The Bilbao-based NUENI RECS. has just released its newest album and it features Manfred Werder's 2015³ actualized by Regler, the collaborative duo between Mattin and Brainbombs' Anders Bryngelsson. The score for the piece can be seen above on the album's cover and is translated as such:

through excessive fatigue i had thrown myself on my bed in my clothes in the brightly-lit room, and had at once, for a few seconds, fallen asleep

(Walter Benjamin, One-way Street, Halt For Not More Than Three Cabs, 1928)

As with other scores from Werder, it's text based, short, and extremely open to interpretation. Werder specifically wrote the piece to be performed by Regler and it seems fitting considering what Mattin and Bryngelsson have conjured up in the past few years. In 2013, simple flowchart scores led to the two creating their take on dbeat and dub. In 2014, the straightforward "Play as hard and fast as possible for an hour" instruction led to free jazz and noisecore. And last year, the two took on harsh noise wall as the various black boxes adorning the packaging acted as scores.

Concept is always important when talking about Mattin and these projects as Regler have often felt like a critique on music (or perhaps more specifically, our relationship with it). Consider the weekly meetings that Mattin organized throughout November and December of last year and the questions he posed on the event page: "does music contain transformative qualities? Or is it just a soundtrack for our fucked up times? Are extreme actions, improvisational approaches and noise enough to dismantle our conditioned selves? Or do we need to radically reconsider the critical potential of these practices?" As noted on the cover for 2015³, the two are taking on classical music this time. Werder's scores often point performers and listeners to the world of sound around them. As a result, it'll be interesting to see how Regler take on this piece.

You can hear a sample of 2015³ above and you can purchase the album from the NUENI RECS. website here.

' Wenn ich von hinten anfangen darf: Regler, das sind Mattin & Anders Bryngelsson, die sich nach "Regel #3", ihrem Experiment mit Free Jazz und Noise Core, und "Regel #4 (HNW)", ihrer Testreihe mit Harsh Noise, nun bei "Regel #5" classical music vorknöpfen. Von vorne genom­men, haben wir einen Schweizer Pianisten und Komponisten vor uns, der Richtung Wandel­weiser und so weiter tendiert und merkwür­dige Werkreihen vorlegt. Neben Stücken wie "Ein(e) Ausführende(r) Seiten 218 - 226" oder "2 Ausführende Seiten 392-406" und "Stück 1998 Seiten 624-626" & "... Seiten 676-683" gibt es als weitere Reihe "2006¹", "2009⁵", das 31 x 18-min. "2005¹"etc. Schaue ich in die Mit­te, finde ich eine Notiz aus Walter Benja­mins "Einbahnstraße": "Vor übergroßer Ermüdung hatte ich im erhellten Zimmer mich in Kleidern aufs Bett geworfen und war sogleich, für einige Sekunden, eingeschlafen." Und dazu sieht man Bryngelsson & Mattin wie schlafend. Drücke ich auf Start, höre ich einen Schlag­zeuger mit Geräuschen oder eher noch Neben­geräuschen, während er auf seinen Einsatz wartet. Ähnlich hört man von Mattin minimal­ste, eher wie unbeabsichtigte, als beab­sichtig­te Laute. Meist sind die Atemzüge und das Grundrauschen des Raums das einzig Hör­bare. Da kein Einsatz irgendeiner 'Musik' in gewohnter Weise erfolgt, muss man in dem, was zu hören ist, kleinsten Stupsern, den Atem­zügen, im Grunde der Performanz eines Schlafs von exakt 40 Min. mit seinen spora­disch regis­trierbaren Bewegungen an den Nahtstellen von Stille und Beinahestille, das zu Erwartende vermuten. Im Sinne 'Gedachter Musik' ist also 'Geschlafene Musik' zu 'hören'. Konzeptionell erscheint mir das auf Augen­höhe mit Diego Chamys "The Fluxus Pieces", selbst wenn Motivation und Intention eine ganz andere sein sollten und die von Regler wieder eine andere als die von Werder. Bei dem ich allenfalls den Satz finde: In der Abwesenheit artikulierter Klänge werde ich dann immer stärker in das Klingende aller Begegnung aufgelöst, erfahre mich als Welt. Er hat den Hang zu klingenden Gedankenspielen, die er an Zitaten auf­hängt, und ist völlig einverstanden, dass Musiker nicht spielen, dass überhaupt jeder sein Recht auf Schweigen wahrnimmt. Denn ihn reizt das Mögliche mehr als alles Realisierte und der Klang einer vorhandenen Situation mehr, als das, was er hinzufügen könnte. '

