«Sketches for Violin and Vinyl» offers a unique. Improvised dialogue of AMAEBI – the Berlin and Paris-based violinist-vocalist Ayumi Paul and Cologne-based media artist Achim Mohné who plays here on vinyls. Improvised dialogue of AMAEBI – the Berlin and Paris-based violinist-vocalist and Cologne-based media artist Achim Mohné who plays here on vinyls. The classically-trained Paul has developed a highly personal performative aesthetics where the intrinsic sound of body, the sounds she creates and sculpts with the violin and her vocals and the site-specific space are together essential components of her conceptual art. Mohné experiments too with the space and time intervals of sound-media and is especially interested in the «music that lies hidden in the medium itself».
Paul and Mohné uncut, unaltered and unrepeatable duo set was recorded on a single day in February 2018 in a studio in Cologne. Paul plays repetitive fragments of lyrical themes while investigating the physical properties of the violin wooden body and strings, letting the sounds fly over in the studio space before laying another idea. Mohné uses a triple deck set-up of turntables to convert tiny dust particles inside the vinyls surfaces into abstract sound sculptures with fleeting elements of loose pulse. The atmosphere of the five pieces is ascetic, not only because of the minimalist, repetitive soundscapes or the careful usage of extended bowing techniques. The ascetic atmosphere is intensified through the focus on the most basic sonic characteristics of each gesture and how these gestures respond, resonate and expand through space, their elastic and tangible qualities or how Paul and Mohné find a delicate common. ground with the unpredictable sounds of the dusty vinyls.
A piece like «Nutation» allows a glimpse into the the intimate dialogue of Paul and Mohné. Her clever usage of multiphonics converse telepathically with the unpredictable, windy-sounding turntables of him, and both sound as busy sharing secrets in a cryptic lingo that only both have learnt. Her playing is often melodic, but highly disciplined, while his sonic output is purely analytical. But both succeeded to form an organic language where the dusty vinyls trigger the violin and voice and the violin and voice discipline the abstract noises of the vinyls.
Eyal Hareuveni
Ayumi Paul (vio, v), Achim Mohné (vinyls)
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