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Capture is based upon the sound generated by Möslang's visual art installation, a collection of ten phosphorescent lights placed side by side, which he captured and processed using contact microphones and DSP. As abrasive as this seems, the results are arresting, relatively pleasant and surprisingly varied for an hour-long work. Forming a split-channel polyphony, the prismatic mechanical hum subtly yet actively soaks in variants of the same shade, calling and answering itself and moving toward a goal it never reaches -- which isn't a bad thing. After a few minutes, you'll come to appreciate the complexity of this compound voice: layers pan, dynamically shift, untangle and peel off to release other, previously masked frequencies. The tempo wobbles from time to time, revving and stumbling to create a niggling pulse. Sometimes the pulse merely sizzles, while at other times it functions as a beat, a melody and pretty much every other musical role. As with many releases on Cut, listening to Capture requires patience. It certainly isn't something you'll pop in during a dinner party or a road trip -- it demands headphones or a sit-down in front of your stereo. You may not even play it more than once, but even for a single listen, Mösler's work is inspiring -- a testament that there are still possibilities in music, and a listening experience you'll never forget. >Splendid, Dave Madden, 7.2005 Both in his now disbanded Voice Crack duo with Andy Guhl and more recently as a solo performer, Norbert Möslang has always been one of that small but select group of sound artists who set out to investigate the latent musical potential of everyday electrical objects (other dedicated explorers of micro-circuitry from refrigerators to TVs to laptops and mobile phones include Gen Ken Montgomery, Gert-Jan Prins and, surprisingly, Haco, on the recent extraordinary Stereo Bugscope 00). But where Möslang's previous outing lat_nc_ (For4Ears) explored an extraordinary range of wild and wonderful sounds, Capture, originally a sound and light installation presented last year in Feldkirch, Austria, is nothing more than a continuous grainy drone lasting exactly an hour sourced from the sound of a bank of fluorescent strip lights amplified by contact mics and processed by computer. Lest that "nothing more" be taken as a put-down, one has only to recall Howard Skempton's remarks about "how much there is to hear" in the music of La Monte Young: Möslang's software filters sweep slowly through the cloud of upper partials of the omnipresent low G fundamental, revealing ghostly melodies, fragile and forlorn semitone glissandos, as if the lights themselves were picking up mysterious broadcasts from the ether. The uncompromising nature of the work recalls the pristine minimalism of Bar Sachiko, but where Sachiko M concentrates her attention on single sine waves, Möslang's timbre is dense and gritty throughout. It's also perfectly in keeping with the austere elegance of Jason Kahn's Cut label, with its fluorescent Op Art designs screen-printed on heavy cardboard stock. Both in his now disbanded Voice Crack duo with Andy Guhl and more recently as a solo performer, Norbert Möslang has always been one of that small but select group of sound artists who set out to investigate the latent musical potential of everyday electrical objects (other dedicated explorers of micro-circuitry from refrigerators to TVs to laptops and mobile phones include Gen Ken Montgomery, Gert-Jan Prins and, surprisingly, Haco, on the recent extraordinary Stereo Bugscope 00). But where Möslang's previous outing lat_nc_ (For4Ears) explored an extraordinary range of wild and wonderful sounds, Capture, originally a sound and light installation presented last year in Feldkirch, Austria, is nothing more than a continuous grainy drone lasting exactly an hour sourced from the sound of a bank of fluorescent strip lights amplified by contact mics and processed by computer. Lest that "nothing more" be taken as a put-down, one has only to recall Howard Skempton's remarks about "how much there is to hear" in the music of La Monte Young: Möslang's software filters sweep slowly through the cloud of upper partials of the omnipresent low G fundamental, revealing ghostly melodies, fragile and forlorn semitone glissandos, as if the lights themselves were