Joachim Kühn & Trummerschlunk - Playing Probabilities (2020) Hi Res

Having worked together for many years as musician and sound engineer, two improvisers break out of their comfort zones. Piano icon Joachim Kühn and electronica experimentalist Klaus Scheuermann alias „Trummerschlunk“ explore the potential of the unlikely: a collaboration across generations, genre boundaries, and long established professional roles.

Arriving at Kühn’s balearic hide-away, Scheuermann tapes a contact microphone onto the Steinway piano frame. Initial irritation gives way to fascination as the first feedback loop between the traditional instrument and the custom-made modular synthesizer hits Kühn’s headphones.

After three days of improvisation, they find themselves with over six hours of recorded music that engages but never confines itself to free jazz, techno, ambient, and the kind of cinematographic soundscapes that animate your favorite David Lynch film. This record condenses their meditations on the theme of chance and probability into five songs, to which bass player Tom Berkmann later adds low end gravity.

“Playing Probabilities” is an invitation to venture beyond our comfort zones and counter crisis paralysis, especially now, in this moment of all-encompassing change.