Elias Stemeseder & Max Andrzejewski - light / tied (2020) Hi Res

"Light / tied" radiates a lunatic calm. Sensitivity and fragility run through composition, improvisation and production. The album creates an intense (electro) acoustic experience. Despite the complexity of some of her compositions, Andrzejewski and Stemeseder never flaunt the virtuosity of their top-class ensemble. Because of this modesty the album touches in the most unusual way.

Elias Stemeseder and Max Andrzejewski can be assigned to a post-genre movement. They are in great demand as soloists, improvisers and composers in various intersections of contemporary musical forms of expression. After years of intensive collaboration in various projects (including Anna Webber Percussive Mechanics and KIM Collective), the idea for a joint project came up in 2018. The two musicians strove for a compositional, chamber music challenge, in which improvisation is equivalent to the composition.

The result is “light / tied”, a sextet consisting of strong soloists, whose pieces Stemeseder and Andrzejewski composed independently of each other, but partly based on the same source material. In post-production, the separation between Andrzejewski's and Stemeseder's compositions was then partially removed. Pieces were taken apart, electronically alienated and reassembled into small parts.

The result glows from the inside. The music evokes calm, pause. Noise elements break out in the finest, lyrical moments. Rugged sound towers and counterpoint refinement, sweeping harmonic fields and rhythmic microstructures are weightlessly intertwined. Fascinatingly brittle, noisily composed parts let Christian Weidner's clear lines shine even brighter. Everything on this album is necessary, interwoven and shining.