POLWECHSEL - EMBRACE - REVIEWS

Three decades ago the Vienna-Berlin quartet Polwechsel (German for "pole change") delivered the kind of paradigm shift its moniker suggests, embracing the collective approach to improvisation developed by groups like England's AMM and Italy's Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, but recasting it with a radically reductive approach. Co-founder Radu Malfatti, burned out from the note-heavy jabber of free improv, yearned for space and quiet. Together, they created hushed abstractions that sought to make every sound and gesture count. The group has undergone many changes since then, with bassist Werner Dafeldecker and cellist Michael Moser the sole remaining members, but its commitment to creating a new type of improvisation remains unchanged. Rather than looking back to celebrate its 30th anniversary, the group-which also includes percussionists Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr-has produced a bounty of newly recorded material, reinforcing Polwechsel's continued vitality. The group appears on its own and with a variety of guests—piano deconstructionists Magda Mayas and Andrea Neumann, former member and saxophonist John Butcher, and composers Peter Ablinger and Klaus Lang. While this new batch of music, spread over four LPs, isn't quite as reduced as Polwechsel's earliest work, the shifting timbres, finely etched interplay, and long-form structures remain crucial components, all exercised with an unparalleled sense of authority and discovery. The box includes an invaluable 32-page booklet with trenchant analysis and a complete discography, but the sounds themselves do the heavy lifting, offering a probing sonic exegesis of artistic collectivity.
- Peter Margasak, Best Contemporary Classical -

Vienna- and Berlin-based ensemble Polwechsel have a thirty-year career to reflect upon, and with a substantial back-catalogue to their name, and it's a landmark that truly warrants a box-set retrospective. Although it's not a retrospective in the conventional sense: this is a work created in collaboration with a selection of instrumentalists and improvisers who share their exploratory mindset. Traditional compilations feel somewhat lazy, and are ultimately cash-ins which offer little or nothing new to the longstanding fan. And so this set serves to capture the essence and style of their extensive catalogue, rather than compile from it.
There's a lot of ground to cover, too. As the accompanying notes detail, Polwechsel have been making music at the interface of collective improvisation and contemporary composition. With their changing cast, the group have been at the forefront of musical experimentation, from style-defining works in reductionism in the 1990s, which concentrated on silence, background noises and disruptions, to a change in direction in the 2000s, which saw the introduction of traditional musical aspects such as tonal relationships, harmony and rhythm. Through varying constellations, instrumentations and collaborations, Polwechsel have developed a unique body of work that has firmly established them as one of the driving forces in contemporary music-maki... Their music has mostly straddled a line between contemporary music and free improvisation, and is characterized by quiet volume, sustained drones, and slowly developing structures.”
And so it is that for EMBRACE, Werner Dafeldecker, Michael Moser, Martin Brandlmayr and Burkhard Beins are 'joined by a roster of likeminded guest musicians and former band members to perform a series of new pieces reflecting the whole breadth of their musical investigations.'
Jupiter Storm is spacious, spatial, strange and yet also playful, an assemblage of sounds that lurch from serious and atmospheric to sleeve-snickering toots and farts, and everything in between over the course of its eighteen minutes, with slow-resonating gongs and trilling shrills of woodwind and plonking random piano all bouncing off one another, while the bass wanders in and out of the various scenes in a most nonchalant manner. On 'Partial Intersect', drones and hesitant drones occasionally yield to moments of jazzification, parps and hoots and squawks rising from the thick, murky sonic mist which drifts ominously about for the track's twenty-minute duration. Sides C and D contains 'Chains and Grain' 1 and 2, again, longform pieces almost twenty minutes long, comfortably occupying the side of an album, are the order of the day. Clanking, clattering, chiming, bells and miniature cymbals ring out against a minimal drone which twists and takes darker turns.
