Gal: relisten

Audio CD, Intransitive Recordings, USA, 2001

http://www.bernhardgal.com/relisten.html

The work of Austrian sound artist Bernhard Gal is concerned with the discovery (as opposed to the imposition) of musical structures within the nuances of everyday life. The stammering in the spaces of spoken language, the ubiquitous noise of urban environments, the steady stream of buzzes and whirrs that are a byproduct of mass transportation, all become subjects examined under Gal's extraordinarily precise microscope. He explores ideas about time and language, extrapolating and enlarging and repeating the often overlooked details and minutiae until their inherent sonic beauty supersedes their typical mundane habitat.
Following last year's critically acclaimed 'Defragmentation/Blue' CD (Plate Lunch, GER), Relisten is Gal's first domestic US album. Each of the six tracks is its own self-contained piece, spurred by some personal association to the composer. However, taken all together, one can travel by sound from New York City (where Gal spent a year's residency at the Leo Baeck Institute) to the subways of Vienna and beyond. The piece lv, nv uses adaptive filters to uncover hidden musical elements always present at a Vegas casino. Another, Tong-hua yie-shi could be described as real-time musique concrete, created by walking through a Taiwanese night market equipped with a stereo microphone, DAT, and headphones.
'Relisten operates between the world's soundscapes and their detachment from context', says Gal. 'The personal discovery of music within nature as well as within the routines of everyday life keeps fascinating me. Sometimes I return to a certain place only to record its sound.'

[Howard Stelzer, Intransitive Recordings, Boston]


'Top 10 of 2001' 

[Dan Warburton, The Wire, UK]

#2 bee bee (excpt) | CD relisten (2001)

#3 57A (excpt) | CD relisten (2001)

#1 It's like.. (excpt) | CD relisten (2001)

Gal: bestimmung new york 

Audio CD, Durian, 1999 

15 tracks, total time: 63.08

http://www.bernhardgal.com/bestimmungnewyork.html

"With bestimmung new york, I intend to foster an awareness for the musical/sonic qualities of language. I spent the summer of 1998 in New York City recording the voices of 15 friends and colleagues speaking always the same phrases and words in different languages. Using digital sampling and some computer processing I extracted speech rhythms, speech melodies or simply sounds and recombined them creating short electro-acoustic pieces. Starting point was my experience that languages, when detached from their semantic and functional context, are perceived as sound events, as music. I am interested in opening up this acoustic space by focusing on melodic and rhythmic patterns, as well as sonic and dynamic characteristics of language, yet seen from a musical viewpoint. Strongly connected to this idea is what I call the individual 'sonic fingerprint' of each voice. The acoustic and also the inherent emotional qualities of the different recordings played an important role within the compositional process. Thus, the 3-5 minutes long pieces emerge from the individual sound character of the respective voices, the influence of rhythmic and melodic textures, as well as my associative assemblage 
and modification of the recorded voice fragments. 

[Bernhard Gal, October 1999]

#1: ayako-japanese (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

Gal: bestimmung new york 

Audio CD, Durian, 1999 

15 tracks, total time: 63.08

http://www.bernhardgal.com/bestimmungnewyork.html

"With bestimmung new york, I intend to foster an awareness for the musical/sonic qualities of language. I spent the summer of 1998 in New York City recording the voices of 15 friends and colleagues speaking always the same phrases and words in different languages. Using digital sampling and some computer processing I extracted speech rhythms, speech melodies or simply sounds and recombined them creating short electro-acoustic pieces. Starting point was my experience that languages, when detached from their semantic and functional context, are perceived as sound events, as music. I am interested in opening up this acoustic space by focusing on melodic and rhythmic patterns, as well as sonic and dynamic characteristics of language, yet seen from a musical viewpoint. Strongly connected to this idea is what I call the individual 'sonic fingerprint' of each voice. The acoustic and also the inherent emotional qualities of the different recordings played an important role within the compositional process. Thus, the 3-5 minutes long pieces emerge from the individual sound character of the respective voices, the influence of rhythmic and melodic textures, as well as my associative assemblage and modification of the recorded voice fragments. 

