Living Theory Without Anecdotes

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“The album Living Theory Without Anecdotes conflates Nicolas Wiese’s acousmatic compositions from the years 2009-2011. There is a common thread: all four compositions are constructed out of samples from acoustic instrument and object recordings, and mostly have rather floating structures with slow crescendos and little disruptions.
A significant element in Wiese’s sound works is the spatial layering – there is an architecture of foregrounds, backgrounds and different midgrounds that integrate an analogue room feel, subdivide the dynamics in a manner unusual for a ‘non-played’ music and therefore question the obvious digitality in most of today’s electronic productions.

The longest piece, filling the entire B side El Jardín Revisitado, is based on a 2 hours long multiscreen video / ensemble piece conceived together with composer Tom Rojo Poller. Sound manipulations from the original instruments have been taken into further processing by Wiese afterwards, serving as a pool for a series of audio visual solo performances. The album version contains compositional ‘cells’ which vaguely resemble the original ensemble piece, altogether employing them in a very different meta-structure.
Der Elefant im Porzellankäfig (the elefant in a cage of porcelain) has been developed as a re-assembly of a few short samples delivered by German sound collagist Thorsten Soltau. Most of Soltau’s samples have been played back and re-recorded through tiny speakers, partially coveerd by plastic and other sounding / sound-blocking matter. The result is a merging of borrowed sounds and their haptic transformation – layered, cut and overlapped into percussive and harmonic properties and relations that have not been there before.
Subfertile is an elegy. It is comprised almost entirely of string samples, plus a few textural percussion layers recycled from Wieses ‘Breathing Gadgets’ (2004). The origin of the string instruments is impossible to track back since most sound bits have been drawn from recorded live performances, in which Wiese has used all kinds of string instrument sources.
Due To Idle is based on samples taken from the same recording sessions that have been set up for ‘El Jardín’. Additionally, Wiese performed some zither scrubbings and cello plucking himself. The idea of the piece is a concurrence of ‘hectic’ and ‘calm’ elements, resulting in an ambiguous tempo.”

Nicolas Wiese (D) samples, mixing desks, feedback, digital and analogue layering
Composed, recorded, assembled by Nicolas Wiese 2009-2011
Mixed by Nicolas Wiese 2012
Mastered by Kassian Troyer
Sleeve artwork by Wendelin Büchler
Typesetting by Nicolas Wiese

43:46 min | core 005, limited edition of 300 copies