The tracks with Andrea Neumann are eerie and desolate, and occupy the third album. These pieces are different again, with the two 'Magnetron' pieces building from sparse, moody atmospherics to some piercing feedback undulations. The shrill squalls of treble, against grating extraneous noise, make for some tense listening. The second in particular needles at the more sensitive edges of the nerves. 'Quartz' and 'Obsidian', are more overtly strong-based works, but again with scratches and scrapes and skittering twangs like elastic bands stretched over a Tupperware container. The fourth and final album contains two longform pieces, with 'Orakelstücke' occupying nineteen and a half minutes with creaking hinges, ominous tones, and a thud like a haunted basketball thwacking onto a bare floorboard. There are lighter moments of discordantly bowed strings, but there's an underlying awkwardness with crackles and scratches, muttered conversation in German. The fifteen-minute 'Aquin' is sparse, yet again ominous and uneasy, majestic swells of organ rising from strained drones and desolate woodwind sinking into empty space.
The set comes with a thirty-two page booklet containing essays Stuart Broomer, Reinhard Kager and Nina Polaschegg (in both German and English) and some nice images which are the perfect visual accompaniment to the music, and while it's doubtless best appreciated in luxurious print, a digital version is included with the download. EMBRACE is a quite remarkable release - diverse and exploratory to the point that while it does feel like an immense statement reflecting on a career, it also feels like four albums in their own right. It's a bold release, and an expansive work that certainly doesn't have mass appeal - but in its field, its exemplary on every level.
- Christopher Nosnibor, Aural Aggravation -

30 Jahre Polwechsel, im Spannungsfeld aus Wien Modern und Berliner Echt­zeit. Mit Michael Moser am Cello und Werner Dafeldecker am Kontrabass als Gründervätern und Konstanten und den beiden Perkussionisten Burk­hard Beins und Martin Brandlmayr als nun auch schon seit fast 20 Jahren im festen, aber nicht exklusiven Kern. Denn bei "Embrace 1" stösst für 'Ju­piter Storm' (von Dafeldecker) und 'Partial Intersect' (von Moser) noch John Butcher an Tenor- & Sopranosax dazu, der einst selber jahrelang ein Polwechsler gewesen ist, und Magda Mayas harft und rumort mit klirrend und tönern präparierten Pianokeys. Butchers Spalt-, Quiek- und Press­klänge und krächzenden Kehllaute sind zu far out, um diese Klangwelt mit ihren Gongschlägen und ihrem Pizzicato, mit ihren kleinen Gesten und ihrem träumerischen Flow als 'Kammermusik' einzuhegen. Nein, sie ist auf eigene Weise sensitiv und bewusstseinserweiternd. Auf "Embrace 2" bei 'Chains and Grain' (von Brandlmayr) ist das Quartett unter sich, um als Nachtigall zu trapsen und pelzig zu schnurren, mit Paukentupfen, Windspiel und heimlich, still und leise in sich schabend, klopfend, bröselnd bewegt, mit Krimskrams und mit Bowing, metalloiden Sinustönen, rumorendem Blech und A-seits mit crescendierendem Peak, B-seits ohne. Auf "Embrace 3" besticht 'Quarz' mit vordergründigem Krabbeln, hintergründigem Pauken, ostinaten Strichen, aleatorischen Schlägen, wummerndem Beben, stehender Dafeldecker-Welle, 'Obsidian' (beides von Beins) mit gepressten Strichen, An-Aus-Effekten, Crashes, Tropfen, Getröpfel, Geklapper, singenden Bögen, feinem Geklöppel, schabender Reibung. Beim Dröhnen, Stöbern, Pfeifen und dem Noise des kollektiv geformten 'Magnetron' spielt Andrea Neumann am Innenklavier eine nebulöse Rolle, neben Electronics von Dafeldecker, amplified Per­cussion von Beins, Mosers Cello und Brandlmayr als Phantom. Auf "Embrace 4" offerieren die vier die von monotonem