren der Ticketmaschinen der New Yorker U-Bahnen zur Hauptverkehrszeit ein. Ein Spaziergang durch einen nächtlichen Markt in Taipeh, von vorüberziehenden, in ihrem akustischen (Pop-Musik) Output überlappenden Verkaufsständen und Buden geprägt, wird in Echtzeit wiedergegeben, die Klänge der Spielautomaten in Las Vegas' Casinos hingegen zu glöckchenartig hellen, wie im Drogenrausch zerfließenden Sound-Konturen zerdehnt. Auch die Eigengeräusche der Wiener Straßen- und U-Bahnen werden auf ihre akustischen Charakteristika hin untersucht, das Zischen der pneumatischen Türen zu maschinengleich stampfenden, schnaufenden Rhythmus-Kontinuen verarbeitet.

Gal dringt tief in Struktur und Wesen der jeweiligen klanglichen Situation ein, lässt sich Zeit, diese wirken zu lassen, und formt so Tracks von zuweilen epischer Dauer (bis zu 15 Minuten), die ein seltsames Erlebnis zwischen Déjà-Vu und Fremdheit vermitteln. Es ist Musik, die Bilder provoziert, und die den Rezipienten zuweilen näher an bestimmte Orte und Situationen heranführt, als dies im Zuge touristischer Flüchtigkeit möglich wäre.

Andreas Felber (Concerto, Austria)

   

Gal is a creator of soundscapes, who presents a number of relatively straight and manipulated works here. I had some difficulty integrating the first track, so I will hold back my discussion of it for the moment, as the other 5 tracks make a nice suite. 'bee bee' builds slowly with distant hornsounds, wind whooshes and a drilling gradually emerge. Within a couple of minutes a complex layering of sounds has developed, a subtle chinging within it. Over its 14 minutes it adds another rumbling like a plane plus some bowing strings, shifts through the soundspace, and incrementally increases volume (with some slight dips) to develop into a massive buzzing assault like a cross between the Grand Prix and a swarm of flies, resonating here and there, and then fades away. The BB is the Brooklyn Bridge, and this is a manipulated recording of the 'tidal flow of traffic'.

We enter public transport in Vienna on '57A' which opens with loops of a relentless mechanical feel, turntables and doors and clangings moving in and out of phase, a middle section where we hear the German announcements, money dropping, bonging bells and the ptush of airdoors, then the cycling clatter returns for the third phase. All edited together to create a musical flow. Music is prominent in 'lv, nv' which was recorded in Las Vegas: there is a beautiful base of somehow processed sounds, which sounds like a glass harmonica - melancholy, sweet and verging on the melodic it runs through the whole piece (shifting through variations), sounding at times like a calliope. Over this there are small eruptions of realtime sounds: people talking, tannoy announcements, clattering of payouts: somehow Gal has found beauty in the heart of kitsch!

Recorded in real time, 'Tong-hua yie-shi' is a walk through Taiwan, capturing the hustle and talking of people around him, and selecting times to record to capture snatches of songs (western, cheesy, asian) and announcements coming from shops, smoothly edited to create an easy flow. Finally, another public transport excursion at '68th street' recording the passenger barriers and ticket machines: dronal tones and cycling bangings open it out, clattering coins follow, and the tones become piercing. The ambience drops down for announcements in the middle, though the tones remain, and we also hear traveller talking and noise as a deeper rumble. Lower tones enter, the clattering rebuilds and reaches a crescendo before fading to the end.

Those five pieces make a fascinating meditation on public spaces. The first track sits uneasily - 'It's like' is a vocal piece where samples of a woman talking and pausing 'its like …' or 'I mean…' are layered, cut and looped. In the central section an elongated 'aaaaaaa' (either someone saying it, or a phoneme slowed down) and a waving 'woooo' with punctuating hums swirl before being rejoined by the voice (of Mandy Morrison). It's a witty and entertaining piece, but seems to point in a different direction (which isn't bad, but may have been placed better as a coda with an extended pause before it). But a minor quibble in a release that contains 6 strong soundworks.

Jeremy Keens (Ampersand, Australia)

   

This is my first introduction to the work of Gal, and it is a pleasure. The first track of the disc is a voice only piece, in which a female voice is cut up, so that mainly the in between remarks like 'yeah', 'well', 'what' and so on are left. At some point there is a 'hmmm' and then other 'hmmms' are added into an almost drony piece. A pretty humorous piece as well. Track two is a long drony piece of sounds in a large space with a lot of overtones. The sounds themselves could originate from a huge swarm of killer wasps or something. The track evolves slowly but tension is strong throughout. The third piece seems to be a study in musique concrete, using different train sounds and putting them in a more or less rigid structure, like the beat of the train itself. Some treatments are added. Track four is the most 'musical' yet: high melodic synth (?) tones form the basis for a piece that also features some field recordings. But it could also be the case that the high tones are originating from those field recordings through very heavy filtering. Well, who will tell? I must add that this track failed to keep my attention for the whole 13 minutes, although the end is very well done. Next up are field recordings from what sounds like big city in Asia. Or is this a mix maybe? Listening to the tracks before this wouldn't surprise me.

