Category: releases

A lot could be said about this iconic, one of a kind collaboration. Or maybe you just listen.











After the great success of the Amsterdam Dance Event 2016 opening concert at Melkweg in Amsterdam, Metropole Orkest and Henrik Schwarz decided to record an album with the music Henrik has written for the orchestra. The Album was recorded with conductor and arranger Jules Buckley in Hilversum in summer 2017 and was nominated for best Classical Album at Libera Awards 2019.

This collaboration was extended in 2017 and 2018 with several concerts.

Henrik Schwarz composes with love for, and knowledge of orchestral music. Together with chief conductor Jules Buckley he wrote an hour of new music for ‘Scripted Orkestra’.  The result is an album full of pieces where the border between dance and orchestral music completely disappears.

Counter Culture is the second track of the album and carries a special message. Henrik Schwarz: “Many bad, weird, absurd, unforeseen things are happening in the world around us. However I didn’t want to complain because I believe negative talking and thinking is the wrong way. So I decided to write an ambitious ‘positive protest song’.”

Counter Culture feat. Ben Westbeech & Metropole Orkest

 

Algorhythm

On the 24thMay 2019, Henrik Schwarz & Alma Quartet have released CCMYK, a new album on his own label Between Buttons. Produced in collaboration with the Alma String Quartet, it’s a free conversation between classical and electronic musics, carefully transformed into a set of astonishing tracks, ready for club or concert hall.

Schwarz has been exploring this fertile terrain between classical, electronic and dance music for almost a decade. Having produced some of the most elegant dance records of the 2000s, he has spent much of his 2010s collaborating with jazz musicians, orchestras, writing ballets, and recon guring canonical classical works.

The story of CCMYK is the story of chance, communication and control. In 2013, after performing with the Dutch Chamber Orchestra in Amsterdam, Henrik was approached by Marc Daniel of the Alma String Quartet. In 2015, Henrik invited the four players to his studio in Berlin, where they began a series of improvisations. Henrik would suggest a musical phrase, and one of the Alma Quartet would play in response, with another then taking up the idea: highly trained classical musicians recording like a jazz band. Schwarz would record, replay and respond to their classical phrases with his own electronic production. These half hour jams would then be taken home by Henrik. There, he would edit them down, sculpting their form into coherent tracks. During this process he added electronic melodies and beats, even inviting the players back to respond again, thus building and re ning these variations on a theme until the songs were fully formed.

“I love nding the essence of something,” says Schwarz. “I see it like working on a sculpture that someone else began, and to make it visible, you have to cut away until you can see what’s really there. So you nd this balance between free and controlled. We would begin with this totally open vibe, and condense the freeform music into this nished work.”

Though based on free improvisations, CCMYK is not a record of bumbling jams. Rather, it’s a record of startling density, control and emotional complexity. It opens with the ourish of strings: a looped violin, a plucked double bass, interwoven with subtle electronic effects. Throughout the album, piercing melancholy and graceful tension merges with ashes of radiant joy. Dynamic, driving soundscapes like CCMYK3 sound almost ready for the club, while Happy Hipster’s Spring-like verve turns into full, dazzling and almost sorrowful Summer, a tonal shift of which any composer would be proud.

This is the sound of open conversation between piercing intellects, taking their individual instruments and musical backgrounds to create a universe of sound. Perhaps this is the meaning of the album title: three primary colours and a key that combine to bring any image imaginable to life. For the live show, Schwarz has even reimagined the building blocks of both a club and an orchestra. Instead of a conventional loudspeaker, he has remade a cello to amplify his electronic effects. In place of a metronome, the group will look to an automated needle on a display, directed by Schwarz, keeping time with the sensitivity and feeling of a conductor.

“This synthesis of classical and electronic is not only about music. It’s a bigger thing: nding a way to communicate,” says Schwarz. “I’m very interested in combining things that are as far away from each other as possible, and how they can work together. How can you nd the connections that makes sense? The connections that are beautiful and artistic, and lead to a higher combination, not just a linear conversation? I believe this is a major step towards bringing two worlds together.”

The Vinyl version of the album will be available in a limited 4 colour special edition:


words by  from Resident Advisor

When media theorist Marshall McLuhan announced that ‘the medium is the message’, a lot of people wondered what the hell he was talking about. But the point is simple: in each case, the technology has been the decisive factor in the development of art over the last fifty years. It’s no stretch to say Leo Fender invented rock’n’roll with the Fender bass, or that Leon Theremin invented techno with his drum machine. So when we think of the mix CD, maybe we should be thanking the anonymous salaryman at Sony who invented the format.

Yet the golden age of the CD mix compilation is coming to a close. 1997 – 2007 might well be regarded as the decade when 74 (and later 80) minutes of audio, mixed seamlessly into a satisfying whole, grew into the DJ’s ‘album’, the highest packageable artform of the genre. And while to some Studio !K7 will be remembered as a bandwagon jumping label that pushed proved artists a year or two after smaller independents had stuck their bits on the chopping block, to others its DJ-Kicks imprint will be lauded as the quintessential CD mix compilation series of this golden age.