Klopfen gerahmte, sonor gestrichene, vibraphonistisch pingende, krimskramsende und mit Geplauder durchsetzte Performanz der 'Orakelstücke' aus Peter Ablingers "Instruments &" Reihe: etwas hören - oder auch nicht... ist es ein Mensch... hören wir ein Draussen / ein Außerhalb / ein Monster / ein Alien / also was. Und B-seits spielen sie zusammen mit Klaus Lang an Harmonium & Flöte dessen dröhnende und funkelfeine Meditation 'Aquin', wobei Lang offenbar über den phobokratischen, misogynen und mörderischen Hirnschiss dieses 'Heiligen' Marias Mantel der Barmherzigkeit breitet. Oder gibt es ein Aquin ohne Thomas von? Das Luxemburger Label mit seinem Faible für Sven-Ake Johansson und John Butcher und für Boxen, hat hier, nach "Blue For a Moment" von S-AJ und einer Schachtel voller Vinyl von Bengt Frippe Nordström, dem ayleresken schwedischen Freejazzer und Spielgefährten auch von S-AJ, ein weiteres Sammlerstück gefüllt und Texte beigefügt von Reinhard Kager und von Nina Polaschegg, die ihren Lobgesang auf Polwechsels 'Reduktion und Reflexion', deren disturbances, refractions or inclusions auch noch als SWR2 NOWJazz- & Zeit-Ton-Feature auf oe1.ORF den Radio­wellen anvertraut hat. Wobei sie die Raison d'etre der Formation mit: klare Konzepte und Kompositionen, klare Struktur, keine Expressivität, Kollektiv statt Individualismus wesent­lich nüchterner und abstrakter a-k-zentuiert als Stuart Broomer, der die Musik sakralisiert, indem er den Spielern Rosenkranz- und Mala-Perlen in die Hände legt und sie Steinchen zu Pilgerstätten und Gräbern tragen lässt.
- Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy -

The Vienna-and-Berlin-based ensemble Polwechsel celebrates this year its 30th anniversary. This groundbreaking ensemble focuses on the interface of collective improvisation and contemporary composition, or how compositional ideas serve collective improvisation. Polwechsel shifted throughout the years from radical reductionism and almost stillness in the 1990s, which concentrated on silence, background noises and disruptions, to a change in direction in the 2000s, which saw the introduction of traditional musical aspects such as tonal relationships, harmony and rhythm, all without dramaturgical developments that steer toward a climax, and democratic, non-hierarchal dynamics. Polwechsel is now a quartet featuring founding members double bass player Werner Dafeldecker and cellist Michael Moser, and percussionists Martin Brandlmayr and Burkhard Beins, who joined later. It included other innovative musicians like guitarist Burkhard Stangl, trombonist Radu Malfatti and sax player John Butcher.
Embrace is not a retrospective, but true to the group's spirit, this anniversary project is but a probe into an array of fresh possibilities. It is a limited edition (of 300 copies) box set of four-vinyl. Like-minded musicians and former members join Polwechsel to perform eight new pieces reflecting the breadth of its varied, and demanding compositional and improvisation strategies and investigations. The box set includes insightful essays by Free Jazz Blog's Stuart Broomer who analyzes the manner Polwechsel balances compositional elements and improvisation techniques, as well as each of the characters of the compositions and concludes that "what ultimately defines the music of Polwechsel is its profound sense of mystery, an ineffable quality"; Austrian philosopher Reinhard Kager who maps the seminal influences and shifts that shaped the aesthetics of Polwechsel; and Viennese music journalist-producer-double bass player Nina Polaschegg who puts chronicles Polwechsel withing the Viennese experimental scene in the 1990s that fostered Polwechsel's supposedly uneventful music and the evolution of the ensemble.
