Press Info:
Just in time for end of summer Gudrun Gut brings a new collection of remixes taken from her current solo album MOMENT including 4 goose-bump inducing tracks ideal for all floors and moods. The choice of artists doing the remixes speaks for itself: Dasha Rush, Paul Frick, Pilocka Krach, T.Raumschmiere. May the new season begin!
The cover of Bowie’s BOYS KEEP SWINGING was already a good idea as it was, but the remix by Pilocka Krach brings to it a dry acid bass-line and a truly swinging beat making this into a sexy dance number.
Dasha Rush’s remix of BABY I CAN DRIVE MY CAR demonstrates Gudrun Gut’s lyrics and reconstructs the song as an atmospheric sound cloud, which makes this otherwise tight and functional club track float.
LOVER as remixed by TRaumschmiere starts of as a booming techno tracks and by adding wide harmonic pads winds up as a moment of joy. This runs (and tingles).
Paul Frick took on the piece MUSIK and turned it into a spectacular track with a presssing though laid back sub-bass and classy house groove as well as magical drifting samples.
3 bonus tracks on Bandcamp exclusively!
The Remixes by Elisa Metz, Maria Basel (aka Ria) und Donna Maya were developed in the workshop by Remix Regendered. directed by Maya C. Sternel, sound artist/ musician, and Angelika Lepper, DJ, filmeditor and media artist. Remix Regendered is is funded by the „Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft NRW“.
Full Track Streaming:
Full Track Streaming:
“Lover (T.Raumschmiere Remix)”
Press Info:
German electronic originator Gudrun Gut’s latest solo collection distills a lifetime of persuasions and obsessions into a compelling 14-track statement: “Moment.” Stark, somber, sultry, and clever, the sides slide between ballad and lament, synth-pop and spoken word, anthemic and abstract.
Gut’s background as a key figure in Berlin’s first-wave industrial uprising still casts an aura in the music’s mechanized rhythms and frozen emotional palette but decades of improvisation and collaboration have deepened her sense of composition and melody beyond any easy genre categorization.
If anything “Moment” finds Gut’s muse at its most enigmatic, threading shades of motorik hypnosis, technoid laboratory, coldwave pop, glitchy gauze, and even a gender-bent Bowie cover (“Boys Keep Swinging”) into its eclectic web. It also showcases the depth and detail of her voice, reserved but suggestive, intoning blunt truths and opaque poetry in both German and English.
This is music of history and heartache, modernity and desire, alienation and expression, by a singular creative committed to the complexities of sound. – Britt Brown
Gudrun Gut’s story spans many years, scenes, and sounds, from the “ingenious dilettantes” subculture of early 1980’s Berlin as part of Mania D, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Malaria! to her twilit industrial pop trio Matador into an expansive solo catalog of later work scoring films, videos, and radio plays. Her talents extend beyond musician, however, to include founding record labels (the influential imprints Moabit Musik and Monika Enterprise), club nights (progressive electronic pop collective Oceanclub), and experimental feminist collaborations (Monika Werkstatt).
Gut also works extensively in the technical sector of the recording industry, as a producer. Recent projects have included collaborations with Antye Greie (AGF) and Hans-Joachim Irmler of Faust, participating on the advisory committee for Musicboard Berlin, and performing at The Royal Albert Hall with Âme as part of an Innervisions label night.
Press Info (English):
While the Western world celebrates Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 300th anniversary, Gudrun Gut, too, appears to be drawn “back to nature”. Yet what a misapprehension that would be. Although nature plays a major role on Gudrun Gut’s first album release since her outings with the Greie Gut Fraktion in 2009, “Wildlife” does not portray nature as a cosy ur-idyll, but rather as a realm filled with rough tenderness and its very own dangers. Nature is where the unforeseen might happen and new sights are set on the in- and exterior. In this spirit, “Wildlife” is no gesture of severance (“Okay, I’m off to the countryside!”), but rather one of biographical continuity via new means. After all, Gudrun Gut – in her guise as Berlin post punk activist, label owner, radio presenter or party promoter – has always been interested in gaps, niches and risky locations. Now, nature itself provides such a small and utopian niche; a place where “it” might happen in a very existential sense.
All of the album’s tracks took shape in Gudrun Gut’s Uckermark hideaway, an hour or two away from Berlin. During production, in autumn and winter, this landscape exudes an almost eerie calm, suggesting that the outside world’s hectic universe of data and projects is no more than a figment of our collective imagination. Gudrun Gut took this silence in her stride – it did not make her nervous, but free, focused and productive. The Uckermark’s woods, fields and meadows foster a unique sense of immersion (see cover), one that becomes tangible in Gut’s vocal performance: As if she was circling an empty centre, as if she grew apart from her being only to rediscover herself, Gut sings about those ephemeral states between enchantment and reverie.
