This is old news but the Limpe Fuchs/In Camera (Christoph Heemann & Timo vanLuijk) tour was my first real project as a ‘concert promoter’ in Italy. I organized part of this small tour which took place between Switzerland and Italy. Many thanks to Sara Serighelli, Andrea Cernotto (Elica), Kevin Spencer, Marc Milohnic, Papiro, Daniel Buess, Plattfon Records, the one and only Roger Ziegler and many others who made this special!!
It started in Basel the Gare du Nord, an amazing venue which is an old train station. Great people to work with. They were helpful, kind and courteous. John Duncan conducted the Ensemble Phoenix for the Swiss leg of the tour. Although it was an interesting and ambitious project, it was the first time (I believe) that John had composed for an orchestra and he seemed really uncomfortable with the process. It was loud and intense as one would expect from him. Limpe was good this night but In Camera sparkled!
(Sorry for the poor quality pictures but I didn’t have time to concentrate on documenting while running round finding equipment, food, beer, lights etc etc.)
This scene has played out in so times and so many places. The old merch table!
John Duncan happy with the Ensemble Phoenix.
Papiro and Mikki DJ post show.
Next stop BERN, Dampfenzentral!! This venue is amazing. It is the old steam/vapor plant located on the river. This was my first meeting, but not last, with Roger Ziegler. The staff here were like family and a great time was had by ALL!! This evening was really Limpe’s show. Her performance was electric (not literally), and truly inspired. This show was filmed but to date I haven’t seen it. Please send if you have a copy.
setting up
Roger, Marc, Kevin and I
JUNE 7, 2008- MILAN, ITALY – O’artoteca was our next venue.
On to Milan in heavy traffic crossing the border due to a Vasco Rossi staduim concert happening the same night. Anyway, this was my gig and we were behind schedule, the usual pre-show tensions running high, no cold beer and a crowd already lining up during sound check. Because this is an empty space used as a gallery, the acoustic sets always resonate so much better. In Camera played a long set and the delicate sounds and the intimate setting created a warm rich environment. I projected a short film, which I had made in Aachen the previous xmas, of a ‘hirch’ candle burning (yes, a blatant yet playful HNAS reference). This also added to the warmth of the whole event. It was June and hot and this was like a fire side evening. Limpe once again shined and really had a fun time interacting with the audience who were seated on the floor all around the space.
Sara and I discussing cold beer, gel colors for the lights, and how to keep people out of the sound check
hirch
O’ is a non profit organization which hosts an artist in residency program, many concerts (from GRM events, listening laboratories, sound installations, avant-garde, to minimalists etc etc etc) and is now home to Die Schactel Records and Soundohm distribution. It opened in 2001, the same year I moved to Italy. The first concert I went to in Milan was at O’ when I saw a flyer for a Charlemagne Palestine concert. We have grown simultaneously and collaborated in various ways over the years. It is really one of the most interesting places in Milan, if not THE most interesting ‘non-institutional’ institutions in Milan.
The last date was cancelled due to the world canoe championship hosted in Ivrea. The city blocked of any public space and refused us the synagogue. But Limpe, Christoph and even Steve Stapleton would eventually come back to play the synagogue of Ivrea. More on that later.
Here is a recent post (2012- four years later almost to the day) about the In Camera concerts at the Issue Project Room:
In Camera, the surreal and psychedelic electronic music duo project of Christoph Heemann (of seminal experimental band H.N.A.S.) and Timo van Luijk produce an immersive cinematic and narrative sonic environment.
Christoph Heemann started the seminal experimental music project Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa (H.N.A.S.) and created its own label, Dom, to release it combination of surrealistic collage music. HNAS continued to release records until the groups demise in 1993, such as the album “Melchior”, co-produced by Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, as well as several other LPs and CDs on Dom and other labels worldwide. In 1989, Heemann began a long-standing relationship with American musician/composer Jim O’Rourke, and together with Edward Ka-spel and Andreas Martin recorded three albums as the group Mimir. His first solo album was released the following year, and the same year he completed a long standing collaboration with the Japanese noise artist Masami Akita (aka Merzbow). A period of intense work began in 1998 with the formation of Mirror, a project with English sound artist Andrew Chalk, which focused on graphics as well as music, drawing on the beautiful artworks of both Chalk and Heemann. By 2005, Mirror had released over 20 albums that included musical contributions from Andreas Martin and Jim O’Rourke and appeared in concerts in Europe, America and Japan. Currently Heemann composes, performs, and produces and records albums by sound artists/composers such as Limpe Fuchs, Keiji Haino, Charlemagne Palestine, and many others. His ongoing musical collaborations include work with Jim O’Rourke, William Basinski, Lee Ranaldo, and with Timo van Luyck on the In Camera project.
