Marc Behrens
Architectural Commentaries 4&5 CD (E45)
“An Architectural Commentary is a form of ‘reviewing’ architecture
in which functional, symbolic and aesthetic aspects of a building or
a bigger architectural structure are analysed. Inspiration for this cycle
of compositions is drawn from architectural criticism, structures,
buildings, involuntary cityscapes (‘architecture without architects’)
and technological noise within buildings.
One special recording session took place at Resonance FM, the London-
based radio station, in June 2004. Patrick McGinley of Resonance FM
and I recorded the studio equipment itself, the drive noises, ventilation,
vibrations in the machines, the studio’s air conditioning, doors…
This particular array of sound forms the sole and exclusive basic material
for Architectural Commentary 5: Some Models for Resonant Behaviour
and links the cycle to earlier music pieces I constructed with sounds from
computer labs. This part was commissioned by Resonance FM.
In Architectural Commentaries I composed some structures (mainly in
parts 4 and 5) loosely based on Luigi Nono’s idea of ‘isole musicali’.
This means that encyclopaedic variations of themes are generated and
often highlighted by silent breaks, like islands, between the individual
parts, all different in form and size, but topologically similar.”
Frankfurt-based Behrens is presently best described as a ‘sound artist’,
working across performance, installation and audio-visual recorded
media. He also creates photographic works, designs record sleeves,
and has even produced a bottle of white wine...
See also Outposts
First edition of 300 copies.
£8
E45.mp3 © 2007 Marc Behrens. For private listening purposes only.
No public hiring, performance or broadcast without the author’s permission.
Sascha Renner at Earlabs
Marc Behrens (or is it?), 2007. Photograph by Sony Ericsson W880i
The logic surrounding Marc Behrens’ artistic output is often inflexible,
not really open to chance except for slight and mostly controlled
intermissions (or is it?). But, at the same time, this scarcity of
openings results in a rarely seen coherence which, on a sonic level,
guarantees that each one of his releases sound absorbingly attractive,
placing the listeners in a space that might appear either like the
restricted area of their interior conflicts or a symbolic representation
of human thought in its most inaccessible corners. The aural
constructions that Behrens is able to conceptualise, elaborate and,
ultimately, exploit are indeed unique, in this case facilitated by his
choice of presenting successions of events separated by short silent
segments, a concept based on Luigi Nono’s ‘isole musicali’ (musical
islands). The author writes that he was inspired by ‘architectural
criticism, structures, buildings, involuntary cityscapes (…) and
technological noise within buildings’. The latter point is expanded in
Architectural commentary 5: some models for resonant behaviour;
the segment starting around minute 13, an awesome humming moan-
cum-oscillating high frequencies, is purely and simply a thing of beauty.
The opener Architectural commentary 4 shows at times a strong
conceptual link with Asmus Tietchens’ work, even if Behrens’ coldness
still possesses a degree of humanity — barely visible in the distance,
yet it isthere — that attributes a ’faraway-light-in-a-thick fog‘ aura
to the piece… The album’s overall quality, excellent in any circumstance anyway, will be enhanced by your own preference of setting as this is
the kind of music that, while revealing more details on close listening,
yields the most satisfactory outcome when we let it manifest its grayish
blackness in the rare, precious moments when the world’s asleep.
Massimo Ricci at Touching Extremes
—
There are sounds like stone on stone, for example, large stones. To the
extent they offer images of cityscapes, they do so in a de Chirico sense,
one of empty concrete canyons and long shadows. There’s a brief bustle
or two, a sudden flurry of traffic, but then it’s back to the urban desolation.
A short track separates the two main pieces; though it’s entirely of a piece
with them, its concision serves to orient the listener with regard to the
others. The first half of Commentary 5 is even emptier than its predecessor,
a place of drips, vague, distant echoes of machinery, the occasional low
thrum of some subterranean engine. Midway through, an eerie, silvery drone
emerges accompanied by quasi-musical pings, backwards tape swatches and
gurgles. It’s kind of like coming upon a barely functioning outpost in the
ruins. It dissipates after a few minutes, bringing us back into the ozone-
tinged vacuum. Behrens has created some evocative work, very effective
and accomplished of its kind.
Brian Olewnick at Bagatellen