To me it’s amazing that DJ-Kicks made it so high in people’s estimation, considering some of the woeful mixes they put out. But Henrik Schwarz’ contribution to the mini empire is anything but blech. In fact the multi-talented Berliner’s might just have single-handedly made his reputation, along with the label’s, and produced what will be regarded not only as one of the defining mix CDs of 2006, but also one of the later classics of the medium itself.

When you start out DJing, mixing is just a matter of surviving the bucking, bumpy transition between A and B. But talent and persistence begins to found a new sound, and eventually, the mixes themselves are the most enchanting parts of the piece. Schwarz’ impeccable selection of tracks exposes the unlikely sympathies between soul, jazz, acid, techno and house, and there are several ‘magic carpet ride’ moments here, like the moment when Drexciya’s ‘Black Sea’ comes howling out of Schwarz’ own ‘Imagination Limitation’. So what if it was probably an Ableton job – even with a computer keeping the beat matching neat and easy, this is a study in the art and science of selecting and combining sounds.

The programming may be too perfect, if that’s an issue. There’s no sense of this as a fast and loose live mix where no one, least of all the DJ, quite knows what’s coming next. The other issue is the mix’s ‘twin peaks’ – Schwarz has opted to include two anthems, first his ‘Imagination Limitation’ and his remix of Coldcut & Robert Owens‘ ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’. They’re both great tracks, but they’re both quite moist, and the double dose of teardrops on the dancefloor might leave surfaces a bit too slippery for dancing. Not only that, but Schwarz’ own edits are quite heavy, almost over-wrought, which runs contrary to the marked lightness of touch elsewhere on the mix. Having said that, they’re deficiencies borne of the sincere desire to move the crowd, and an underlying philosophy (outlined in the liner notes) that we’re all emotionally connected through music. Ahh.

I also feel that Schwarz has offered selections that, however brilliant, are often very ‘safe’, which means that, to some ears at least, this mix will sound a little staid, a problem which afflicts other ‘classic’ loving DJs like Laurent Garnier and Francois K. Maybe for this reason, this is a great mix to play to people who ‘hate dance music’. It’s also great for dinner parties, or after lunch. Does that count against it?

All in all, this is a sincerely meant, beautifully executed mix that does enormous credit to Henrik Schwarz, DJ-Kicks, and the art of the CD mix compilation. Oh, and if you wanna indulge your love for ‘redundant formats’ and buy a copy from a shop, you also get access to a code to download an alternative version, which is just as good.

released via !K7 records

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HENRIK SCHWARZ

HOUSE MASTERS

House Masters is a collection of Henriks most successful works in the electronic dance scene and gives a good overview of many of the remixes and releases he has done over the years.

(available as high quality download at beatport)

When Bugge Wesseltoft and Henrik Schwarz produced their collaboration „Duo“, it was clear that their synergy was both unique within, and revitalizing to, the whole genre of electro-acoustic beat-based improvisation.

Now the duo becomes a trio, and the dialogue becomes a Trialogue. Bassist Dan Berglund (est, Tonbruket) brings additional dimensions and a whole new range of improvisational possibilities, new musical conversational topics, and a completely new layer of sound, giving this project a different drive, yet retaining the spirit of the Duo project.

A will to surprise – not just the audience, but themselves as well – dominates proceedings. Moments of quasi-ambient atmosphere sit alongside driving energetic swathes of blues-inflected jamming from the future, near-metallic semi-sinister meteor storms of sound rest easily beside moments of classic jazz noire, and there is a marked assimilation of classical chamber sensibilities.

Where other musicians have engaged in similar stylistic juxtapositions, Wesseltoft, Schwarz and Berglund set themselves apart by managing the near-impossible feat of making a perfectly coherent aesthetic, a complete musical language of their own.

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BUGGE WESSELTOFT (PIANO)

Since 1990 Bugge Wesseltoft has made an impressive, truly post-modern transistion from his ECM nordic jazz traditions.
Playing and recording together with the likes of Jan Garbarek, Sidsel Endresen, Terje Rypdal, Nils Petter Molvaer, Jon Eberson to forming his own innovative, worldwide touring group New Conception Of Jazz.
Wesseltoft is the founder of his exquisite label Jazzland Recordings, a highly demanded score composer and is credited as producer Joyce, Torun Eriksen, Akiko, Karen Mok.
Recently he made himself a name in the world of classical music playing selected Bach repertoire, Goldberg Variations or beside violinist Henrik Kraggerud on the beautiful ACT album Last Spring.

DAN BERGLUND (BASS)

A rock music lover from heart Berglund been one important third of the group E.S.T., the Esbjorn Svenson Trio.
He made his way from the Royal Music University of Stockholm to the largest venues all around the globe.
Dan Berglund is legendary for his deep and full “Mingus-like” bass tone and his “Jimi Hendricks-like” solos, using all sorts of effects to make the double bass sound like screaming electric guitars. This has made him the sensation in many of e.s.t.´s concerts.