Vital Weekly  

number 1015
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week 2
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So far I quite enjoyed the music of Regler, Mattin (on guitar) and Anders Bryngelsson (on drums) in
which they "set up rules and try to do different genres of music with rock instruments", and so far
they tackled 'dbeat' ('Regel 1', see Vital Weekly 966) and 'dub' ('Regel 2', see Vital Weekly 966),
free jazz ('Regel 3', see Vital Weekly 957) harsh noise wall ('Regel 4', see Vital Weekly 983), all
with quite diverse results, ranging from the very loud to the very quiet. For 'Regel #5' they perform
a piece by Manfred Werder, from the Wandelweiser group, which is modern classical music, all about
very quiet music. The piece has a Walter Benjamin quote as a guiding principle, about how he got home
and fell asleep, for a few seconds. It's in German on the cover. Scores are open ended in the world
of Wandelweiser (as far as I know), so who knows? Maybe Regler does exactly what is required and perform
a very silent piece. What do we hear? Two people stumbling into a room and rumble about for a bit and
then, perhaps, fall asleep. Beyond the ten-minute break we don't hear much anymore, just some static
hiss and very occasional a rumble - the musicians fell asleep, as depicted on the inside of the cover.
This is music that is about something else and it's music that is about music, about listening. I quite
enjoyed their previous releases, but in this instance I am not entirely convinced, I must say. I am
already aware of silence, silent music and all that rattling of John Cages. I understand the concept
of silence, or the absence of it, and I simply prefer a great piece of music.

IDWAL FISHER (February 2016)

Thanks to the Bearded Wonder over at RFM I now have two releases from Nuen Recs to listen to. Or not as the case may be. Two releases that were deemed unsuitable for dissemination at RFM due to the fact that the Bearded Wonder declines to put the boot in anymore, something to do with positivism and preservation of the id. No fear, where Beardy fears to tread I done my welders clogs and start jumping around in broken bottle glass. Fortunately for me the Campbell bunged me a Hession/Stefani release that did more than enough to reverse the damage.

Things didn't start well with cursory listens revealing most of the Wender release to be nothing but silence.  Not absolute silence as recorded in an anechoic chamber of course. No, no no, that would be too easy. But I'm an attentive listener these days and with the new hi-if still tickling my eardrums I decided to put aside a precious Saturday afternoon to get to the bottom of what was actually going on here. Now I'm no stranger to silence in the area of recorded music and have great affection for people like Bernhard Günter and Francisco López, musicians who have chosen to work at the very bottom of the audible scale [my eternal memory of Gunter is a picture of him cupping a dried leaf to his ear as if listening intently to his slow desiccation, but I digress]. 2015³ is a work by the Swiss minimalist composer Manfred Werder as interpreted by the Swedish duo Regler. Something to do with Werder giving them a line of text by Walter Benjamin and telling them to get on with it. The results are a 40 minute track that for the first ten minutes sounds like someone setting up a drum kit and for the next thirty minutes is nothing but virtual silence. The inside cover shows someone asleep at the drum kit and someone asleep on the floor in front of an industrial lamp [all part of the interpretation kiddoes]. I can only assume that the recording is that of the drummer setting up his kit so as not to awaken his partner before turning on the lights at 40.00 resulting in this conversation:
‘I tried not to wake you during the recording’
‘It's ok I'm a heavy sleeper’
‘We've done. I’ve pressed stop’
‘Did it work?’
‘I think so’
‘Great’

cmmagazine (Saint Petersburg, 26 May 2016)

Вот и встретились “тролли” современной экспериментальной музыки! Швейцарец Манфред Вердер (Manfred Werder) является одним из самых радикальных композиторов (если не самым) сообщества Wandelweiser, а дуэт Regler - это Андерс Брингельссон (Anders Bryngelsson), известный по Brainbombs, и Маттин (Mattin), уже давно славящийся непредсказуемыми выходками и провокациями на сцене. Да, при чём здесь Вердер? Дело в том, что дуэт реализовал его пьесу 2015 3, произошло это в марте 2015-го года в Стокгольме. Альбом вышел на баскском лейбле Nueni, и так славящимся неординарными релизами, но этот задирает планку ещё выше.

В первые минут восемь мы слышим некие приготовления к чему-то, редкие звуки передвигаемых предметов, перешёптывание, прочие посторонние и немузыкальные звуки. А дальше музыканты начинают дремать, а может и вовсе спать. Слышны шорохи и дыхание, иногда задеваются микрофоны, покашливание, какие-то посторонние гудения случаются. Всё заканчивается на отметке сорок минут ровно.

Красота повседневности, на которую не обращаешь внимания в суете дней, выставлена нарочито пустой, почти бессмысленной. Полагаю, многим будет сложно найти здесь музыку, а может её здесь и совсем нет. Тем не менее, простота, с которой сделан этот альбом, не может не очаровать. Это либо очень-очень наивно, либо слишком заумно. Грань каждый определит для себя сам.

После стольких лет редукционизма хочется ещё тихой музыки? Получите её от Вердера и Regler и помяните добрым словом.

2015 Nueni CD

Илья Белоруков