Timo van Luijk (Finland, 1967) is an autodidact composing improviser living in Belgium. He was a founding member of the experimental multimedia collective Noise-Maker’s Fifes (1989-2006) and started his solo project Af Ursin in 1995. Van Luijk mainly works with acoustic (wind and string) instruments, various (sound) objects, keyboards and magnetic tape. With this setting he creates structured free form arrangements in which the intuitive and emotive aspect form the core of his musical approach. In his collaborations – including work with Christoph Heemann (In Camera), Raymond Dijkstra (Asra), Andrew Chalk (Elodie), Kris Vanderstraeten – he follows the same aesthetic of poetic sensibility. Since 2001 he has been releasing his work on vinyl, on his label La Scie Dorée.
I culled this from MUTANT SOUNDS about Limpe:
Limpe Fuchs is a composer of acoustic and visual happenings who creates sound with unusual instruments. Born in 1941, Fuchs came of age in the hedonistic, politically charged sixties. After studying piano and violin in the early sixties at the school of music in Munich, a city full of fertile, counter-culture creativity, near the end of the decade she started „Anima Sound“, a collective name for twenty years of ‘sound research’ with her partner, sculptor Paul Fuchs. Also known as ‘Anima Musica’, they epitomized the ingenious marginal freak scene of the sixties and seventies and are often cited as a major influence on Krautrock Anima’s anarchic recordings were radical, atonal improvisations with unconventional instruments, unrestrained creativity, and utterly unstructured performances – primal, experimental free-jazz with a touch of prog-rock. In an unlikely array, instruments like drums, bass and cornet were combined with Paul Fuchs’ own homemade inventions: the Fuchshorn, Fuchszither, and Fuchsbass; Limpe Fuchs’ wordless vocal yelps and screams; and audio-visual machines: light-ray oscillographs and movement holograms. Fringe community outsiders, the Fuchs took freak-out avant-garde to a new level. In Peterskirchen, near Munich, they built their assortment of instruments and equipment; modified horns, sheet-metal percussion (including the ballast string, an arrangement of wire-strung metal bars suspended from a brass drum and played like a cross between a vibraphone and a gong) and DIY electronics. Anima-Sound’s first album, Stürmischer Himmel, was recorded in a 1,000-year-old cottage and released by Ohr Records in 1971. That year in the summer, they also played the Ossiach, a three-day outdoor festival organized by acclaimed Austrian classical/jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda (unofficially released on the double CD Ossiach Live) that also included Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. From 1971 to 1973, the duo Anima Musica became the trio Anima when Gulda joined them for tours and recording. He appeared on the albums Anima, released by the Pilz label, and Musik Für Alle, both of which came out in 1972. The double LP Der Regt Mich Auf/A Controversy, recorded between 1978 and 1982, included new band member Zoro Fuchs, son of Paul and Limpe, on drums. By 1987′ Anima had become Limpe Fuchs’ solo project. She preserves the ‘no formalisms, no explanations’ methodology in her solo work, and continues exploring the outer realms with her characteristic delight in invention. Using piano, violin, Fuchs-instruments and natural objects like stones and wood, and her singularly freeform, flighty vocals, she released three solo albums, Via in 1987, Muusiccia, in 1993, and Nur Mar Mus in 1999. She says of her recent work “ The visual aspect is of the same importance as the acoustic… Life and music alive…” Fuchs’ is currently active in a trio with Peter Holzapfel and Georg Karger, a duo ‘Maerz’ with Julia Schölzel. She makes frequent live appearances and is involved in theatre-music production; David und Goliath with Peter Ketturkat, and animare with Gisela Oberbeck.
Posted in CONCERTS, MUSIC
Tags: Anima Sound, Christoph Heemann, Dampfenzentral Bern, Ensemble Phoenix, Gare du Nord Basel, In Camera, John Duncan, Limpe Fuchs, O' artoteca, Plattfon Records, Some Fine Legacy, Timo van Luijk
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