At the same time, she is aware that beauty may be accompanied by emptiness and that even the most luscious garden may soon have to wither away. Far removed from hippiesque humanism, Gut’s natural states are much closer in spirit to the cool knowledge of punk and its successors: Her cover portrait, splashed across the recent new edition of the punk/new wave oral history “Verschwende deine Jugend” (Waste your youth), explicitly references this rich prehistory.
Gut’s music follows a similarly unrushed path; it is allowed to grow and ramify in its own time until it reaches the opulent abundance referenced in the haunting lyrics of the album’s 12” outtake “Garten”. With the sangfroid and serenity of three decades of active music experience, between completely ingenious and utter dilettante, Gut now ventures into a lavishly proliferating world of sounds and references. While the opener “Protecting My Wildlife” confronts us with jarring post techno minimalism, “Garten” soothes the ear with its charmingly shuffling electric romance. Soon enough, however, well-trodden paths are left behind: Gut’s reworking of “Simply The Best” turns this hackneyed mega hit into a staggering love ballad; a streaky guitar adds further distortion. “How Can I Move” seems to hide a trace of Armand van Helden in the underbrush; “Mond” flirts with subtle Detroit techno allusions. The distinctly dark “Tiger”, on the other hand, truly does sound like a veritable tiger leap into the past: Here, Gudrun Gut apparently digs below her own feet. Similarly free of nostalgia, “Erinnerung” looks back to the past with a string of words created in a lyrical back-and-forth ping-pong match between Gut and author Annika Reich; words that deal with ageing, among other things. We were all there at the time – but why do we all tell a different story? It is these biographical nuances that stand out when compared with Gut’s last solo album “I Put A Record On” from 2007. All tracks were mixed together with Jörg Burger at two studios in the East and West.
Time and again, the album exudes a lascivious and demanding intimacy that comes into its own on the fantastic “Frei Sein”. Here, the track turns a nursery rhyme’s playful naivety into an idiosyncratic anthem with African-inspired rhythms and a clicking animist ambient sound. “Frei Sein”, i. e. being free, is what Gudrun Gut is all about. To her, freedom goes far beyond the artistic realm. Like this album, it is the utmost promise “full of kisses” and “full of joy”. With only the odd bee sting to bring us back down to earth.
Aram Lintzel
Press Info (German):
Die westliche Welt feiert Jean-Jacques Rousseaus 300. Geburtstag und auch Gudrun Gut scheint sich „zurück zur Natur“ zu sehnen. Was für ein Missverständnis das doch wäre. Auf „Wildlife“, Gudrun Guts erstem Album seit den Veröffentlichungen mit Greie Gut Fraktion 2009, ist Natur zwar ein großes Thema, aber eben nicht als behagliche Uridylle, sondern als Welt rauer Zärtlichkeiten und eigener Gefahren. Natur ist der Ort, wo Unvorhergesehenes geschehen kann und neue Blicke nach innen und außen gerichtet werden. Es geht also nicht um eine Geste des Bruchs („Leute, ich zieh aufs Land!“), sondern im Gegenteil um biografische Kontinuität mit neuen Mitteln. Denn schon als Berliner Post Punk-Aktivistin, Label-Macherin, Radio-Moderatorin oder Party-Organisatorin war und ist Gudrun Gut immer an Lücken, Freiräumen und gefährlichen Orten interessiert. Die Natur kann so eine kleine utopische Nische sein, ein Ort, wo ‚es’ passieren kann, in einem ganz existenziellen Sinn.
Die Stücke des Albums sind in Gudrun Guts hydeaway in der Uckermark entstanden. Während der Produktionsphase in Herbst und Winter herrschte dort eine gespenstische Ruhe, bei der das Gefühl entstehen konnte, dass es das hektische Universum der Daten und Projekte da draußen gar nicht gibt. Die Stille hat Gudrun Gut offenbar nicht nervös, sondern frei, konzentriert und produktiv gemacht. Dass die Wälder, Felder und Wiesen der Uckermark eine ganz besondere Form der Selbst-Versenkung ermöglichen (siehe das Cover), merkt man schon daran, wie Gut ihre Texte vorträgt: Als kreise sie um eine leere Mitte, als werde sie sich selbst fremd und entdecke sich dabei neu, singt Gut von Zuständen zwischen Entrückung und Verzückung. Doch weiß sie immer, dass wo Schönheit ist, Leere sein darf, selbst der üppigste innere Garten kann manchmal verdorren. Mit kitschigem Hippie-Humanismus haben Guts Naturzustände jedenfalls nichts zu tun, viel eher mit dem coolen Wissen von Punk ff.. Das Gudrun Gut-Foto auf dem Cover der kürzlich erschienenen Neufassung der Punk/New Wave-Oral History „Verschwende deine Jugend“ erinnert ausdrücklich an die reiche Vorgeschichte.
