Frieder Butzmann – Wie Zeit Vergeht LP (PAN 14)

Berlin’s berserk Frieder Butzmann composes an uninterrupted stream of timbre changing and alternating sounds. Taking influence from aspects of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s work, albeit certainly far from Serielle Komposition methods, using an entirely different array of equipment and caring less for technical finesse, a raw and sometimes absurd quality emerges. In spite of the dramatic character of the compositions, Butzmann works with the same joy and intuition of when he first heard them almost 40 years ago. Manipulating analogue sounds culled from old electronic recordings that he made at STEIM in Amsterdam back in 1995 (using the infamous ‘Black Box’ modular system), a dadaistic influence shines through in the semi-naive use of electronics, vocals and undefined sound sources – the basic idea is always more important than the perfect realization. The lyrics are excerpts of articles … wie die Zeit vergeht …, Telemusik and Kurzwellen by Stockhausen plus re-writings of lyrics used in the first section of the composer’s concrete and electronic composition Hymnen.