Hans-Karsten Raecke: Time Without Hope

Hans-Karsten Raecke's music, subtitled '5 Variations on Joe Hackbarth'.
Half of the compositions are highly rhythmical Works (prepared piano, drums), and half are spacious drones for spectrally processed bagpipe Sounds.
Compositions include'Timing I' for ('Sound expanded piano', live electronics and drums), 'Timetunnel' (a tape composition; recorded sounds from Scottish bagpipes), 'Timing 2' (for 'Sound expanded piano', live electronics and drums), Time Without Hope' (a tape composition; recorded Sounds from Scottish bagpipes), and 'Timing 3' (for'sound expanded piano', live electronics and drums).
Performances by Hans-Karsten Raecke (sound expanded piano and live electronics), and Joe Hackbarth (drums and Scottish bagpipes).

Hans-Karsten Raecke: Elements

Music for pipe-bowl and live electronics composed and performed by Hans-Karsten Raecke. Raecke's pipebowl is vaguely reminiscent of a bass clarinet, but it is clearly the composer's unique invention. The spectral and other forms of processing give the listening the feeling that s/he is experiencing an ensemble performance. The melodic slides, percussive adornments on the pipe-bowl, and musical twists and turns give his work a well humored edge. 'Elements' is a single 25'40" composition, recorded in live performance.

The composition is divided in 8 parts:

1. SMOKER'S BLUES
2. INSIDE THE EARTHv 3. FERVOUR AND FIRE
4. ROCKS AND STONES
5. ICE CRYSTALS
6. ON THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
7. LANDSCAPE OF CLOUDS
8. BUBBLES' DANCE

When Hans-Karsten Raecke built the pibe-bowl, he had the idea of connecting smoking a pipe with blowing. An instrument was created with the form of a snail shell inside a bowl. This "snail" makes it possible for the fingers of one hand to cover holes on a very Small area, and there is a special sound and resonance produced by the form of the shell's walls. The materials of the pipe-bowl are fimo (suralin), a kind of plasticine, which is baked in the oven, and brass pipes. In a second version a "spider", made of metal, was added to the bowl. 18 "spider legs" can be plucked, their sounds are supposed to be amplified. There are also new variations of the brass pipe System, for instance a telescopic pulling system (three pipe System) and - connected with a pipe with holes - a smaller telescopic system (two pipe system).These mechanisms give the instrument a very large range and an the other hand the possibility of combining the pulling technique with holes. In "ELEMENTS" the pipe-bowl is used as a musical instrument and as a stage prop as well. The music is connected with a series of more or less abstract pictures (slides with fade-over) by Wolfgang Günther (Germany), concerning the elements of the ancient world (earth, fire, air, water).

Klangbilder (Sound Pictures)

The Sounds an this CD are from original Instruments built by Hugh Davies and Hans-Karsten Raecke. It's Davies' work that's electronic. With special microphones, he finds Sounds in steel springs, saw blades, various objects of metal and plastic, combs, in short a wide variety of objects that he activates with feathers, blowing through a straw, chopsticks, and a wide variety of performing devices. The sounds are fascinating.