New improvised music, released 2014 by edition explico, explico 20

limited edition of 100 !



    bagatelles ?
Just to announce a sequence of short pieces the title seems to be reasonable. Listening to them the  usual definition as succession without contentual interlinking turns out to be questionable.
 The leading theme within these 14 musical events promptly becomes evident: its air, breathing – as   vital source and material of this playing.
    The two instruments – virtuously performed in extrem registers, quick intervallic leaps and a rich  modulation of extensive tonal spreading and splitting -  appear similiar in their qualities,but they are 
both also elaborated in their different colors and agility. 
The mikrotonal splintering arpeggios  culminating to flickering circulating soundclusters are reserved for the soprano saxophone as well as  keen metallic accents or chirping melodic miniatures. While playing the bass clarinet Zoepf makes aware its wide tonal space and plasticity. Tonal marks or the snapping of the key finger buttons explode  as round capped volume. Flowing legato is set in contrast to harsh staccato and a linear tremolando is   used as a kind of base station for impulsive excursions.
 Nearly all pieces – full of energy – sproud into an expanded multiphonic range tuned by resonances   from the noise of breathing, lips, mouth and voice. A quite current instrumental technique, developed     by the musician to a very individual, complex and emphatic expressivity. The acoustic spectrum of all these archaic pre-lingual sounds produced at the mouthpiece or at the open pipe exceeds any attempt  of an onomatopoetic description. Sometimes the instrument itself becomes an open voice, winning its articulation and coloring from impulses and mouvements out of throat and oral cavity. Mixtures change to polyphony. Breathing at the reed and the buzzing "breath" of the air column in the pipe rotate around  each other. Voice and instrument supply one another as call and response, meshing into a multiple  course.
 Zoepfs’ solo-improvisations gain their drive of selfchalenge from this physical tension between musician and instrument. A challenge he is mastering with an intense creative audacity. 
 The turbulence of all these interferences, the pressure set free by an increasing accelaration of musical gestures and the organic force of the voice are involving risks.  But no scream becomes a stunned effect. The density of the events don’t become bogged down.   Even extreme dynamics don’t stall as one-way powerplay. In fact, a lot of moments celebrate a kind  of witty playfulness that reflects ironic self-observation. Every expression is bound back into the  musical  process, according to the essence of music as inner singing.
The experience of these "bagatelles" is casting doubts on the common negative connotation of this  term as a kind of triviality.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Elke Schipper


Bagatellen op. 126 recorded live in Karlsruhe 2014 op 127 in Erftstadt

Bagatelle op 127 no VIII    Bassclarinet

Live concert inKarlsruhe, February 2014, the 13th

Bagatelle op 126  No I Soprano Saxophone

recorded live in Karlsruhe, February 2014, the 13th

Bagatelle op 126  No IV  Bassclarinet

Bagatelle op 127  No XII Soprano Saxophone

musician, improviser, composer, soundartist, sound technician, performer (*1955, Düsseldorf) - soprano. alto, tenor, baritone saxophone, bassclarinet, piano, live electronics, computermusic  (Maxmsp and Rtcmix )

-> studied music in Vienna and Cologne<-
-> working as a freelancer (musicteacher, artist) scince 1976 <-
-> startet as a jazzplayer (e. g. "Kölner Saxophon Mafia")<-
-> played also new music theatre, new music, rock music <-
->colaborates with actors, performers, dancers, visual artists <-
-> developed his own style and art of playing away from jazz! <-


- - - - ->  No easy listening stuff, nothing to relax, but interesting for open minded people ! <- - - - -

Bagatellen op. 126 recorded live in Karlsruhe 2014 op 127 in Erftstadt

Joachim Zoepf