ECHO FROM THE CUT
you invite people to enter a sound space with you, whose exit is open and not defined in detail. 
Visual attendance is very important: you take the audience with you to follow you, your body, your voice. In doing so, you produce images that manifest themselves in front of the audience, in an ephemeral nature, which at the same time produce a sound space. For me, the acoustic pleasure of listening to you in this setting is only brilliant when I can see you or follow your movements and objects. An exciting revolution takes place in my head: you make everyday, small, inconspicuous things sound, which normally have no acoustic voice and are not called resonating bodies. But in cooperation with your movements and your body, it becomes a collaboration, a dialogue, music. This has something very poetic, subtle, fragile. 

The echo takes place afterwards in my head (listener within the set, the performance): 
The images of the visually soundless connotations of the objects reappear and I remember their song, their sound that you coaxed out of them. This poetic process in my head, called memory, makes me perceive your acoustic and visual performance as a whole, which reappears again and again in the form of echo intervals - In my case as a visual artist, first the image, then the sound. 

Olivier Wiederkehr 2022

SCHNITT Simon Berz live at Staalblaat Berlin 24.3.2022

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Doug Garrison (New Orleans) & Simon Berz (Zürich)
Liverecording of the Anxious Sound's series at the AllWays Lounge New Orleans 

featuring visiting Swiss drum/electronics maven SIMON BERZ in duo with one of New Orleans' most deeply-skilled drummers DOUG GARRISION.
Doug Garrison is most widely known as drummer for the Iguanas, but his incredible range & musical sensitivity is the result of impressively varied experience from his time in Memphis to his many years in New Orleans. From Alex Chilton and Jim Dickinson to Charlie Rich then onward to a score of adventurous improvisors & composers he brings a steady hand & fast ears to the table every time...

Simon Berz is a drummer and sound artist. He is strongly engaged in the development of his own instruments and the possibilities of the drums with the use of electronics.
In his research of sound, he makes use of analog electronics and feedbacks. Besides an electrified drum set, he also works intensely with stones, amplifying and distorting their natural sound electronically.
As a drummer/electronic musician, Simon Berz has toured solo and with other musicians throughout Japan, China, Cuba, Iceland, the US and Europe. He played with Skúli Sverrisson, Rob Mazurek, Kirk Joseph, Jason Marsalis, Mars Williams, Bettina Boller, Mauro Pawlowski (dEUS), Lee “Scratch“ Perry, Niels Petter Molvear, Damo Suzuki (CAN), Jojo Mayer, Jimi Tenor, Apparat, James Turell, Hans Koch, Johanna Borchert, Paul Lowens... With Dutch electronic musician and artist toktek, he formed the band FELL, with whom he toured extensively and released
records on the Swiss label Hula Honeys mixed by Roli Mosimann.

Doug and Berz played on this evening the first time together after they know each since long time. For both of them, the interaction was a deep, intense and sensitiv conversation between to drums and electronics.



Garrison_Berz Live at Always Lounge New Orleans 20160119

****** SOUNDS FROM ADDIS ABABA******
‘an ode to the people of Ethiopia’

Addis Ababa, the un-official capital of east-Africa, consists out of an uncountable amount of scents, colours and sounds arising from an extreme diversity of daily human, cultural and religious acts. From the famous and overcrowded ‘Mercato Market’, the biggest market in Africa, where you can buy everything you can think of and more, up to a large amount of churches and mosques that sing consecutively and brotherly together. From the plodding shoe-cleaners, corn-sellers and scale-boys to the palaces from Haile Selassie and the visible growing modern and rich ‘Bole’. All this is glued together by an inimitable cloud of small taxi-vans, served on a big and tasty Injera, that will bring you, in a cosy entanglement with other Addisians, for not more than 20 euro cents all over town.

This plural mix of Ethiopian ingredients is shown the best in the extremely rich and genius Ethiopian music tradition, which embodies the deep respect and knowledge of the ancestors. Traditional (tribal) music from different parts of Ethiopia mixed in the 1970 (this decade is also known as the ‘golden era’ of Ethiopian music and was brutally interrupted by the cruel intervention of the communist regime of the Junta, which lasted for 20 years, leaving a big scar in the Ethiopian society) with other music genres from around the world, leading to what is nowadays known as the ‘Ethio-jazz music’.

