möwen & moos remix

michael renkel  - live electronics/notebook

remix based exclusively on sound material from the double cd "möwen & moos" by burkhard beins and michael renkel

cover photo: ingo scheffler / treated by michael renkel

renkelberlin@gmx.de

burkhardbeins@gmx.de

'In the beginning, there was a double CD titled Möwen und Moos by Activity Center (2:13 Music, 1999). Then, Michael Renkel, the guitarist of this improvising duo (the other half being percussionist Burkhard Beins), used the sound material of this album to create a "remix" titled Activity Center and released it on the same label in 2001. The single piece, which is split in four parts and lasts a little under an hour, has little to do with its source, although one still recognizes the sparseness that characterizes both artists' work. "Remixing" is an unfit word to describe what Renkel did. The resulting music is closer to Carsten Nicolai, Ryoji Ikeda, CoH, or Source Research than percussion-and-guitar improvs. Ghosts of beats are put together and quickly deconstructed as clicks, glitches, and hums weave shrouds of sounds that are not without holes. Ideas seem to run thin at times but, overall, the work is convincing enough to keep the listener's attention. If one has not heard the source album, this only makes the urge to find it stronger, if only to be able to compare. But, more importantly, Activity Center stands well on its own. The constant hesitation between experimental electronica and more academic electro-acoustic vocabularies can be a little confusing at times, but that is a minor problem that aficionados of experimental art will be willing to disregard.'

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