EIGHT DUOS - REVIEWS

While Beins belongs to numerous working projects, including Polwechsel, Marmalsana, Sawt Out, and Splitter Orchestra, he's always been active in the sort of ad hoc collaborations that define the life of an improvising musician, so the eight duets recorded for the album nicely reflect that aspect of his practice in Berlin, where all of the participants live. But in a more profound sense, the triple album does a fantastic job at painting a rather expansive portrait of his overlapping sound worlds. That's not to say that every facet of his work is represented here, but the kind of sounds he makes are covered in wildly divergent contexts across these six sides of vinyl.
Few individuals have expanded on the sort of lowercase sound aesthetic that Beins himself helped forge decades ago, transforming and developing countless techniques into new worlds on sonic inquiry. Each duo draws out different sides of his work, whether than involves him turning to electronics or even electric bass, or using very reduced tools, like the amplified cymbal and bass drum he limits himself to on "Expansion," the opening duet with Andrea Neumann - using her "inside piano" device and mixing board. While the twenty-minute piece is marked by a wide variety of frictive and metallic sounds, it would be hard to consider that any sort of limitations were actually imposed because the evolving sprawl is so rich, varied, and fluid. He reunites with guitarist Michael Renkel, his partner in the duo Activity Center, on "Extraction," for which they are both credited with percussion and strings. As one quickly comes to realize, abrasion is more common than striking when it comes to Beins, and that's certainly the case on this piece, which blends tinkling tones and coarsely bowed strings of some sort, to say nothing of wobbly music box tones and berimbau-like twangs that emerge later.
One of the most surprising entries is "Excursion," the duet with pianist Quentin Tolimieri, in which Beins plays a more conventional drum kit. At the outset the keyboardist carves out a probing strain of post-bop, abstracting familiar cadences and progressions from the 1950s, with Beins delivering a stutter kind of energy, replacing the sizzling cymbal swells of Sunny Murray with irregularly surging tom patterns to suggest a similar sensation. Halfway through Tolimieri snaps into a more familiar pose-the hyper minimalism of his brilliant 2022 album "Monochromes" banging away at a single dissonant chord relentlessly until it starts wreaking havoc on our perception, as the hammering sound becomes downright psychedelic. Beins more or less maintains the same tack he started with, with stands in starker relief against the rapidly cycling piano. Eventually Tolimieri dissolves that into a sudden left-handed mass of thunderous bass, at which Beins does finally pull back in elegant contrast, shaping a splatter of precise cymbal play.
On "Unleash" Beins opts for analog synthesizer and samples, bringing in field recordings into a shifting morass of sound captured and sculpted by Andrea Ermke. The sounds are less tactile and physically weighted, but the sophisticated sensibility inherent in their deployment and arrangement certainly parallels what he does with percussive objects.
Duos with trumpeter Axel Dörner, pianist Anaïs Tuerlinckx, and sound artist Marta Zapparoli are no less compelling, each encounter eliciting a specific aesthetic and gestural/textural response, but I'm especially drawn to the collaboration with Tony Elieh. He and Beins play together in the trio Marmalsana, but they have also been working as a duo called Zone Null, and based on the strength of "Transformation" I look forward to hearing more. They both enhance and stretch electric basses with various electronics, beginning with splotches of distorted noises colliding with a twangy, meandering line that builds out a structure in real time. But as the lengthy piece unfolds the instrumental provenance frequently evaporates in a compelling swirl of shimmering electronic tones, from the most glassy and high pitched crackling to machine like vibrations residing in the lower end of the spectrum, usually with multiple sound streams bouncing around. Eventually a twitchy rhythm emerges, and one of the musicians moves back to bass, locking into a taut sort of dry funk that puts me in the mind of Radian-the superb Austrian trio whose drummer, Martin Brandlmayr, works with Beins in Polwechsel-before more abstract sound sculpting swerves to a satisfying conclusion.
- Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street -

Im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert gelang Franz Joseph Haydn ein Coup, den jetzt im angebrochenen 21. Jahrhundert die Klangkünstlerin Andrea Ermke und der Improvisations- und Echtzeitmusiker Burkhard Beins umgekehrt zu landen wissen. Bei Haydn war es in seiner 94. Sinfonie, der mit dem berühmten Paukenschlag, ein plötzlicher Lauschangriff des ganzen Orchesters. Ob als Überraschung oder als Weckruf gedacht, darüber geht die Überlieferung auseinander. Bei Ermke und Beins geschieht es, dass in ihrer Soundskulptur "Unleash" Analogsynthesizer, Sampler und Mini-Disks sechs Minuten lang vielstimmig rascheln und zirpen, bis unvermittelt eine halbminütige Brummpause einsetzt. Sie vibriert über einer spürbaren Stille und führt hin zu einer Klanganordnung, die als Filmkulisse denkbar ist: In einer Wartehalle erklingt ein Glockenspiel. Hast Du Töne!
Anhören kann man sich diese alles andere als weihevolle Mikro-Sinfonie der Drähte auf einer von insgesamt drei LPs, die sich Burkhard Beins Ende Oktober in einem opulenten Vinyl-Boxset mit Beiheft zum 60. Geburtstag schenkt. "Eight Duos" heißt der schicke Schuber, und in dem Titel steckt bereits, was die Musik von Burkhard Beins auszeichnet: Es ist ihr nichtmonologisches Prinzip. Eines seiner frühen Alben ist eine Zweierkonstellation des Perkussionisten mit dem Gitarristen John Bisset, "Chapel / Kapell", aufgenommen in der Stechinelli-Kapelle aus dem 17. Jahrhundert in Wieckenberg, Ortsteil der Gemeinde Wietze im Landkreis Celle. Beins' Geburtsort war Adresse eines niedersächsischen Ölfiebers, das von Mitte des 19. bis Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts währte und dem durch die Förderung von Teer, Stichwort Satansspeck, bereits bekannt gewordenen Wietze einen beträchtlichen Aufschwung bescherte.
Dort, zwischen gewesener Industrie und Waldlage, so schreibt der Bad Alchemy-Herausgeber Rigobert Dittmann in seinen Linernotes zu "Eight Duos", traf der 15-jährige Burkhard Beins auf eine US-amerikanische Elektronik-Delegation: In der Nachbarschaft, im Studio des Strommusik-Pioniers Klaus Schulze, nahm die Band Earthstar mehrere ihrer Alben auf. Für Burkhard Beins war das eine prägende Erfahrung. Im Gespräch mit der taz - Beins zuzuhören, ob im Konzert, auf Platte oder in der Konversation, unterbricht Routinen - erzählt er von einer anderen frühen Inspiration, dem britischen Post-Punk-Trio der Sonderstufe This Heat. Mit deren Drummer Charles Hayward hat Burkhard Beins später zusammengearbeitet.
Die aufgeraute Raffinesse dieser anspruchsvollen, dabei unakademischen Musik - Beins ist Autodidakt - findet sich auch auf "Eight Duos". Sie alle nehmen mindestens eine halbe, manchmal eine ganze Plattenseite ein. Den Anfang machen Lidingö, Andrea Neumann an Innenklavier und Mischpult und Burkhard Beins an gekippter Basstrommel und Ridebecken. In ihrem dreiteiligen Stück "Expansion" geht es metallisch zu, es gibt Nachhall, ein Scharren und mittendrin eine Sequenz, die fast so etwas wie einen Blues anreißt. Dann sind da Activity Center: Mit Gitarrist Michael Renkel, hier mit Beins an der Zither und einer einzelnen über Karton gespannten Saite, war er Mitte der Neunzigerjahre schon im Quartett nunc aktiv, als Duo entwerfen sie das windschiefe Folk-Instrumental "Extraction". Am ehesten Jazz ist die "Excursion" von Quentin Tolimieri am Flügel und Beins am Schlagzeug, die sich mit steigernder Nervosität in ein Pianostakkato spielen.