[Bernhard Gal, October 1999]

#2: gabriel-hungarian (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#3: genevieve-filipino (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#4: jamila-arabic (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#5: kat-polish (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#7: maria-spanish (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#8: melina-german (excpt)| CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#10: ruvn-yiddish (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#11: sasha-russian (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#12: susanne-english (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#13: toon-thai (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

#14: vazira-urdu (excpt) | CD 'bestimmung new york' (1999)

Silap Inua

Intermedia Performance for two Audionauts and Piano, 2013

A collaborative composition by Belma Bešlić-Gál & Bernhard Gál.

http://www.bernhardgal.com/silapinua.html

Silap Inua is the second joint composition by Belma Beslic-Gál and Bernhard Gál, after flut, for bass flute and sound projection which premiered at Stift St. Peter in Salzburg in November 2011. The idea for this new piece was instigated by the Austrian painter Astrid Rieder, and her invitation to present a new work in conjunction with her annual studio concert event, the Atelierkonzert für Neue Musik 2013. 

In Inuit mythology Silap Inua is the 'possessor of spirit', the 'primary ingredient of all that is'; it is also being described as the breath of life resp. a method of locomotion for any movement or change. Other sources describe Silap Inua as ferocious sylphs who mislead travellers with blizzards and emit a distinct cold aura effect. Two audionauts move through the concert space. Carrying mobile loudspeakers, the movement of the performers results in constantly changing sound-space-constellations. Reaching the stage, the second part of the piece starts - a transference of breath, and of coldness.

Silap Inua (excpt)

Silence is quiet. Listening.

Radiophonic Composition, 2013

In collaboration with the Slovakian author Róbert Gál.

Duration: 52'

http://www.bernhardgal.com/silence-is-quiet-listening.html

The starting point for this radiophonic work was Gáls inter-media installation 'solo (Košice)' which has been presented in Košice in September 2012, in conjunction with Košice 2013 - European Capital of Culture. It is based on field recordings which were mainly collected in and around Košices main boulevard (Hlavná ulica), as well as on selected texts by the Slovakian writer Róbert Gál which the author recites himself in English, German and Slovakian. Gál's idiosyncratic, and often absurd-enigmatic texts open up associative fields which are interwoven with 'everyday' sound situations through Bernhard Gáls meticulous compositional arrangement, thus offering multi-dimensional interpretations and 'readings': Silence is quiet. Listening can be explored as a twisted sound portrait of the city of Košice, a journey into Róbert Gál's intellectual universe, a sound art radio story, 52 minutes of music, or a bit of everything - depending on the interest and bias of the listener.

Commissioned by Austrian National Radio - Kunstradio, Austria.

Silence is quiet. Listening. (excpt) - Radiophonic composition (2013)

Dreiband

Intermedia installation, Berlin 2003

http://www.bernhardgal.com/dreiband.html

Part of Gal's solo exhibition 'RGBuSW' at singuhr - hoergalerie in parochial, Berlin, July-September 2003

This installation is the compositional and room-acoustic fusion of an authentic sound situation and abstracted sound layers / virtual spaces. Its foundation is the four-channel sound recording of two games of billiards. The sound space, consisting of the usual sounds of the game (the clicking and rolling of the balls, billiard cue noises, coffeehouse atmosphere, etc.), is acoustically reproduced by four loudspeakers. In the middle of the exhibition space, a white frame indicates the proportions of an imaginary billiard table; suspended over it are three billiard balls – a visual abstraction of the essence of carom billiards. The four-channel sound recording of a billiards game is heard from a platform below the frame. The clicking of the balls thereby functions as a trigger (“sync track”) for additional sound layers, which create, via four more loudspeakers positioned in the room’s corners, a “virtual” sound space folded outward. The acoustic density and temporal structuring of the composition is thus directly connected to the course of the game. P.S.: Dreiband is the German name for three-cushion billiards, a version of carom billiards.

Dreiband has been published as part of  Gal's catalogue book & audio CD 'Installations', Kehrer Verlag Germany, 2005.

#04: Dreiband (excpt) | CD Installations (2005)

Defragmentation (Fuji) is an electroacoustic composition which has been presented as part of the audioarchitectural installation "Tsumugu" by Yumi Kori and Bernhard Gal. 

Premiere: Fuji Textile Week, Fujiyoshida, Japan, December 2021 - January 2022. Photo: Shuhei Yoshida. 

http://www.bernhardgal.com/galkori.html#info

Defragmentation (Fuji) | excerpt | 2021

Third part of the work series "homesweethomes", 2016.

www.bernhardgal.com/homesweethomes.html

homesweethomes #3 | excerpt | 2016

Electroacoustic multi-channel composition. 
FP: Festival Acousmonium 2023 @ echoraum, Vienna, March 2023.

http://www.bernhardgal.com/vierband.html

Vierband | excerpt | 2023

Audio documentation (excerpt) of:

Alsógál
Intermedia installation
Premiere: Műcsarnok | Kunsthalle, Budapest, 2014
http://www.bernhardgal.com/alsogal.html