Auch musikalisch wird nichts überstürzt, alles darf in Ruhe wachsen und im Überfluss vorhanden sein. Der Text der Maxi-Auskopplung „Garten“ berichtet eindringlich davon. Mit der Gelassenheit aus über 30 Jahren aktiver Musikerfahrung zwischen obergenial und dilettantisch hat sich Gut in eine verschwenderisch wuchernde Klang- und Referenzwelt gewagt. Der Opener „Protecting My Wildlife“ konfrontiert uns mit einem schepprigen Post-Techno-Minimalismus, „Garten“ ist eine charmant shuffelnde Elektronik-Romanze. Schon bald werden die bekannten Pfade verlassen, die Bearbeitung von „Simply The Best“ macht den abgenutzten Megahit zu einer taumelnden Liebes-Ballade, die verschlierte Gitarre sorgt für zusätzliche Verfremdungseffekte. Bei „How Can I Move“ meint man, Armand van Helden im Unterholz zu vernehmen, in „Mond“ leise Detroit Techno-Anspielungen. Wie ein buchstäblicher Tigersprung in die Vergangenheit klingt das düstere „Tiger“, Gudrun Gut gräbt hier unter ihren eigenen Füßen, so scheint es. Unnostalgisch zurück blickt auch das Stück „Erinnerung“, dessen philosophischer Text im Ping Pong-Verfahren mit der Schriftstellerin Annika Reich entstanden ist. Das Thema hat nicht zuletzt mit dem Älterwerden zu tun. Wir waren alle dabei – aber warum erzählt jeder etwas anderes von damals? Es sind solche biografischen Zwischentöne, die im Vergleich zu Guts letztem Soloalbum „I Put A Record On“ (2007) auffallen. Kongenial abgemischt wurden die Tracks gemeinsam mit Jörg Burger an verschiedenen Orten in Ost und West.
Und immer wieder ist da diese laszive und zugleich fordernde Intimität, die in dem großartigen „Frei Sein“ zu sich selbst kommt. Aus der verspielten Naivität eines Kinderliedes verwandelt sich der Track in eine spleenige Hymne mit afrikanisch anmutender Rhythmik und einem animistisch klackenden Raumklang. Überhaupt „Frei Sein“, darum geht es Gudrun Gut zuletzt immer. Die Freiheit, die sie meint, ist natürlich viel mehr als eine allein künstlerische. Sie ist wie dieses Album ein maximales Versprechen „voller Küsse“ und „voller Glück“. Nur dann und wann stechen uns die Bienen.
Info:
Originally taken from her recent album by the same name, Sweet Silence is the title track of Barbara Morgenstern’s brand new EP on monika enterprise too: the Silence Sweater EP which features 4 exlusive versions of the song including 2 remixes and a choral adaptation.
The remixes come courtesy of Shitkatapult founder T.Raumschmiere aka Marco Haas who also mixed the Sweet Silence album. Indeed he clearly knew the subject matter really well cause his two new remixes are the perfect interpretations. While his latest project SHRUBBN! Is a move towards a more experimental sound, Raumschmiere proves he still knows exactly how to fire things up for the dancefloor with these smashing two remixes.
Morgenstern has been leading her choir the Chor der Kulturen der Welt (Choir of World Cultures) for almost 5 years now. And the HKW house band have really found their voice on this beautiful choral rendition “Sweet Singing”. The musical arrangement is also perfectly sparse and fuses harmonically with the choir’s tender strains.
Barbara rounds off the EP with a special extended mix of her new records title song. Its lifting rhythm and crisp electronic production combine with Morgenstern’s upliftingly melancholy lyrics sung in that personal pop tone of hers and all come together to make a powerful culmination. Sweet Silence is no less than the 6th album by Berlin based musician Barbara Morgenstern. Like the Tremeloes, Morgenstern knows just how sweet silence can be. And certainly the extended play is as sweet as the album: this is one Silence Kid you’ll wanna hear more of!