I think this is the strength of this album: it undermines the obvious and brings to light more or less hidden structures and music in everyday life. Well done. Track six is pretty difficult to describe, but let me put it this way: someone seems to run around with metal stuff, while a couple of organ keys got stuck. Added later are other field recordings. A very good track with an energetic character, but again a little long for my taste. As a whole this is a very varied CD with a lot of angles, but all of them taken well care of. Recommended.

Roel Meelkop (Vital Weekly, NL)

   

(..) focuses on revealing the inner beauty of selected field recordings. The album opens with 'It¹s Like...', a collage of American idioms. Very different from everything that follows, this prologue takes its meaning from its title, which could be used to describe any of the other tracks. It¹s like hundreds of bees, someone could say about Bee Bee, a clever piece using the humming of the Brooklyn Bridge as sound source. Gal applies Francisco Lopez's technique of starting from near-silence and building up to a climactic roar, letting the sounds gain meaning with decibels. Only during the last quarter do the 'bees' start to sound like cars. Transportation is also at the heart of '57A' (public transportation in Vienna) and '68th Street' (a subway station in New York City). Both works are strong examples of evocative musique concrète, restructured soundscapes. More enigmatic, 'lv, nv' was made using heavily-treated money and slot machine sounds. The aerial events heard sound synthetic (one thinks of Sergio Barroso's music). Gal slips in a few seconds of field recording from a casino to give the listener a key. 'Tong-hua yie-shi' is an untreated stereo field recording, a walk in a Taiwanese market by night -- one take, untreated. It offers a puzzling shifting landscape where the human factor is strong. (..) shows Gal's commanding talent for sound art. Recommended.


Francois Couture (All-Music Guide, USA)

 
   
 

Österreichischer Lauschangriff


Eine Busreise mit dem 57A in Wien, eine U-Bahn-Station in New York und ein Markt in Taiwan - all das findet sich auf der neuen CD "Relisten" des jungen österreichischen Komponisten Bernhard Gal.

Die neue CD von Bernhard Gal ist eine streng reduzierte Bestandsaufnahme der Atmosphäre verschiedener Städte und des persönlichen Erlebens des jungen Komponisten an eben diesen Orten. Dabei verschmelzen die originalen Field Recordings mit elektronischen Manipulationen und Stimmen und schicken den Hörer somit auf eine Reise, in der sich Alltag und Phantasie unmerklich vermischen. "Relisten" ist der Titel der neuen CD von Bernhard Gal und der Name ist dabei gleich Programm: Gal begann in den Jahren 1998-99 Field Recordings an ausgewählten Orten, zu denen er eine besondere Beziehung hatte, aufzunehmen, um ihre spezifische Atmosphäre einzufangen und später reproduzieren zu können. Dabei mußte er allerdings feststellen, daß der Soundtrack zu diesen Locations auf seinen Aufnahmen oft anders klang als in seiner persönlichen Erinnerung. Das erneute Hören eröffnete dem jungen Komponisten ein neues Klangerlebnis, und ebendieses wird mit dem Titel "Relisten" beschrieben.

Bernhard Gal wurde 1971 in Wien geboren und studierte an der Universität Musikwissenschaften. Seit kurzer Zeit beschäftigt er sich intensiv mit den Möglichkeiten der Klanginstallation - jüngstes Beispiel ist seine Vertonung einiger Gedichte des schizophrenen Schweizer Künstlers Adolf Wölfli im Rahmen des heurigen Wien Modern-Festivals. "Relisten" ist seine dritte CD-Veröffentlichung und erscheint in den Vereinigten Staaten, wo Gal auch nach seinem Studium ein Jahr lang gelebt hat. Er selbst beschreibt die Stücke des neuen Werks als seine persönliche Entdeckung der Musik in der Natur und dem alltäglichen Leben und den von Menschen geschaffenen Umwelten. Er kehre regelmäßig an gewisse Orte zurück, nur um ihrem Klang zu lauschen und ihn später aufzunehmen, sagt Gal im Booklet der neuen CD.

