Ignaz Schick & Oliver Steidle — ILOG3
As its title suggests ILOG3 is the third collaborative album between these two German improvisers. And it’s another overloading, yet often highly creative journey into where percussive electro improv, turntabling, darting electro-acoustics, and manic genre blending meet.
The eleven-track album appears on Zarek- which is Mr Schick’s own label. It’s available as either a CD, twelve-inch LP, or digital download. I’m reviewing the first of these which comes presented in a rather nice fold-out card sleeve- this features neon pink texts set against a sky-blue backdrop. It can be purchased directly from here.
Ignaz Schick and Oliver Steidle started collaborating under the Ilog banner around 2013/2014, with live shows occurring in Berlin's experimental underground, a self-titled debut appearing in 2015 on Boomslang Records, and its follow-up ILOG2 appearing in 2021 on Zarek.
For the album, Ignaz Schick plays turntables, sampler, pitch shifter/ looper. And Oliver Steidle handles drums, percussion, sampler, and live electronics. With the whole thing was recorded in real-time with zero overdubs between the 6th & 7th of October 2021. With the tracks running between two and eleven minutes.
We kick off with the longest track here "Black Fire"- which clocks in just under the twelve-minute mark. It starts in a rather uneasy yet darting manner- as we find detailed drum runs blended with a shifting map of eerier vibe tones, female operatic warbling’s, grain crackle, and electro stenches ‘n’ bays. With the track resolving with cascading and complex drum runs which are topped with stop ‘n’ start washes of bright synth tone.
By track six and the albums mid-way point we have the track “Against The Day”. Here we find a dense, detailed, and shifting blend of percussive runs & strikes, turntable texturing, electro-tone quirkiness, and cut ‘n’ pasted vocal ahhs ‘n’ oohs.
“Normal Communications” manically fires together rapid chugging ‘n’ darting electric guitar samples, rock singer-like shouts, snaking drum runs, with moments of sped-up vocalising, and texturally climb ‘n’ rattle. With the album plays out with “Hindsight Bias” which mixes choppy & wonky tone washes, skittering cymbal slides, and warping electro-ambient- all make you feel like you're walking into some strange & new sci-fi dawn.
With ILOG3 Schick and Steidle takes us on a dense and wild ride into manic to moodily-edged improvisied music. Another decidedly head-spinning and wholly engaging collab- here’s hoping for ILOG4!