picking up mysterious broadcasts from the ether. The uncompromising nature of the work recalls the pristine minimalism of Bar Sachiko, but where Sachiko M concentrates her attention on single sine waves, Möslang's timbre is dense and gritty throughout. It's also perfectly in keeping with the austere elegance of Jason Kahn's Cut label, with its fluorescent Op Art designs screen-printed on heavy cardboard stock. Norbert Möslangs neuste CD, ein Ausschnitt aus seiner Light-Sound-Installation vom letzten Sommer in Feldkirch, fräst die Hirndecke weg. In seinen Konzerten wandelt Möslang Lichtsignale von Velorücklichtern und SOS-Lampen in donnernde Bässe um. Auf "Capture" wird aus Licht ein Klangteppich, der wilde Wellen schlägt. Wir sind jetzt bei 18.35 Minuten: Der St. Galler Klangkünstler dreht auf, die Höhen fräsen weiter, ganz oben, unerträglich fast. Nachbar hämmert, Mitbewhoner guckt irritiert – Tempo am Limit! Möslang verpasst mit Kettensäge einen neuen Haarschnitt. Tief unten wummert ein massiver Bass. 20.07 Minuten: Wohnung explodiert! Die Nachbarn verwandeln sich in Zombies und fallen in der Stadt ein, und in Milchkaffeebars, foltern mit metallenen Dornenmasken wasserstoffblonde Bedienungen und Primarlehrer in lässigem Freizeitlook. 26.34 Minuten: Vögel zwitschern. Musik is fast weg – massiv komprimiert! Stereoanlage glüht. 51.27 Minuten: Laut! Frieden hielt nur kurz. Hirn macht Sprünge. Stirn knallt auf den Tisch und bettelt um Beruhigungsmittel. Der wahnsinnige Professor ist im Wahn, das Experiment kurz vor dem Scheitern. 60.00 Minuten: Stopp. Keine Warnung! Karre knallt mit 200 Sachen frontal gegen Wand! "Capture" – Möslang meiselt weiter an seinem Elektronika-Denkmal. The fourteenth release on Cut is a recording of an exhibition by Norbert Moeslang in Feldkirch, Austria in June 2004. This installation consisted of a bank of fluorescent lights amplified by contact mics. The outcome of this highly minimal setting is a sort of interactive static hiss, almost sounding like a distorted buzz with on top of it a slowly changing long-drawn out pitch. Subtle changes in amplitude give this piece a dynamic character. Although the general sound might be slightly unpleasant for some, the conceptual intent makes this a very interesting listening experience. Norbert Moeslang, who was involved in Voice Crack until 2002, and played with the likes of Lionel Marchetti, Keith Rowe, Kevin Drumm and Jim O'Rourke, combines visual arts and sound in a delicate minimal way. "Capture" is mechanical noise of frequency that is flatly wide. Starts pretty mean and generates into a low grumble. Reminding me of a disgruntled beard buzzer, the edges of Norbert Möslang’s weapon of choice is not as sharp as it is luminous, as in light-sound installation that is. Recorded on Independence Day 2004 what’s captured almost evokes a very lengthy lit wick of a pyrotech’s test, or the squat moan of a small power generator that’s been amplified 10x. Most of this very live, hour long experiment is far less about the musicality that you find in other Cut releases, more experimenting with balance, space and other mathematical noise plots. The blur of which sound shifts and drags in raw, stripped down simplicity. The combination of parts works very linearly, and to fully enjoy this you would have to sit for the duration with much patience, but for some it might be a tedious exercise and there may not be enough edge to hook the casual listener. Though after about forty minutes Möslang starts to layer, and the shift creates a tension, that is quite unnerving and irresistible, but the wait is too long at that point. Maybe the waiting IS the tension. Though in many ways it reminds me of when my electro toothbrush runs out of hutspah on a long trip somewhere there isn’t the correct ac adapter, and the resulting the fear of being unclean. The washes of various ratios of feedback/static that are achieved in the final leg of ‘Capture’ start to bloom and the shifts are more adjacent and come faster. The building network of integrated lines of sound sources start to evolve into something far more textural as its secondary engine revs to the end. For some reason “soothing” comes off as tired as “it flows” when reacting to music in print. Capture gives me the shivers. Unique in these three offerings is that here no axe is listed, though ostensible is that the electronics