D>Elektro 1.2.2 - Sounds + Elements - 7 - Live | Studio

D>Elektro |1.2.2| |>Sounds + Elements

|> History/ies + Sounds

of modern electronic / experimental music in Germany |<

D>Elektro 1.2 - |> expanded concept <|

|1.2.2| Sounds + Elements

|> Experiments | Sounds + Concepts |

| Fusion: Live - Studio | Remix | Miniaturealism |

All these experiments and developments didn't remain in the area of working in the studio.

Through the possibilities the new equipment & instruments offered, it was possible to take already recorded material - specific sounds, sequences or more complex pieces - and re-assemble it in a very flexible way, to try out new variations.
In particular musicians like Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream now had the possibility also to develop their music in a live-situation along the parameters and structures they had developed while conversing with their instruments.

The more sounds these musical machines could store and provide at any given time, the more possibilities for conversing and interacting with them opened up for the musicians. And when, if it was the case with Tangerine Dream, three musicians played and interacted with these instruments at the same time, then very complex sound collages could also be produced live.

The development of the hardware played - particularly in the field of electronic / 'synthetic' sounds - an important role and had a fundamental influence on the playing- and composing processes.
Through the improved possibilities for storing and triggering of especially generated sound, a complex and at the same time more open form of playing, improvising and composing became possible also on stage.

Sound-generating techniques that, so far, were only at hand in well-equipped studios, enabled the musicians more and more to move freely throughout the whole range of musical possibilities: from absolutely free improvisations to playing with variations of a whole palette of preset and trigger-able musical events.

The often uncalculable will / life of their own, that a lot of electronic instruments showed especially in the early electronic-music days became -literally- more and more calculable - while their possibilities through more storage-space and additional interfaces became more complex and easier to access.
The more musical intelligence the musicians could delegate to, resp. feed into them, the more liberated they became from the more 'mechanical' parts of their playing. And the more intelligent and programmable these machines became, the more 'human' they could sound, in as much they became enabled to transform rhythms, sound-textures etc. way more flexible.

In the course of this, some of the chaotic-creative elements might have gone out of the window - but following the concept of total free improvisation for eternity, would have hardly been a desirable alternative.
What was and remained important was the inventive usage of the possibilities at hand - a continuous exchange-play between human ideas and machine-possibilities.

Through this collaborative-playing with their machines, steming from the preceeding improvisation-forms, these musicians developed one of the most important forms of contermporary composing: the REMIX.

> Radio-Inter-Activity + Live-DJ-ing

Also Kraftwerk and CAN were introducing these with these new elements and experiences into their live performances.

With CAN, who where also following the concept of spontaneous composing when they played live, it was again Holger Czukay, who introduced the most important experiments. As in the studio-work he wanted to provide a collage-and mixing situation to enable [or even force] the band to play and react on external, and in parts uncalculable, sound-material.
From 1977 on, during the CAN concerts he began to concentrate his work on playing with pre-recorded tapes, a short-wave receiver & transmitter, a dictaphone and a telephone.

"When - while still playing with CAN - I started to play with the radio, I found that we just hadn't found one new vocalist, but thousands! With the radio, so I thought, I could live transmit our concerts.
I wanted to become a kind of DJ of CAN - the people would have heard what I was just saying - and maybe some radio-amateur somewhere on the globe would have answered. His message would have become a part of the concert just as the band's music itself.
The telephone was more a kind of a joke - during a concert I wanted to call someone and edit his voice into our music. That kind of interaction I wanted to achieve."

Holger Czukay

CAN didn't exist long enough anymore to carry out these experiments. But the idea of live-DJ-ing, the spontaneous live-composition through collaging, layering and assembling different sound and music-material, has become the broadest musical movement of the last years.

In their own way - and, as always, remaining true to their concept of efficiency - also Kraftwerk did contribute in a major, highly influential way to these developments.

|> The [Re]-MIX |

Also for Kraftwerk, whose music leaned heavily on machine-driven and computerized processes, the question between live- and studio-work/play became more and more absurd.