Polwechsel hosts former member tenor and soprano sax player John Butcher, hyper-pianist Magda Mayas, Andrea Neumann who plays deconstructed piano, an amplified custom-made frame with strings, and Austrian composer Klaus Lang who also plays harmonium and flute (Lang collaborated before with the ensemble on Unseen, ezz thetics, 2020). Dafeldecker, Moser, Brandlmayr and Beins wrote new compositions, in addition to two new compositions by Austrian composers Peter Ablinger and Lang. These enigmatic and mysterious compositions find inspiration from such surprising sources like Jupiter's "Great Red Spot" which rotates counter- clockwise and creates winds of up to 430 kilometers per hour, the work of French spectralist composer of the 1970s Gerard Grisey, and the opening and closing sounds of elevator doors, touchstones common to both Christians and Buddhists, and the 13th-century church father Thomas Aquinas, whose thoughts on economics, rooted in Aristotle and looking ahead to Marx, or focusing on decomposition in time – decomposition, review, re-composition, and rearrangement of parts, and a certain willed anonymity while diminishing the status of specialized virtuosity. Broomer's enlightening linear notes add many details to each new composition. But Embrace is much more than complex technical and philosophical details about music making. The four musicians of Polwechsel are fearless and imaginative sound artists who have established unique dynamics, and at times of the ensemble as one, inseparable sonic entity. Polwechsel keeps experimenting and investigating compositional and improvisation strategies in its own demanding and fascinating way, often culminating with mysterious, trance-like atmospheres characterized by the vibrant and hyper-resonant stillness that calls for absolute listening. The music of Polwechsel radiates a most humane and political message as Brandlmayr says: "In Polwechsel, the non-hierarchical world of free improvisation on the one hand, and the much more predetermined hierarchical structure/concept of composition on the other, is a permanent issue. How much can the composer determine? How much can the ensemble or parts of the ensemble oppose and contribute? Of course, I think this is an issue in a lot of groups, but in my experience in most of the groups, bands and ensembles I was involved in, somehow fixed working strategies and social constructions are developed over time. In Polwechsel, all this is constantly on the map and needs to be redefined with every piece we develop. So we find ourselves in the middle of social and political issues".
- Eyal Hareuveni, The Fee Jazz Collective -

Die Wien-Berlin-Konnektion POLWECHSEL steht seit Jahren für hochwertig neutönende Improvisations-/EchtzeitMusik. Die Vinyl-Box Embrace enthält 4 LPs, für die sich Werner Dafeldecker, Michael Moser, Martin Brandlmayr und Burkhard Beins z.T. auch Gäste einluden: für LP1 John Butcher und Magda Mayas und für die A-Seite von LP3 Andrea Neumann. Der Rest des einem akustischen, präparierten und auch elektronischen InstrumentenPark entlockten konzentrierten Avant-Klapperns, -Tuten und -Pfeifens ist original Polwechsel. Was sich eben vielleicht etwas despektierlich las, hört sich auf Vinyl jedoch höchst spannend an. Insbesondere die klirrend-knisternde Neumann-Kollaboration Magnetron und die Beins-Stücke Quarz und Obsidian auf Embrace 3 beeindrucken sehr - vor allem die schabende Schärfe und das dunkle Klopfen und Zwitschern des Obsidians. Sehr spannend auch das/die von Peter Ablinger konzipierte(n) Orakelstücke auf LP4. Hier geschieht zwischen bedeutungsvollen Triangelschlägen und verzweifelten CelloStrichen tatsächlich murmelnd Orakelhaftes. Ganz zum Schluss versinkt dann in düsterster Grundstimmung ein gestrichener drone - Aquin.
- Westzeit -

Das vorliegende, sehr umfangreiche Werk zelebriert das 30-jährige Bestehen dieses Ensembles, das es geschafft hat, eine Lücke zwischen Improvisation und moderner Komposition zu finden und auch zu füllen. Zu den fixen Musikern sowie Komponisten Werner Dafeldecker, Michael Moser, Martin Brandlmayr und Burkhard Beins gesellen sich hier so klingende Namen wie Magda Mayas, John Butcher, Andrea Neumann, Peter Ablinger und Klaus Lang. Die zehn Stücke, die sich auf gut zweieinhalb Stunden verteilen und grossteils im Rahmen von Wien Modern in einem sehr gut besuchten Semperdepot, das jetzt anders heißt, live präsentiert wurden, verlangen dem Hörenden viel Geduld ab. Es rattert, klimpert, zischt und raschelt. Die Musik gewährt wenig Halt, jederzeit kann ein neues Geräusch um die Ecke biegen. Die Grundstimmung bleibt düster und bedrohlich, selten, aber manchmal, wird es atmosphärisch. Polwechsel hören ist wie mikroskopieren: Je genauer man hinschaut, desto Erstaunlicheres tritt zutage.