are indeed cracked and perhaps even everyday. Light-Sound Installation by Norbert Möslang recorded on the fourth of July, 2004 in Feldkirch, Austria; it’s no church in the fields but a hair over an hour of Aunt Bernice’s old Zenith hum. Unlike a lot of installation-based music, this one doesn’t bring the luggage. Think of a Mathieu performance beginning shortly after he's received some terrible news (how beautiful Stephan’s recordings are on sunny days, though). Capture: huge slab of multiple layers, some hardly audible, others excruciating and/or out of place. After the fortieth minute Möslang brings pitches closer, crosses the streams, quivering minor seconds, the broadening crests and troughs of two converging notes when you're tuning a guitar. Repeated listening extracts layers further yet, but still there remains some hesitancy to divert course. As the recording ends, forced air abruptly shuts off and you’re left with that uncomfortable nakedness. I’ll not reach for this much. . .one to seduce goosebumps nonetheless. Norbert Möslang is of course well-known for his collaboration, until 2002, with Voice Crack, or his collaborations with Lionel Marchetti, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Oren Ambarchi and Keith Rowe. Möslang also dabbles around in visual arts and 'Capture' documents the audio side of a light and sound installation in Austria. A bank of fluorescent lights amplified by contact microphones and processed through a computer with software. As you may know sound is vibration and lamps make sound. I'm not sure if the sound of 'Capture' is a live recording, a sixty minute outtake from whatever length the exhibition had, and in what way the software worked, but I might not be mistaken to know that this is just a sixty minute outtake indeed. Although this may all sound high art, it fits the cracked everyday electronic esthetics of Möslang, even in this highly minimal setting. One long buzz of sound, slowly changing and taking shape, this is quite a captivating work. It reminds me a bit of th e work of Paul Panhuysen, who executes his ideas with the same conceptual intent. Nice work. Audio portion of a light/sound installation, "Capture" describes exactly what these sounds do through its title. I tried to use it as background ambience while doing some archival work and - after only a few minutes of this ultracharged, amplified buzzing going up and down in intensity - the music begged to be listened more carefully, because it's not so immobile as one could determine at a first listen: instead, Möslang's creature moans and rants, one moment preferring to shift towards high frequency domains, then muffling its own voice in hypnotic waves of brain-massaging succulence. The sound changes depending on where you move - and on your head's position, too; all this was achieved just putting contact microphones on a fluorescent lamp and processing the sound via PC. Once again Norbert's artistry shows its provocative face through basic elements, which demonstrate its multi-talented approach to unconventional sound creation, putting it under a new light (pun intended). Wenn, wie William Carlos Williams einmal schrieb, ein Gedicht eine kleine (oder große) Maschine ist, die aus Worten besteht, die man in seinem Umfeld findet, dann sind umgekehrt auch Maschinen, selbst wenn sie nicht viele Worte machen, kleine summende Dichter. Die Maschinen, die der Alltagselektronikknacker NORBERT MÖSLANG spielt, sind solche kleinen Dichter. Für Capture (cut 014), den Audiopart einer Light-Sound-Installation im österreichischen Feldkirch, operierte er allerdings mit Kontaktmikrophonen, die 10 fluoreszierende Leuchtstäbe verstärkten und über ein PC 104 Single Board Computer-Processing hörbar werden ließen. Konzeptionell erinnert das an eine Kombination aus Wollscheid und Aube. Das Klangbild ist konsequent dröhnminimalistisch. Ein summendes, schnurrendes Maschienchen kurvt durch den Raum, nimmt Steigungen mit sirrend hochgezogenen Frequenzen und arbeitet sich mit seinem eifrigen Nähmaschinenmotor zäh und stetig und immer wieder auf Hochtouren über die Serpentinen eines imaginären Achterbahnparcours. In diesem Illusionsraum gibt es nah und fern, hoch und tief, Lichtschwankungen werden zu Wellentälern. Der ganze Raum wird ausgelotet mit der Paradoxie einer gnadenlos monotonen und doch gleichzeitig nebentonreichen Schnurrigkeit. |