Karlheinz Essl & Andrew Levine

BIST DU BEREIT?

Free improvisations for theremin, voice, computer and modular synthesizers
Nachtstück Records 2025

Released: 1 Jan 2025

Performed and recorded live at Centro Sociale on Nov 22, 2024

Andrew Levine: theremin, voice and modular synth

Karlheinz Essl: granular and modular synth

Nachtstück Records 2025

Review

The music is as playful as the titles often suggest. ‘Bleeps and Lines’, for example, is exactly what it says. In ‘Out of the Maelstrom’, the sounds often seem to be spinning and, in places, the music even has a hint of Poe’s Gothic-Romantic sensibility about it (elsewhere, Essl refers to Poe directly in relation to his work). The sadness of the ‘Elegy’ has a comical, clown-like feel to it, more bathos than pathos. The latter part of the album contains the two longest tracks and some of the most involved music. The original concert included projections by Essl, which, sadly, we don’t get to see here.

Anyone involved in creative work of any kind knows how sometimes things can just come together and happen in a special way that’s impossible to repeat. Listening to Bist Du bereit?, I get the feeling that’s what happened here. We’re indeed fortunate that Levine recorded it. And it’s great when music manages to be serious and involved while being fun at the same time (although the sound-world is completely different, I found myself thinking of the work of British improvisers Steve Beresford and the late Alan Tomlinson). An album definitely worthy of attention that left me hoping Essl and Levine just happen to record some more of their encounters.

Dominic Rivron, in: International Times. The Magazine of Resistance (January 2025)

Liner Notes

The first encounter between the composer Karlheinz Essl and the thereminist Andrew Levine in Hamburg. Without prior consultation, we met on stage for the first time and played a freely improvised concert together. Fortunately, Andrew recorded the performance and it sounded so good that we decided to release it to the public.

This is our chat protocol...

June 26, 2024

kHz: Dear Andrew, I'm coming to HH on November 22nd to premiere a new piece for the Nonpiano/Typiano Festival the next day. I was wondering if we could meet in the evening of the 22nd and maybe jam together. I could bring my 0-COAST. please let me know what you think! greetings from Vienna, kHz
AL: Excellent idea! I'm in 🤝😁

August 21, 2024

AL: Lieber Karlheinz, ich habe den Termin am 22.11. fest in meinem Kalender eingetragen. Muss bloss noch sehen wo wir spielen.
kHz: Das ist wunderbar, lieber Andrew, vielen herzlichen Dank! Ich bin sehr gespannt, wohin uns die gemeinsame klangreise führen wird...

September 30, 2024

kHz: BTW, hast du schon eine Idee, wo wir am 22.11. zusammen in HH spielen werden?
AL: Ich habe drei Orte im Auge. Mehr bald 🥳
kHz: Can't wait... 😇

October 23, 2024

AL: We are in the calendar of Centro Sociale and listed on the VAMH website.

November 05, 2024

kHz: lieber andrew, ich werde mit einem hybrid-instrument aus Max und 0-COAST spielen und liefere ein stereo-line signal via balanced jacks (= output aus meinem uralten WaveTerminal audio interface). habe unseren gig auf meiner website angekündigt. wann machen wir aufbau und sound check?
AL: Ab 20:30. Ganz flott 😅
kHz: 20:30 passt. ich brauche nicht lange - plug & play 😉
wollen wir uns vielleicht schon vorher auf ein heiß- oder kaltgetränk treffen, damit wir uns auch persönlich kennenlernen?

November 22, 2024

AL: Meeting at 19:30 at Kkoki
Setup at 21:00
Concert starts at 21:45
And there you have it :-)

Tracklist

Bios

Andrew Levine (b. 1968 in NYC) began playing violin at the age of 6; later studied voice. M.A. at the University of Trier. Lived in Berlin, now residing in Hamburg. Video productions since 1998, from 2003 with an increasing focus on live concert recordings.

Member of the Verband Deutscher Tonmeister (VDT), recipient of the Goldener Bobby award in 2014, chair of the department of Music and Word Production and head of the regional group "North" of the VDT.

Since 2010, Andrew plays the Theremin (Moog Etherwave Plus, Moog Claravox, OpenTheremin & D-Lev) in free improvising configurations. Added a Make Noise 0-Coast synth in 2017, STEIM Cracklebox and polyphonic Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard in 2019. USA solo-tour and 4-day Theremin-100 festival in 2020.

From 2021-23 several grants allowed him to expand his sonic palette, including realtime fluid manipulation of Theremin-timbre utilizing modular synths. Exploration of electronics + pipe organ & tour with Quatuor BRAC and light artist Katrin Bethge in 2022.

In 2022/3 a series of "in-ORGAN-ic" sessions in Weimar explored the realm of electronics plus spatialized & modified pipe organ. After a residency with Eric Cordier at La Génerale Nord-Est (Paris) in February Andrew toured Portugal in April / May, playing concerts and recording sessions in Lisbon and Porto.

Subsequently the collaboration with several pipe organ players continued: Michael von Hintzenstern (Weimar), Thomas Noll (Berlin), Cláudio de Pina (Lisbon), Annabelle Sachse (Weimar), Peer Schlechta (Kassel) and Jakob Schönborn-Dietz (Jena), resulting in a sequence of releases.

Andrew Levine
© 2024 by Bettina Ghasempoor

Karlheinz Essl (b. 1960 in Vienna) is an Austrian composer, performer, improviser, software developer, media artist and composition teacher. He studied composition in Vienna with Friedrich Cerha and completed his musicology studies with a doctorate on Anton Webern. Composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer School (1990-94) and at IRCAM in Paris (1991-93). From 1995-2006 he taught algorithmic composition at the Bruckner University in Linz. Since 2007 he has been a Professor of Composition and Electroacoustic Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Between 1992 and 2016 he was music curator at the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg.

His work with computers and a long-term preoccupation with the poetics of serial music have been formative influences on his compositional thinking. During the 1990s he carried out various projects for the Internet and became increasingly involved in improvisation. In 1997 Karlheinz Essl was a featured composer at the Salzburg Festival.

In addition to writing instrumental music, Karlheinz Essl also works in the areas of electronic music, interactive real-time compositions and sound installations. He develops software environments for algorithmic composition and live electronics.

As a performer and improviser he plays his own computer-based composition environments as well as instruments such as toy piano, electric guitar and analogue synthesizers.

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Credits

Recorded live by Andrew Levine

Produced and mastered by Andrew Levine

Released by Andrew Levine

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Updated: 1 Feb 2025