INTERVIEWS


Full of groove – without any beats: Henrik Schwarz‘s music in an acoustic arrangement for chamber orchestra

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„What’s left of my music if I have it played by Classical musicians and omit the most important element, the beats?“ This question was the starting point for INSTRUMENTS, the new Henrik Schwarz album. Four years have passed now since the Berlin musician and producer was first invited to have a selection of his House tracks played by an orchestra. Now the Tokyo Secret Orchestra has recorded seven pieces arranged for chamber orchestra that are reminiscent of the minimalism of Steve Reich and Michael Nyman not least in their poetry and magnetic pull. In between times, a piece like „In Björndal“ with its shimmering instrumental colours even takes us back to the fin de siècle and the music of Schönberg.

The last ten years have seen quite a few Classical performances of electronic club music. But many of these were in the „classic rock“ tradition of the 1970’s, when symphony orchestras played the big pop hits of the day. „In most cases, electronic beats were then mixed into the orchestral arrangements, but I always found that a bit half-hearted“, says Schwarz. He wasn’t interested in so-called Crossover; what interested him was what happens when club music is transferred to a body of Classical instruments. „I wanted to see whether this music still means anything when you take away all the synthetic sounds and the beats.“ This prompted Henrik Schwarz to experiment with the scores, working together with arranger Johannes Brecht and various ensembles, without any computer sounds or acoustic percussion instruments that supply a rhythm in 4/4 time.

For more than a decade now Henrik Schwarz, 42, has been one of the best-respected House producers and a sought-after remixer, e.g. for Mary J. Blige, Ane Brun and Coldplay, with his music appearing on labels like Innervisions, !K7 and Sunday Music. In recent years, he has worked on an increasing number of cross-genre projects: Schwarz wrote the music for a silent film and worked together with the Berlin State Ballet and painter Norbert Bisky; he makes music together with leading jazzmen Bugge Wesseltoft and Dan Berglund, and gives concerts with pianist Nik Bärtsch. The arrangements on INSTRUMENTS have been performed in the last few years by different orchestras in some of Europe’s best-known concert venues, such as Berlin’s Kammermusiksaal, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw or the Tonhalle in Zurich. And the audience was delighted in every case. „An elegant, dynamic, unprecedented combination of Classical instruments and an Afro-American groove that doesn’t seem superimposed, but is actually in the molecules of this music“ – thus critic Florian Sievers in „Groove Magazin“.

The breakthough came for Henrik Schwarz personally with a performance given by 27 young Japanese musicians under conductor Emi Akiyama: they appeared in a Buddhist temple in 2013 under the name Tokyo Secret Orchestra. „Suddenly I heard my own music with different ears. Classical music makes completely different demands on the players from a House track. In House music it’s the precision timing that creates the groove, but an orchestra is not used to playing like a machine. In Tokyo, though, I had the feeling that the musicians managed to penetrate to the music’s core.“

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The recordings made in Japan supplied the source material for the album INSTRUMENTS. Seven pieces are rearranged here for Classical instruments, from Henrik Schwarz’s club hit „Walk Music“ (which he used in the new arrangement as an opener for his live sets for a long time) through „Wamims“, the version of a 2006 remix, to the only piece on the record that is new and previously unreleased: „In Björndal“.

All the pieces have been arranged for the obligatory body of strings (violins, violas, cellos and double bass, and the strings are joined by low woodwind (bass flute, bass clarinet and bassoon) that not only supply individual timbres. In addition, similar to the percussion instruments (the vibraphone among them), they are also a source of rhythm. In this context, the focus is on the magic and the magnetic power of minimalism, something that American composer Steve Reich used to influence the pop and techno scene with his cleverly interlocking rhythmic chains.

Right at the outset of „Walk Music“, we are offered a magical combination of single, lyrical notes from the strings and mysterious vibraphone figures in the background. And the following track, „Marvin“, literally sprouts from a single note that is constantly repeated. Here, the bass flute, the viola and the cello evolve a rhythmic energy whose slightly burlesque tone is initially reminiscent of the Neo-Classicism of Stravinsky – at least until the orchestra strikes up a groove in several parts.

Nor is this by any means the only reference to the great Classical masters: inconspicuous reminiscences of this kind are cunningly sprinkled in at liberty. The piece „In Björndal“ radiates a curious and seductive melancholy magic that could almost be a tribute to Arnold Schönberg and his prismatic style. Another example: arranger Johannes Brecht added to the ensemble for „Leave My Head Alone Brain“ a bassett horn, a member of the clarinet family that Mozart was particularly fond of. And in „I Exist Because Of You“ the cello sometimes plays the so-called ‚Bartók pizzicati‘ that go back to the Hungarian composer: the cellist twangs the string and then lets it spring back against the fingerboard.


The harmonies and sounds of the original tracks are played here by the strings and also a number of woodwind instruments, among which the bass clarinet has the starring role. Time and time again, production techniques from electronic music such as loops or low-cuts are transformed into orchestral arrangements, with frequencies being muffled over the space of several bars (e.g. in „Leave My Head Alone Brain Seven“). The result is a new kind of music played on Classical instruments. a music that doesn’t deny its roots in the club world and could only be created on the computer; a music that manages to transport the energy of electronic dance music to the Classical concert hall – with the bass drum only present in the listener’s head.

buy here…





© Copyright 2024 HENRIK SCHWARZ