My brief but fascinating meeting with the Ethiopian rich culture, and the amazingly friendly Ethiopian people that let me into their lives, lead to this podcast, which consists out of more than 50 live recordings of sounds from the street, interviews and many musical performances. All this together became my ‘Ode to the people of Ethiopia’. I’m thankful for all the great people I met, the music I got to know and the sounds that Addis Ababa presented to me. I will be back Ethiopia, because those sounds are just a first impression, the tip of the iceberg. 


List of ingredients:
00:00: Piazza square
02:00: Hiding from the rain, while having a typical Ethiopian coffee ceremony. 
03:00: ‘Scale-boys’: trying to get your attention.
04:00: Taking one of the small taxi-vans to a concert.
06:00: Concert ‘Addis Acoustic Project’ @ The Coffee House.
08:00: The rainy season by night.
08:30: Addis by night.
09:00: Morning birds.
10:00: Sunday-morning singing and praying from protestant church. Recordings from my room.
12:00: Parts of an interview with Melaku Belay: guardian of the rich and divers Ethiopian cultural tradition, famous Ethiopian dancer (in Holland known from performances with the band The EX) and the mastermind behind the amazing cultural centre ‘Fendika’.
16:00: Nardos Tesfaw @ Fendika
21:00: Tadele Bekele @ Fendika
26:00: Hawa @ Fendika
31:00: Jared Negu @ Fendika
33:00: Sounds from ‘Mercato’: the biggest market from Africa.
34:00: Poem on ‘Mercato Market’ by the greatest poet from Ethiopia: Tsegaye Gabre Medhin.
39:00: Boys with stereos, selling religious tapes to people near the entrance of a big orthodox church.
40:00: Religious praying from Orthodox church.
41:00: Interview with Dr. Mulatu Astatke, the godfather of Ethio-Jazz.
45:00: Dr Mulatu Astatke and the African Jazz Village @ Gion Hotel.
60:00: A small impression from sounds of the countryside from Ethiopia: sounds from the ‘Hamer Tribe’, south-Ethiopia. 




Sounds From Addis Ababa

A tree of life.
All sounds recorded in Iceland.
Laura Tack, 2016-2017

Tree Of Life

remix
I shit you not.
From Zoe Nightingale's podcast episode
Love Trumps Hate: Scissor Fest 2017

I shit you not.

Instant Opus 20170501 New Orleans Nikki Glaspie (dr) Simon Berz (dr/efx)

Justin Peake git, b, efx
Simon Berz dr, efx

PEAKE BERZ SIDEBAR 2017

Kokhlias & Loulan

Olga Kokcharova: field recording - electroacoustic
Antoine Läng: voice - megaphones

from recordings over and underwater in the Lac de Tanay,  Switzerland, August 15 2017, 4 to 6 am.
dedicated to Venus - Venera, from a project commissioned by HUMANKIND RECORDS http://www.humankindrecords.com/
composed by Olga Kokcharova and Antoine Läng
mastering by Gianluca Ruggeri

Our axis of composition/creation are mainly focused on our perception: - how Venus can be perceived from us either as a planet, as a star (seen from Earth) or as a deity; - how sound is affected by environment and how it can be perceived whether through the Earth’s atmosphere or through the thick air of Venus and how the distance between the perception of human voice and electronic instrumentation can be blurred through this atmospheric filtration.

We did not proceed from collecting pure data as none of us two are scientists. We rather worked intuitively, from our human, artistic and literary backgrounds, as people who first know the planet as a bright star easily observed in the sky at dusk and at dawn, or from stories other humans weaved after the same observation, in other words, from different points of vue: poetry, mythology, science and music, human sources and, somehow, interpretations.

