special guests: Ludwig Berger and Steve Tibbetts

INTRO: Some people, listeners, have a story to tell with „field recordings“ that trigger encounters with some of the most adventurous sounds being „out there“. Some of those albums became famous (remember the one with those singing whales!), some very much stayed under the radar (very much like the spaces they had been exploring). Even the so-called well-known can turn into stranger things.

By  chance, I once discovered an old album named „Trains in the Night“ beautifully capturing the sounds of old locomotives in England‘s vast hinterland, and the nature around. Listening to the compositions of artists like Jana Winderen BJ Nilsen, Chris Watson or Ludwig Berger, is always a special experience. Is the howling of the wind real, or enhanced by electronics? How can someone „document“ sounds that cannot be be heard within our „normal“ range of perception? In a way the act of „cartographing“ distant areas includes sharpened senses, adequate tools – and inventiveness. When I was sinking, literally, in some of these albums of „field recordings“, I couldn‘t help but remember, in moments passing by, old sci-fi movies, but from minute to minute I was more and more drawn into the sounds themselves and forgetting my sepia-tinged nostalgia. Where-am-I-music of a rare kind! Three field recordings turn up in my forthcoming hour of KLANGHORIZONTE! (this Intro is an updated version of my introduction for an interview with Jana Winderen – you can read it HERE!)

And here we go, dear music lovers…an hour filled with discoveries, re-discoveries, field recordings and conversations! Surprisingly there is even a short appearance of a Jefferson Airplane song, called „Rejoyce“. HERE it is!

“Without climate protection, it is likely that Ludwig Berger’s recordings will outlive alpine glaciers”, warns the film in its last shot, showing the valley overtaken by greenery. It is not exaggerated. The ice carried the planet’s history for millennia yet it is disappearing at an alarming rate. As a response, the album invites listeners to relate to the glacier as a body, filled with life, here gently auscultated by Berger’s hydrophones. With „crying glacier“ and its intrinsic more-than-human collaborative nature, Ludwig Berger amplifies the Morteratsch Glacier’s voice to emphasize its personhood, and other glaciers‘ urgent need for recognition and preservation.“ (from Ludwig Berger‘s Bandcamp page)

P.S. I was asking Lloyd Swanton, the bass player from The Necks, about some of his favourite ECM albums and more, and here comes his answer… (übrigens, The Necks spielen am 30. Oktober in Aachen und einen Tag später in Berlin)