- beta, Freistil -

In the liner notes to Polwechsel's eponymous 1995 debut, Werner Dafeldecker stated "The compositorial decision is one of trust toward the sound: does the sound make it: does it have enough strength to be fitted into different contexts for a longer period of time. The source of inspiration is the sound. Then you've got the level: how far can a sound be stressed, what can be done to it, into which context can it be fitted and by which means." That primacy of sound and its inverse - silence - in a setting balancing compositional forms and collective improvisation wasn't new of course. Those strategies had been explored by groups like Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza and Musica Elettronica Viva and, while generally eschewing composition, AMM, Group Ongaku, and King Ubu Orchestru. But with that first release, the Viennese quartet, with Radu Malfatti on trombone, Burkhard Stangl on guitar, Michael Moser on cello, and Dafeldecker on double bass and guitar, carved out their own distinctive approach toward sound and silence. Navigating the compositions by Dafeldecker and Moser, Polwechsel dove into the slowly evolving interplay of striated sonic investigation, a marked move away from the loquacious settings the four had previously worked in.
Over the course of the next three decades, the group continued to evolve, first with the departure of Malfatti, and then with the arrival of John Butcher. Then with an expansion to a quintet with the departure of Stangl and the addition of percussionists Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr. And finally, to a quartet with the departure of Butcher. Their strategies evolved as well, with the introduction of tonal relationships, a broader timbral palette, and a more overt sense of trajectory, though still distanced from the garrulous strategies employed by free improvisation. Across nine releases, the group also brought in a range of collaborators including Christian Fennesz, John Tilbury, and Klaus Lang. To celebrate thirty years of working together, the Luxembourg-based label Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu assembled the deluxe 4-LP set Embrace, one with the core group and three with collaborators. Recorded over the course of 2020 - 2022, each recording presents a different facet of their music.
The first LP of the set is Embrace 1: Jupiter Storm/Partial Intersect, recorded in August 2022 with the core quartet of Beins, Brandlmayr, Dafeldecker, and Moser joined by John Butcher on soprano and tenor saxophone and Magda Mayas on piano. The bassist's Jupiter Storm opens the recording, utilizing pre-recorded material from gongs, piano, and modular oscillators to create a time-structured score with improvised parts from bass and cello. The piece starts out with Butcher's burred trills and pinched, breathy overtones placed against spare bells and chimes. Resonant piano strings are added to the open mix along with shimmers of cymbals ensuring ample space is left for each sound to accrue. The deep tones of bass and cello are layered in along with the sounding of gongs and the piece slowly builds density, though all are still mindful of leaving pools of silence. Timbral interplay is particularly strong here, placing short percussive pricks of sound and clipped reeds against the long decay of the stings and piano. Moser's Partial Intersect slows things down even more, with bass and electronics providing a ground for shifting, overlapping layers. String harmonics, bowed percussion overtones, reed microtones and deep piano sustain weave in and out of foreground and background as the piece purposefully progresses and builds interlocking detail over its 20-minute length.
Brandlmayr provides the score for the 37-minute piece on the second disc, Embrace 2: Chains and Grain, recorded in July 2021. Using material that the quartet recorded over hours of improvising, he decomposed the improvisations into kernels of ideas which were then restructured. He explains the impetus for the piece, noting "The sound material itself is quite clearly defined throughout the piece. I wanted to shape, with regard to the different approaches of the individual players, the quality and degree of precision with which musical material is repeated and how it is notated ... While some of us play very defined, precisely repeated structures, others move around more freely in a very defined musical space, contributing elements of surprise and change. Ideally, both are influencing each other." Brandlmayr extends his percussion with the use of transducers which introduce glitched textures to the transparent layers of low-end strings, struck and abraded percussion, and threads of melodic vibraphone motifs. Here, individual voices are more present, with rivulets of through-activity built from short phrases, looping patterns, and longer abstracted lines. The tension between scored framework and open-form extrapolations is fundamental to the success of the piece and one can hear the balance of individual voices and the symbiotic relationship of the players have forged over their years of playing together.
