Katharina Klement - Concért Trouvé
(Kalk)
Acknowledgement of a producer or recording engineer on any musical release is a fairly standard inclusion, and for good reason. Some producers can shape the sound of an artist so much they, in a way, make it their own. Simply knowing where an album was recorded, and by who, can sometimes give a listener a good idea of how it might sound. Experimental music, however, has found a new reason to credit producers and engineers, and they can literally play as big a part on the creation of the music as the musicians themselves. Concért Trouvé, a 2000 album by Austrian Katharina Klement, unavailable in the US until now, is one such recording.
Klement, born in Graz but now a resident of Vienna, is credited with the composition of the music on this, her fifth recording, but a more appropriate wording may be inspiration and technical planning, as much of Concért Trouvé is improvised. Klement makes use of a prepared grand piano and tapes, accompanied by Armin Pokorn on electric guitar and electronics. Klement also uses a MIDI keyboard to generate sounds from found sources, including wood, metal, and electronic devices. These sounds are captured on pickups or microphones, and projected back into the room via loudspeakers spread about the space. Therefore, though Klement controls the timing of these found sounds, engineers Geari Schreilechner and Florian Prix are responsible for the location and quality of their reentry into the room. The resulting music is a heady mix of avant-garde instrumental improvisation and musique concrète, which, though perhaps a bit on the academic side, has its share of atmosphere and energy. Much of the disc is sparse, musically, it sometimes seems as though the different sound sources often perform in duets: thin, tiny whines arc around Klement's resonant piano, Pokorn's guitar flitters around the thudding of the found sound material. The stereo recording of Concért Trouvé offers a somewhat limited vision of what the actual performance must have been like in person, with numerous sound sources located in various points within the room. And though the disc is far from unlistenable, it's not hard to imagine that something's been lost in the translation of this music to CD. Like hearing a quadraphonic recording on headphones, listening to Concért Trouvé on your CD player probably doesn't do the music justice, and this may account for the dry, sterile feeling that the album sometimes has. But, with Klement's music undocumented by American labels, this release will have to do. Hopefully, it will create enough interest that those of us stateside may someday be able to see Klement perform in person and be able to experience this music the way it was meant to be heard.
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