Our first move was to draw a connection between Venus and water that happened to be very fertile. Not only because of her birth in the ocean, following the Greek mythology, but also, as a star, from several links made with the activity of fishing that we found in literacy. We chose to follow this lead also because of the composition of Venus atmosphere, thicker and heavier than Earth, probably something in between air and water that might affect the sound on the planet.

Then we decided to make voice and field recordings over and underwater, partly during the time the planet can be observed in Lake Tannay’s sky (Swiss Alps) as a first collection of sounds « from the planet Venus », through means that were accessible from Earth. Additional recordings came later as complements. Most of the sounds are vocal sounds performed and recorded underwater and in the air. We thought the mix of the two sources could sound like something perceived on Venus, through its atmosphere. We also observed that these vocal emissions could be mistaken with synthetic/electronic sounds. Further, we also proceeded starting from the atmosphere of Venus, imagining sounds that would be more appropriate and efficient in such environnement than words and singing - like whales or seals in the ocean - to create a specific Venusian poetry.


Sources:
Poetry: Lo Steddazzu, Cesare Pavese, a poem dedicated to the morning star and a fisherman: http://balbruno.altervista.org/index-1222.html
Mythology: Barnumbir, an aboriginal goddess related to the morning star and fishing
Sound document: Venera / from the first russian probe that collect sound samples from Venus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jZDW53U8qQ&t=94s

So these are the main inputs; our structure follows the day/night times that we thought could be connected to the variations between underwater and air sound environnements.

VENERA by Kokhlias & Loulan

Dirar Kalash - Electronics
Joke Lanz - Voice
Utku Tavil - Drums

from the upcoming Demo c10

recorded at Villa Kuriosum's Krach Keller, with support from Czentrifuga, Multiversal and Circus Charivari!

Kalash x Lanz x Tavil - Tiny Little Creatures

mit einem Fuss im Kofferraum

Drums and Soundart

Simon Berz is a drummer and sound artist. He is strongly engaged in the development of his own instruments and the possibilities of the drums with the use of electronics.
In his research of sound, he makes use of analog electronics and feedbacks. Besides an electrified drum set, he also works intensely with stones, amplifying and distorting their natural sound electronically.
As a drummer/electronic musician, Simon Berz has toured solo and with other musicians throughout Japan, China, Cuba, Iceland, the US, Russia and Europe. He played with Skúli Sverrisson, Rob Mazurek, Kirk Joseph, Jason Marsalis, Mars Williams, Bettina Boller, Mauro Pawlowski (dEUS), Lee “Scratch“ Perry, Niels Petter Molvear, Damo Suzuki (CAN), Jojo Mayer, Jimi Tenor, Apparat, James Turell, Hans Koch, Johanna Borchert, Paul Lowens... With Dutch electronic musician and artist toktek, he formed the band FELL, with whom he toured extensively and released
records on the Swiss label Hula Honeys mixed by Roli Mosimann.

Simon Berz is a drummer and sound artist. Sins several years he develops his own instruments and searches for new possibilities of working with the drum set and percussion. He worked intensly on creating an electrified drumset, using analog electronics and feedbacks, as well as an amplified lithophon, built with stones he found in the Alps.
Simon is also the initiator of the artist platform  and transdiscilinary musicscool BADABUM. Taking improvised music as a basis, the label brings together different artforms, from film and dance to performance and fine arts. Since it was founded in 2001, BADABUM has served as a platform for more than 100 musicians and artists from all over the world.
As a drummer and electronic musician, Simon Berz has toured solo and in different formations through Europe, USA, Japan and China. He creates music and soundscapes for theatre and film and recently composed and conducted a soundtrack to the silent film Metropolis for screenings in Switzerland and China.

Lithophon
When Swiss drummer and sound artist Simon Berz rode his bike across a field of stone in the French Alps, he was immediately taken by the sounds the stones produced. He took some of them home to create a lithophon, which he then amplified and manipulated with electronic effects. As he scratches and strokes them or uses different sticks and materials to hit them percussively, he creates a dense and unique performance. For installation purposes, he lets water drop from infusion bags in various speeds, creating a complex and meditative sound piece.

SCHNITT Simon Berz live at Staalblaat Berlin 24.3.2022

Simon Berz

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