Nachthund (night dog) is the second solo percussion album of German, Berlin-based drummer-percussionist-composer Hannes Lingens, following Pieces for Percussion (Umalaut, 2018). Like Pieces for Percussion, Nachthund focuses on minimalist, continuous sounds over percussive accents, using close miking and playing techniques that give an otherworldly atmosphere to the percussive instruments. Lingens is known from the free jazz quartet Die Hochstapler, but this album continues his association with the experimental, contemporary school of Edition Wandelweiser, for whom he recorded Music for Strings (Edition Wandelweiser Records, 2021).
Nachthund features three extended, sound-oriented pieces. «Nacht» is a montage of pre-recorded layers of mostly rolls and brush sounds that invite the listener to dive deep into its highly resonant percussive drone that shifts between chaotic, abstract and mysterious sounds. The cover art o the Jerusalem-based artist Dafna Englander, who engages in drawing the human body in rapid charcoal sketches in an attempt to capture the spirit and movement embodied in the body and the state of consciousness of the artist making the drawing, captures beautifully the spirit of this delicate and mysterious piece.
The following «Hund» and «Manatee» were recorded in one take with Lingens playing on one cymbal with mallets and bass bow respectively. «Hund» creates subtle ripple-like movements that suggest a disorienting, sense of actual space, due to its elusive, insistent dynamics, total lack of rhythmic accentuation, and its electronic-sounding drone. «Manatee» takes an even more abstract and minimalist approach and it offers an enigmatic and highly meditative drone that highlights the unique and imaginative sonic vision and musical language of Lingens, focusing on liberating his percussive instruments from their familiar, conventional roles and vocabularies.
Eyal Hareuveni
Hannes Lingens (perc)