Extended Europe is a co-operation between Austrian music magazine skug, curator and musician Elisabeth Schimana and the Porgy & Bess club in Vienna.
Ex Eu will focus on interesting and innovative music from Eastern and Middle European countries. In spite of our geographical position (as a neighbour of Hungary for example), the artists of those countries are still largely unrecognized by the Austrian audience.
After festivals such as Good News From Russia, Vienna Meets Moscow or Behind The Ural in the Porgy & Bess, or albums such as the CD compilation PutIN out, which has just been issued on Vienna’s Subetage label, it is high time we invited electronic musicians.
Trying to overcome territorial as well as musical boundaries, we have chosen a ‚jazz & music club‘ as venue. We want as many people as possible to experience the beauty of unknown music, hoping to destroy some of the stereotypes, which are still in people’s minds.
The unification process in Europe, with Eastern countries heading towards the European Community, is first and foremost an economic one. We, however, want to make a statement concerning art, since intentions to ‚go east‘ should not be guided by economic motives only.
The Theremin Orchestra
Andre Smirnov, Yuri Spitsin, Olga Milanich, Günther Gessert and the founder of the orchestra, Elisabeth Schimana, will be performing this time. The orchestra is a work in progress, one of the former members is Vienna’s electronic musician and label owner Christof Kurzmann. The orchestra has released a CD, which contains the live recording of a simultaneous performance of musicians playing in Barcelona, Vienna and Moscow.
FUGK
The artists of the Moscow association ‚For Unaspiring Gratuitous Kunst‘ deny copyright and agitate against the commodification of art. In Vienna FUGK will be represented by Youri Popovski, who will present audiovisual works. Disturbing video shots accompanied by live music made with an old Russian equalizer and computer processing evoke the horrors of Stalingrad as well as Chechenya, thus giving a dismaying perspective of present-day Russia.
??n – ‚Self Organizing Chaos‘The minimalist music of ??n, alias Pal Toth, from Hungary, is an exciting blend of musique concrète and electroacoustic incursions: the silence before the storm . . . Whether sounds come from clanking metal or singing whales, is left to your imagination. You remember Theatre of the Mind?
The Abstract Monarchy Trio
Quartertone-trumpet player Franz Hautzinger is one of the few Austrians who collaborate regularly with musicians from Eastern Europe. Together with Zsolt Kovács and Zsolt Sõrés (tabletop guitar and tabletop violin) he forms The Austrian Monarchy Trio. References? Hard to say, AMM and Komfort 2000 perhaps, but this trio is even more minimalist and reduces the music to the maximum. Call it ‚meta-music‘ if you like.
Svetlana Spajich
The Belgrade vocalist of Drina, a duo featuring Minya Nikolich, is a sharp contrast to the rest of the festival line-up. She will perform solo and present an urban interpretation of traditional Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian songs.
Gordan Paunovic
The former Head of the Music Department of Radio B92 has a long history as a sound artist. His CD Other Voices – echoes from a warzone is an intense and frightening piece of sound work documenting the NATO war against Belgrade, and fuses pre-recorded material and samples with live sounds, sirens, air raids, bombs, detonations, voices …
Blank Disc
Plunderphonics from Srdan Muc and Róbert Rózsa, and a stunning combination of live remixing and instrumental music. There seem to be no borders: from free jazz to avant-garde, no-input sounds or classical samples, the two musicians wander across genres and construct soundscapes and clouds of noise, which are interrupted even by jazz attacks of the almost sacred Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Übersetzung / Translation:
Friederike Kulcsar
friederike.kulcsar@blackbox.net
