Ephraim Wegner & Julia Weinmann — Eins bis Sechzehn
Ephraim Wegner began his sonic career as a DJ of electronic music, but in the nineties he shifted to composing his own pieces of music and developing digital and electronic music control systems. His main focus has been concentrated on controlling the electronics directly - by visitors of interactive installations or by working together with other musicians. He operates mainly in the area of musique concrete, electroacoustics & sound art. Julia Weinmann, was born in 1980, and is an artist and photographer. Since her final degree in 2002 she has been participating in several exhibitions, projects and collaborations. Her work varies between painting, photography and media-art. Both work in the Freiburg, which is in south western Germany, so I’m guessing the collaboration came about due to the pair working in similar circles.
The release comes in a oversized CD folder which features six lose pages of photographs- some of these fold out offering slightly different variations of similar pictures taken by Weinmann. The pictures take in ruined hotel bars with their ceilings collapsing, rumble cluttered staircases, debris stewed hotel corridors with the plaster stripped away, ruined hotel rooms looking out onto seascapes, and broken lifts. The pictures apparently where taken where the field recordings were sourced. Also with the set is a two page write-up about the project.
The CD takes in six tracks in all, with a full runtime of just under twenty minutes. The tracks are named via numbers & dashers, so I’m guessing these relate to maybe the room numbers or areas that Wegner collected the field recordings. Most of the six tracks last between two to three minutes, with the firth track been the only more lengthy track at just under the eight & a half minute mark. The tracks take in field recordings of: all manner of wind through abounded build like drones. Groaning, crashing, and knocking debris, distant sea sounds & sea birds, ect…then Wegner progresses these element via granular synthesis, to creating a buzzing ‘n’ droning mix of field recordings & electronics. On the whole I found that the tracks felt a little too life-less & soul-less for my liking, and more often than not Wegner let them drift into rather dull & grey electro drone territory, with the field recording elements left to give just a supporting role. And when the field recordings are left pretty much un-touched they just felt rather uninspired & uninteresting.
Through this is a nicely put together bit of packaging, and the idea behind the project is quite intriguing. I sadly felt the sonic side very much let the whole thing down. Instead of capturing the barren-ness & loneliness of these once people filled places, the audio side just highlights a rather uninteresting collection of field recordings, and some rather dull electro drone processing.