Die Brücke zwischen dem geräuschhaften Ansatz Andrea Neumanns und dem das Piano noch Piano sein lassenden Spiel Quentin Tolimieris lässt sich in Anaïs Tuerlinckxs und Beins Beitrag "Unfold" hören. In "Unlock" gibt es Wischer auf der Snare wie im Cool Jazz, durch Axel Dörners Trompete, die er, nicht zuletzt durch Atmungsgeräusche, wie einen Synthesizer klingen lassen kann, wird das noch cooler. "Transformation", die A-Seite der dritten Platte, gehört Tony Elieh und Burkhard Beins, beide an der Bassgitarre und Elektronik unter dem Alias Zone Null. Der Name lässt an eine Jugendlektüre von Beins denken, an die sowjetischen Science-Fiction Autoren Arkadi und Boris Strugazki. Das hypnotische Stück ist ein schönes Beispiel dafür, was man mit einem Rockinstrument anstellen kann, wenn man kein Rocker ist.
Den Schlusspunkt setzen Vertigo Transport: Marta Zapparoli an Antennen, Radioempfängern und Bandmaschinen, und Burkhard Beins am analogen Synthesizer, mit Walkie-Talkies und Samples. Ihr "Transmission" ist eine Laboranordnung aus Mosaiksteinchen und Rauschen, aus Frequenzen und Codes. Verfremdete Stimmen mischen sich hinein. Es geht um ihren Klang, nicht um vorgegebenen Sinn, der manchmal der Sinnlosigkeit näher ist, als den Sinnstiftern bewusst ist. Ruhestörung will Burkhard Beins seiner Musik übrigens nicht als Auftrag mitgeben. Eher geht es ihm um Reduktion und Konzentration als Unterbrechung der Bildschirmwelt. Man kann mit dieser Methode die Kraft der Schönheit entdecken.
- Robert Mießner, taz Berlin -

Eight Duos is a collection of duets featuring one common performer, only, it's German percussionist Burkhard Beins. Percussionist doesn't begin to cover it: Beins is as at home with analog synths and bass guitars - in fact, anything that makes a noise - as he is with conventional percussion.
The first duet features Andrea Neumann, a prominent member of the German Echtzeitmusik ('real-time music') scene. I say scene, rather than genre, as it's a difficult thing to define. Echtzeitmusik has been linked to Reductionism - an approach to improvisation typified by subdued, unstable sounds, the creative use of silence and a renunciation of gesture - but any attempt to pin it down tends to flounder. As a  scene, it possibly has more to do with the social network of musicians and listeners involved in it as it has to any particular approach to free-form music-making. Neumann herself started life as a classically-trained pianist. Her interest in piano preparation led her to have a strung frame specially made (the 'inside piano') which she plays in conjunction with a mixing desk.
The second is with Michael Renkel. A guitarist, he - like Neumann - is classically-trained. Also, not unlike Neumann, he plays a string-board, only one that he made himself. He also uses preparations and real-time electronic processing. Here, though, the resources are modest and both players are only credited with playing percussion and (somewhat enigmatically) 'strings'.
The third, with pianist Quentin Tolimieri, is perhaps the most conventional-sounding: a substantial part of it being rooted in the language of modern jazz. The fourth, with Andrea Ermke, couldn't be more different:  it's entirely noise-based, using synths, minidisks and samples. As Beins says in the album notes, 'on a conceptual level, the idea was that I would play with different instruments or with a different set-up each time in order to present the breadth of my current work'. The duet-partners were chosen with this in mind. Each session demanded a different methodology. The next duet, with pianist Anaïs Tuerlinkx, is different again, in places being very reminiscent of Cage's works for prepared piano. The sixth features trumpet-player Axel Dörner. In the seventh, Beins - here, on electric bass and electronics - is joined by electric bass player Tony Elieh. This, the longest of the duets, unfolds as a series of static textures. The final duet, with Marta Zapparoli, sounded intriguing, featuring, as it does, 'antennas, receivers, tape machines - analog synthesizers, walkie talkies, sample'. It did not disappoint. It's quite a noise-fest.
Stylistically diverse, this album, paradoxically, defines a style, though not in the sense people usually talk about it. The style here has little to do with how the music sounds: it's about process, not end result. And the process is that of collaboration, the process of finding common ground with another performer. You could compare it to speakers of different languages evolving a pidgin language which allows them to communicate. This is music as the process of human interaction.
- Dominic Rivron, International Times -

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