Published as part of Gál's book & DVD-Video Zwischenbrücken.
edition sp ce / Gromoga, Austria, 2015
www.bernhardgal.com/zwischenbruecken.html

Alsógál (excerpt)

Audio documentation (excerpt) of:

solo (Tulln)
Intermedia installation
Premiere: Rathausplatz, Tulln (Austria), 2007
http://www.bernhardgal.com/solo.html

Published as part of Gál's book & DVD-Video Zwischenbrücken.
edition sp ce / Gromoga, Austria, 2015
www.bernhardgal.com/zwischenbruecken.html

solo (Tulln) - blue (excerpt)

Audio documentation (excerpt) of:

solo (Braunschweig)
Intermedia installation
Premiere: Lessingplatz, Braunschweig, 2009
www.bernhardgal.com/solo.html

Published as part of Gál's book & DVD-Video Zwischenbrücken.
edition sp ce / Gromoga, Austria, 2015
www.bernhardgal.com/zwischenbruecken.html

solo (Braunschweig) - green (excerpt)

Audio documentation (excerpt) of:

shinkai
Audio-architectural installation in collaboration with Yumi Kori.
Premiere: ISE Cultural Foundation, New York City, 2006
http://www.bernhardgal.com/shinkai.html

Published as part of Gál's book & DVD-Video Zwischenbrücken.
edition sp ce / Gromoga, Austria, 2015
www.bernhardgal.com/zwischenbruecken.html

shinkai (excerpt)

52 real seconds time-stretched into 90 seconds. For real.

... it sounds pretty familiar, but is it really what it sounds like?
And (how) would it sound different, if it wasn't real resp. 'really' real? 

This is for real

http://www.bernhardgal.com/jazznuttree.html

Under the Jazz Nut Tree (excpt)

http://www.bernhardgal.com/ur-ur.html

Ur-Ur is the first audible result of an ongoing artistic exploration based on genealogical research. Family trees are turned into sound structures, kinships experienced as acoustic, and thus temporal and spatial relations. Ur-Ur features eight sound miniatures, each of them putting one of my ‘great-great-grandfathers’ into focus. The resulting pieces comprise all direct relatives who lived during the time span of the respective central person, as far as known. Each life is represented by a specific single tone resp. frequency shift, each generation being assigned a certain octave. Leading from great-grandparents to great-grandchildren, each composition spans about 200 years and up to seven octaves. Like life itself, these compositions resemble each other in their general layout. However, in detail they reveal most diverse characteristics. And just as in real life, various interferences may occur between single tones, leading to more and less harmonious constellations.

Ur-Ur (part 3) - An Audiogenealogy (2016)

New series of voice sculptures, presented 20 years after the publication of Gal's first audio CD bestimmung new york (Durian, 1999). Based on voice recordings with Viennese teenagers speaking in their mother tongues [Arabic (Egyptian, Syrian, Tunisian), Bosnian, Farsi, French, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Vlach]. Created in collaboration with the Viennese social-profit organisation Zeit!Raum and the shut up and listen!-Festival. Supported by the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna (MA7).

http://www.bernhardgal.com/bestimmungwien.html

bestimmung wien (excerpt) (2019)

Kai Fagaschinski & Bernhard Gal: going round in serpentines

Audio CD, Charhizma, Austria 2005 [charizma 034], 2005

http://www.bernhardgal.com/going_round_in_serpentines_cd.html

In going round in serpentines, Bernhard Gal's re-contexturalized field recordings merge with the sonic characteristics of Kai Fagaschinski's idiosyncratic clarinet playing. Gal opens up new acoustic spaces, while Fagaschinski sculpts air with his clarinet in various ways. Based on clarinet samples, they also build up microtonal clusters with drone-like qualities. In their music they create an ambivalent musical situation between concrete and abstract listening. 
During a focused rehearsal period in winter 03/04, Fagaschinski and Gal developed open compositions where preconceived musical structures are combined with the specific energy of improvisation.

#03: in serpentines (excpt) | Fagaschinski & Gal: CD going round in serpentines (2005)

gal: Hinaus:: In den, Wald.