So findet sich auf "Relisten" beispielsweise ein Stück mit dem Namen "Bee Bee", das als "Meditation auf den städtischen Verkehr, basierend auf dem Summen der Brooklyn Bridge" untertitelt ist. Das Resultat ist eine erstaunlich vielschichtige Komposition, dominiert vom Rauschen der Autos, aus dem allerdings immer wieder einzelne Klänge unerwartet und deutlich hervortreten. Auf "57A" begibt sich der Hörer auf eine Rundreise durch Wien mit Hilfe der öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel. Die Geräusche der U-Bahnen und Busse erinnern dabei exakt an eine wunderbare Sequenz aus Tarkowskijs Film "Stalker", in der zwei Männer eine Draisine kapern und auf dieser in eine gesperrte Zone der russischen Wildnis eindringen. Dabei verändert sich der ursprüngliche Klang der Räder auf den Schienen immer mehr in einen fast hypnotischen Rhythmus - bei Gals Komposition kommen noch das Öffnen und Schließen von U-Bahn-Türen, die Gespräche der Fahrgäste und sogar die automatische Stationsansage der Züge dazu - langsam werden sie alle im Verlauf der Nummer elektronisch verändert und dabei abstrahiert und die Fahrt wird immer mehr zu einem Trip durch eine Wiener Parallelwelt.

"Tong-Hua Yie-Shi" ist ein Spaziergang durch einen taiwanesischen Markt, bei dem Ausschnitte von aktuellen Pophits ein- und ausfaden, ein anderer Track basiert auf den Sounds von Spielautomaten und einem Casino in Las Vegas. Das schönste Stück ist die Schlußnummer "68th Street", aufgenommen in ebendieser U-Bahn-Station in New York. Während der Stoßzeit wurden die verschiedenen Ursprungs-Klänge von Passanten erzeugt (durch Entwerten von Fahrscheinen, durch Schritte oder durch das Einfahren der Züge) und von Gal anschließend verfremdet und neu arrangiert. Das Resultat erinnert an Asmus Tietchens oder Robert Ashley, mit dem Bernhard Gal auch noch seine Vorliebe für den Einsatz von Sprache verbindet. Seine Field Recordings nehmen sich Zeit und entwickeln sich langsam - dies unterscheidet sie von wesensverwandten Kompositionen eines Andrew McKenzie, besser bekannt als The Hafler Trio.

Alles in allem ist "Relisten" ein Werk, das - ganz im Sinne des Komponisten - aufzeigt, wie melodisch und musikalisch unser Alltag klingt, wenn man es nur bemerkt. Damit wirft es wieder einmal die alte Frage nach der Definition und Abgrenzung von Musik gegenüber dem Geräusch auf, doch diese muß und kann nur jeder für sich selbst beantworten.

Walter Robotka (Evolver, Austria)

   

(..) In the same mood as well is the gal "relisten" cd too. In the beginning being rather tired the first time I listened to it must admit that didn't gave a good listen, the 2nd time though was really impressed! "defragmentation/blue" that was out a year or so ago on plate lunch had done a great impression to me and was curious enough to listen to his new one that really by the time I had it carefully listened gone crazy, as the guy shows a real inventive way of using recordings, even field recordings he uses are used in a way that don't become dull & pathetic but on the contrary make you listen every second of this cd w/ severe enthusiasm! Check it out! especially if you're into field recordings or manipulated field recordings genre then is one of the most recommended cds I've came across for long time!

Nicolas (Absurd Magazine, Greece)

 
   
 


Another limited-edition release from Intransitive Recordings, this is a collection of six pieces by Viennese artist Bernhard Gal, each created from Gal's own field recordings. The pieces are all pretty varied, and with the exception of the first piece, "It's Like...," an irritating pastiche of American idiom and slang voiced by Mandy Morrison, they are all highly intriguing listens. Two of the pieces are based around the sounds of public transportation: "57A" layers sounds of a train and a conductor in Vienna, and "68th Street" layers turnstiles and subway station sounds from New York. In both of these pieces, Gal processes the recordings just enough to make it apparent that he's manipulating them, without covering up the sounds themselves. An unintrusive high pitched drone pervades through "68th Street," giving it an eerieness that might be familiar to some MTA riders.

"Tong-hua Yie-shi" is the only non-manipulated piece on the disc, a straight field recording that Gal made walking through a Taiwanese market. There are an incredible number of stereos blaring in the market, but Gal's mic is sufficiently directional that as he walks, he picks up each song, from the Backstreet Boys to the strangest Taiwanese pop, with the clarity of changing the dial on a radio. The most interesting sounds on the disc, though, happen when Gal lets himself completely process the field recordings until he renders them virtually unrecognizable. "Bee Bee" is "based on the humming of the Brooklyn Bridge." It's hard to tell what this means or what sounds he took from the bridge - passing cars, maybe? - but he creates a 15 minute ghostly, ambient crescendo that expands itself not unlike Ligeti's famous 'Requiem' from the movie 2001 (It's interesting but probably unintentional that the two pieces based in New York have such dark moods).

