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SCHAEFER, JANEK - Alone at last

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: SIRR.ECORDS Sirr 0031 Release Year: 2008 Note: totally black jewel-case, with booklet Price (incl. 19% VAT): €15.50 Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock! More Info Acht "Auftragsarbeiten" für Installationen oder Compilations sind hier zusammengestellt, die SCHAEFERs Fähigkeiten aufzeigt, Alltagsaufnahmen (hier z.B. spanische Unterhaltungen, Flamenco-Klänge) mit orchestralen und Orgel-artig wallenden Drones zu verbinden. Sehr schöne Klangflächen sind hier dabei, aber man sollte auch einen Sinn für konkrete & vokale Materialien haben... "Alone at last is a studio album, written over the first decade of Janek's career as a composer, sound artist, and musician. Each piece is a response to an invitation to write a piece of music for a compilation cd or installation. The source sounds are produced using location recordings and manipulated vinyl, which are simply processed through his collection of foot pedals & mixing desk, and then assembled on screen. Anamnesis - refers to the ability of sound to trigger mental images in our minds eye. Each new image is unique to each of us - and they are all uniquely framed within the evocative music. The cd is housed in a 100% black jewelcase with an eight page black white booklet of Janek's photography." [label info] "With somebody like Janek Schaefer, who is known to travel a lot, the last thing you would expect from him is a CD called 'Alone At Last'. Or perhaps, despite all his travels, he likes to be alone? Either way, I don't know. What I do know is that a lot of his music is purpose made, i.e. he is commissioned to do specific pieces for specific events, places or installations. Usually these are pieces which are heard there and then, and never here and now. They lie around in his archive, collecting dust. That is: until now. 'Alone At Last' compiles eighth of these pieces, composed between 1997 and 2007. Unfortunately that's all the information that is given on the cover. Not the where, how, when or any other relevant information. That is a pity of course, but you could also think that it is of no more importance. That was that, this is now. The positive attitude: be glad what you have and not what you don't have. Each piece has a picture in the booklet (especially the one for 'Scarlett Arrives' is very funny - but hey I like children) that also not always gives us a clue. 'Alone At Last' may serve as an introduction to the work of Schaefer to those who need one (the die hard fans surely have this already). Schaefer takes every day sound - field recordings - of whatever nature and transforms them into pieces of music. He does that to such an extent that the 'original' field recordings have disappeared and what remains is, quite curious in these eighth pieces, a highly 'drone' and 'ambient' piece of work. Schaefer works the mood here. I couldn't help, while hearing this, thinking of Main - with whom Schaefer recorded a CD as Comae along time ago. The same subtle processing, taking the musique concrete into an entirely new realm - at least for musique concrete that is - the form of ambient music. Four of the pieces are long, perhaps a bit long altogether, for the diversity the disc has to offer. With six of them the picture would have been equally clear, even when the final piece 'Never Ending Story' is short and should be included. That moaning aside, Schaefer delivered a great disc, I think, of highly subtle music that should win him new fans and pleasantly surprise the old." [FdW, Vital Weekly] www.sirr-ecords.com