Audio CD, Klanggalerie, Austria 2004  [gg52]

http://www.bernhardgal.com/hinaus_in_den_wald_cd.html

In ‘Hinaus:: In den, Wald.’ (which translates into: ‘Out:: Into the, forest.’, deliberately written with ‘Wölfliesque’ punctuation) I translate Wölfli's written transformations, abstractions and creations into my own sound language. Points of reference are Adolf Wölfli's idiosyncratic punctuation and orthography, the rhythmic-repetitive character of his listings and testaments and Wölfli's biography and megalomania in general. I tried to express his permanent creative urge through an additional recording, which is based on my own walking, running and breathing "out there in the woods". Different text passages are interwoven on several layers - from totally untreated phrases to modified elements. Specific sound properties like speech rhythm, speech melody or contextual associations were focal points of my "creative processing". All texts were spoken by myself or by Stella Kao, a Taiwanese girl who didn’t understand German at all. Stella’s voice can be either seen as a cross reference to the voice of young Wölfli himself or to the voice of one of his victims. By listening on headphones, you enter Adolf Wölflis mind, hearing voices whispering inside your (his?) head, running through the woods, breathing.

(Bernhard Gal)

#06: dstüpflata (excpt) | CD Hinaus:: In den, Wald. (2004)

gal: Hinaus:: In den, Wald.

Audio CD, Klanggalerie, Austria 2004 [gg52]

http://www.bernhardgal.com/hinaus_in_den_wald_cd.html

In ‘Hinaus:: In den, Wald.’ (which translates into: ‘Out:: Into the, forest.’, deliberately written with ‘Wölfliesque’ punctuation) I translate Wölfli's written transformations, abstractions and creations into my own sound language. Points of reference are Adolf Wölfli's idiosyncratic punctuation and orthography, the rhythmic-repetitive character of his listings and testaments and Wölfli's biography and megalomania in general. I tried to express his permanent creative urge through an additional recording, which is based on my own walking, running and breathing "out there in the woods". Different text passages are interwoven on several layers - from totally untreated phrases to modified elements. Specific sound properties like speech rhythm, speech melody or contextual associations were focal points of my "creative processing". All texts were spoken by myself or by Stella Kao, a Taiwanese girl who didn’t understand German at all. Stella’s voice can be either seen as a cross reference to the voice of young Wölfli himself or to the voice of one of his victims. By listening on headphones, you enter Adolf Wölflis mind, hearing voices whispering inside your (his?) head, running through the woods, breathing.

(Bernhard Gal)

#03: uiuiuiui (excpt) | CD Hinaus:: In den, Wald. (2004)

Austrian artist, composer and musicologist Bernhard Gal is equally at home within the domains of contemporary music, installation art and media art. As of now, Gal has created around 100 sound installations and intermedia art projects, combining sound, light, objects, spatial concepts and video projections into multidimensional and prevalently site-specific art works. He also composes music for acoustic instruments and electro-acoustic music. As a laptop musician, Gál has been performing extensively on five continents. Another aspect of his work are collaborations with fellow artists, including the Japanese architect Yumi Kori (‘audio-architectural installations’) and musicians such as Tung Chao-Ming, Kai Fagaschinski, Jennifer Walshe and Belma Beslic-Gál.

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1971, Gal began to nurture his interest in music and (sound) art around 1985. After studies at Vienna’s University of Music (Sound Engineering) and the University of Vienna (Musicology), and a year-long residency in New York City in 1997–98, he has focused on his compositional and artistic activities. He runs the art production hub Gromoga and serves as the artistic director of the Austrian art organization sp ce. Since 2006, Gál has been the creative head behind shut up and listen! - Interdisciplinary Festival for Music and Sound Art, in Vienna. Between 2006 and 2007 he taught sound art at the University of Arts in Berlin. From 2010 to 2013 Gál held a research position at the Paris Lodron University Salzburg, in conjunction with the interdisciplinary doctoral college ‘Art and the Public Sphere’.

Gal's work has been presented in concerts, sound installations, exhibitions and radio portraits around the world. He has been invited to international music and art festivals (including Wien Modern Vienna; MaerzMusik Berlin; Sonambiente Berlin; Donaueschinger Musiktage; Nuova Consonanza Rome; MATA Festival New York; Soundfield Chicago; Mutek Montreal; Musicacoustica Beijing; FILE São Paulo) and frequently gives lectures and workshops.

For his music and art projects Gal has received several awards, including the Karl Hofer Prize Berlin 2001, an Annual Grant from SKE-Fonds Vienna 2002, a composer fellowship from the DAAD Artists in Berlin Programme 2003, the Austrian State Scholarship for Composition 2004, and the Outstanding Artist Award for Music of the City of Vienna 2010. His work has been made available on ca. 30 audio publications and documented with various catalogue books and DVDs. In 2005, the German publishing house Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg published a comprehensive catalogue book, documenting Gal’s intermedia installations since 1999.

Bernhard Gal

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