The Man-Machine-interfaces, that were so intensively explored by Kraftwerk AND which made up a key subject of their songs, lead them 'automatically' more and more away from the area of actual playing into the area of mixing.
The individual, virtuoso-playing, which still was bound to playing traditional / acoustic instruments [and is particularly demanded durijng concerts], fades into the background, when producing this kind of advanced electronic music.
Typical studio-work, like the triggering of sounds and sequences, the mixing of various tracks and effects now dominated also the work of the group during their concerts.
It is about finding an optimal way to stimulate an "exchange of energy" between the musicians and the machine - in order to create corresponding "vibes" and music.

"In the Kling Klang Studio, which is the machine on which we are playing, the entire studio becomes our instrument, and the process of mixing becomes the playing itself."

Ralf Huetter [Kraftwerk]

Also Kraftwerk, who work much more in the song-oriented area of electronic music, as did e.g. Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream, did from the beginning use the possibilities of re-mixing.
Over the years not only the typical Kraftwerk-sounds were updated and made accessible to the evolving digital tools and possibilities - their whole rhyhtm-structures were re-vamped as well. Thus the original recordings became a kind of 'beta-version', which, from tour to tour underwent at times severe changes and variations - and / or were, as in typical today's DJ-manner were mixed and collaged anew.

Comparing the original version of 'Radioaktivitaet / Radioactivity' from 1975 with the MIX-Version from 1991 gives a good example of these [Re]-Mix techniques.

Consequently, in 1991 Kraftwerk released an album entitled THE MIX - a compilation of newly recorded, resp. re-worked / re-mixed neu-eingespielter, bzw. ueberarbeiteter Kraftwerk 'classics'.

|> Miniaturealism

From very early on the group took notice and advantage of the parallel between their own preference of miniature-instruments and the ongoing development in computer-construction, to joing soft-and hardware into ever more compact and smaller units.

Kraftwerks album 'Computerwelt / Computerworld' is focusing on these developments: the minituriazation of technology, through which it can infiltrate into all parts of everyday's life and work - for better (as a 'Heimcomputer / Homecomputer' / or as a 'Taschenrechner / Pocket Calculator' as a musical instrument etc.) or worse, as in ('Computerwelt / Computerworld') focusing on the phenomenon of widespread surveillance.
Kraftwerks own increasing computerization as well as their concept of totalmusic or the 'Gesamtkunstwerk' consequently brought them to the point, to re-construct their whole 'Kling Klang' studio into transportable units.

"Our studio is very compact: it fit's now into 10 units. We only need one truck - very little, compared with the usual rock-standards. We like small gadgets like pocket calculators. That's for sure the way to go and how things will develop."

Ralf Huetter [Kraftwerk]

With the 'Computerwelt / Computerworld' tour in '81, they had achieved their goal: the musicians and the studio were forming one compact working-unit. Wherever Kraftwerk were, there was the Kling Klang studio onstage as their very onw instrument and sound-production unit. And as that it simultaneously served as their music-machine and their stage-set.

"Our stdio is our electronic living-room, our small house. So we take it everywhere with us on tour."

Ralf Huetter [Kraftwerk]

With all the possibilities that their mobile electric living-room at their fingertips, it was also possible to present their ideas of 'totalmusic' in a perfect media-enhanced environment onstage. Not just the sounds and videos could be triggered and synchronized perfectly - also their famous robots.

"The tour showed the perfect synthesis of man and machine working in harmony to create a piece of technical entertainment that, considering its potential, was breathtaking in its economy of image and sound.
Was this a studio band playing live, or a live band playing the studio? Kraftwerk had once again neatly sidestepped the temptation to produce an overblown multi-media extravaganza, like Pink Floyd' s 'The Wall'. Instead of building their equipment up around like some kind of technological ego trip, they saw themselves presenting 'man and machine together in a friendly partnership of musical creation'."

Pascal Bussy

D>Elektro |1.2.2| |>Sounds + Elements<|

|> Live - Studio | Remix | Miniaturealism <|

|>..Sounds + Elements..|>

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