"lv, nv" is the golden track on the disc: "The sound of money and slot machines as acoustical ghosts of a casino in Las Vegas." The sounds of the casino are barely existent in this piece, replaced by their own processed resonations. It's hard to believe that sounds this relaxing and pleasant can be created from the chaotic din of a gambling house. What really makes the disc as a whole such an incredible piece of work is that it's clear from the brief but informative liner notes that Gal is excited by the naturally occurring world of sound and music: "The personal discovery of music within nature as well as within the routines of everyday life keeps fascinating me." His fascination can be infectious, and if you allow yourself to get caught up in Gal's world-as-music, the CD becomes an engaging series of small sonic journeys.

Nate Smith (Brainwashed, USA)

   

Austrian sound artist Bernhard Gal isn't so much about deconstruction like his countrymen on Mego Records. Instead, he focuses on subtle concretist snapshots that work as audio-only installations for the mind's eye, evolving surprise from within even the most mundane of contexts. For example, the meditative low drone on "Bee Bee" isn't an apiary at all, but the structural humming of the Brooklyn Bridge under the vibrations of traffic.

"lv, nv" filters the sounds of slot machines to produce an eerie, carnival-like atmosphere that's almost heavenly in its attraction. "68th Street" processes layers of subway turnstiles in a clanging, rumbling cascade of noise that unexpectedly reveals rhythms and tones. "It's like…" explores the uniqueness of idiomatic language as spoken by a typical American female ("it's like, you know, the stuff"), tracing a lineage from Burroughs-style cut-ups and tape pieces such as Steve Reich's Come Out. And "57A" uses the sound of buses and trains -- complete with the announcing of stops in a robotic German voice - in Gal's home city of Vienna to create a neo-Futurist clacking of repetitive machines and gears, the real inspiration behind motorik Krautrock and industrial. Very promising art - as the title implies, it actually is necessary to relisten carefully.

Manny Theiner (Grooves Magazine, USA)

 
   
 

Wenn ihn Umweltgeräusche besonders faszinieren, dann kehrt der Wiener Bernhard Gál an den Ausgangsort zurück, um diese einzufangen. Manchmal genügt es, in real time aufgenommene Sounds zu belassen. Wie etwa in ‚tong-hua yie-shi', das einen Spaziergang durch einen nächtlichen Kirtag schildert. Neben Sprache hat Gál nun obsessiv Klänge aus dem Mobilitätszeitalter gesogen. ‚bee bee' ist eine Meditation über den urbanen Verkehrsfluss, der aufgrund seiner ständigen Zunahme wie ein ständig intensiver werdendes Summen von Killerbienen tönt. ‚57A' (Buslinie in Wien) erhält neben der Sprachmelodie der Stationsdurchsagen auch durch Geräusche wie Pressluft-Türenschließen ein eigenes Flair. Und ‚68th Street' tönt trotz Mitschnitts während der rush hour wie ein beschaulicher Aufenthalt in einer Zeitschleife. Wo selbst Geräusche von Geld und Spielautomaten aus einem Casino in Las Vegas geisterhaft Gestalt annehmen, bleibt ein beseelter Gesamteindruck. Gál ist ein Poet des Sounds, einer der mit Klang Geschichten erzählen kann. Fürwahr eine seltene Spezies unter den Komponisten.

Alfred Pranzl (Skug, Austria)

   

(..) Bernhard Gal's "Relisten" is a more dynamic, imaginative brand of musique concrete. At points, Gal's pieces are simply creations from the field, snapshots of sound as memory. Frequently, however, the composer manipulates and layers these recordings to create something quite apart from the initial experience. Again, the work is fairly minimal when compared to the more advanced sound excursions of artists like Robert Normandeau, but "Relisten" holds its own. (..)

Paul Lemos (Under the Volcano, USA)

 

Ein Meister der Remodulation von Sound. (..) Gals Relisten verarbeitet Stimmen und Location Sounds zu hermetischen Soundscapes, die nicht nach außen in die Welt strahlen, sondern für sich selbst neue Räume erschließen. Diese Qualität zeichnet Gal's Arbeiten aus, wie verschieden sie auch sein mögen. (..)

Till Kniola (Auf Abwegen, Germany)

 
 



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