The third disc, Embrace 3: Magnetron/Quarz/Obsidian, is split between two sessions. The first is a collective improvisation with Berlin-based Andrea Neumann on inside-piano and the second, recordings of two pieces by Burkhard Beins for the core quartet. On the two improvisations with Neumann, Dafeldecker sticks solely to electronics, Beins augments his percussion with electronics and Brandlmayr provides sinewave-like tones from bowed vibraphone. Neumann's unique timbres from amplified open piano frame and Moser's dark cello arco fit perfectly in the richly modulating electro-acoustic mix. The first improvisation is a moody, atmospheric probe of eddying details deployed with a keen ear toward textures and densities. Low-end electronics color the proceedings while Dafeldecker notion of "trust toward the sound" guides the spontaneous collective playing. The second piece is a bit more open, with decisive scribbles of sound tracing mutable arcs as the improvisation unfolds.
Beins' acousmatic piece, Quarz, was assembled from recordings made by each of the members of the quartet in response to a field recording he made of the opening and closing of elevator doors along with the various room ambiences that were captured as the elevator moved between floors. Beins explains, "Without indicating or defining how each musician should react to the 'audio score,' this method of working nevertheless enabled me to provoke coordinated events/changes and choices of musical material that refer to the same sonic situations, or elements within them." While the field recording is not included, one can sense vestiges of it from the various parts. There are more overt shadings like percussive scrapings and hisses, metallic clanging, atmospheric resonances, dynamic cello arco, darting bass pizzicato, and wafts of electronics. But the piece operates like congruent, simultaneous activity from each of the players that gels into an overarching trajectory. For Obsidian, Beins used instrumental samples from each of the musicians to create a piece with audio software. He then took screen shots of the resultant wave forms and turned that into a graphic score. Like Quarz, the score acts as more of a framework for the ensuing realization. Here stops and starts, silent pauses, and variable overlaps of activities ebb and flow across the 10-minute realization. Vigorous sheets of sound open to oscillating arco overlaps and slowly modulating percussion motifs and scuffed textures. The recording effectively places the various voices across the stereo field, accentuating the way that the parts collectively gather and rupture into variegated strata.
The final disc, Embrace 4: Orakelstücke/Aquin, is comprised of two pieces composed specifically for the ensemble, Orakelstücke by Peter Ablinger and Aquin by Klaus Lang. The Ablinger piece, part of his Instruments & series translates as Oracle Pieces, written for four instruments, language, objects, and microphones. For the tightly scripted piece each of the performers utilizes instruments including a microtonal glockenspiel built by the composer, specified objects, microphone feedback, and improvised recited text where "comprehensibility should be partially given, but under no circumstances should be comprehensiv (sic) for longer stretches." The piece proceeds slowly over its 19-minute length, imparting a sense of parallel traversal of detailed, episodic processes and overarching dramatic ritual. Lang's Aquin features the ensemble joined by the composer on harmonium and flute. This is the most tonal piece of the four discs, with clustered, sustained pitches voiced with quavering intonation. The extended, dusky drones of cello and bass arco, breathy flute, and the pulsing, reedy harmonium chords are amassed with an undulating calmness which slowly evolves over the timbral ground of bass drum, wafting cymbal shimmers, and soft pinpricks of bells. Here, patience and collective focus provide an absorbing listening experience.
When assembling a thirty-year celebration of an ensemble, one tact would be to present a retrospective, a look back at how a group evolved. Instead, Embrace has taken a more rewarding approach, providing a view into where their collective experience has led them. Ranging from through-composed pieces by Ablinger and Lang, compositional frameworks for improvisation by each of the members, guests including former member Butcher along with new collaborators Mayas and Neumann, the set provides an inclusive view of Polwechsel. But based on the path they've navigated over three decades, the music captured here is a signifier of the possibilities they are committed to exploring rather than a neat synopsis. Point of Departure writer Stuart Broomer sums it up well in his astute liner notes included in the set. "True to the group's spirit, this anniversary project is not a retrospective but a probe into an array of fresh possibilities."
- Michael Rosenstein, Point of Departure -

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