order: Wide Ear Records
25.- CHF & shipping (CD incl. video & binaural audio download) / 20.- CHF (stereo & binaural audio & video download) / 15.- CHF (stereo version download)

liner notes:

A journey to the heart of sound
…It is a study of the nascent state of sound, an impression enhanced by binaural listening, which almost creates the sensation of being inside the instrument itself. The techniques used to produce the sounds are many and varied. The double bass is played con arco, col legno, pizzicato, rubbed, struck and caressed. The dynamics – except for a brief moment – oscillate between piano and the limit of audibility. Many silent spaces alternate with perceptible sounds to create organic situations. The silence is not Cagean, but rather full of sonic tension. Although the sequence of sound events is neither programmed nor attempted, the work comes across as being globally coherent.…
Giancarlo Schiaffini

…the camera floats over the instrument at very close range: the soundbox is reduced to an artefact so imprecisely defined that it becomes merely a piece of wood. Narrowing the frame and reducing the distance to the subject to a minimum, the lens restricts information about the instrument and focuses progressively on small details that remain blurred at the edges. Moving slowly in all directions, the video follows the tiniest indentations, nicks, scratches and other traces that have accumulated over time on the body of the instrument, exploring its nature in an almost tactile way. By reducing the information they impart, the images produce a discrepancy that leads them to an evocative level where the tonal relationships between the full, the empty and the shadows create new visons..…
Ilaria Schiaffini

cd reviews:

Studer ist ein Suchender, allerdings nicht angetrieben von Unbehagen, sondern von einem unstillbaren Spieltrieb … Durch die aufwendige Mikrophonierung wird der Klang zur Skulptur, was durch die Video-Arbeit – einfühlsame Schwenks über die anatomischen Details des Instruments – Lisa Böffgens unterstützt wird. … Der Effekt ist offenbarend. Durch die Vergrösserung der Topographie des Instruments wird das Monolithische des Klangs aufgefächert. Zu hören ist nicht mehr ein Bass, sondern sind dessen vielgestaltigen Klangmöglichkeiten – und das Publikum ist eingeladen, das Gelände selbst zu erkunden und an der Gestaltung der Wahr-nehmung mitzuwirken.
Christof Thurnherr, Jazz'n'More, 2022 (download)

Swiss bassist takes his bass to a different level of music. Call it avant-garde or experimental, he is exploring the sonic space of his instrument as integrated in the surrounding environment, recorded and mixed to put listener and instrument in the centre of this enlargened space. The result is a truly physical experience of micro-sounds, barely audible caressses of the strings that stir the silence, almost like quantum particles bouncing in total emptiness. The result is both intimate and magical.
Stef Gijssels, freejazzblog, 2022

↑ top