Mia Zabelka

Fleischwolf
Einst
Valve Records VALVE 9787

Stretching in novel directions the interactive textures available from a violin and another instrument is the thesis of these duo sessions featuring two German-speaking fiddlers. Created in original fashions, Vienna-based Mia Zabelka is involved in single extended improvisations with either Canadian cellist Alain Joule or American drummer Tracy Lisk. Meantime Gunda Gottschalk hooks up with fellow Wuppertal resident Achim Konrad on computer as Fleischwolf (meat grinder) for 13 tracks that in part reflect the band’s sardonic name.

Zabelka, who has played with everyone from John Russell to IcosTech, treats the timbres from the cellist, who has worked with Michel Doneda and the percussionist who usually plays solo,  with the same fearless resolve. It may be that Joule too is a particularly percussive player, yet Zabelka’s staccato squeaks and scrapes easily make common cause with his swift sweeps, which sometimes attain dog-whistle-like elevation. Additionally while both move around at presto tempos, their output encompasses col legno string smacks and bounces. At the same time Zabelka also vocalizes in time with her bow strokes, adding falsetto-pitched cackles, cries and howls as the two move up the scale to prestissimo arco swirls. While both cello and violin traffic in angled sweeps and col legno interludes, a kernel of broken chord harmony is also heard so that stops and squeak eventually undulate into a straight line.

Vocalized aviary chirps and warbles are a feature of Zabelka’s duet with Lisk, which confirms a lighter touch intersection from the two that often matches spiccato string bounces with drum pitter patter. Closer to straight-ahead music than the other duo, “Contrapuntal Empathy” includes passages where stopped pizzicato swirls rotates back to the initial theme. That doesn’t means that this duo isn’t as intense as the one with Joule. The theme may sound sweetened by the end, but enough elaborations involving Zabelka’s mandolin-like plucking and Lisk’s bowing on cymbals confirms the duo’s ability to create an improvisation that’s forcefully vibrated as well as gentle.

Gottschalk, who in the past has played with innovators like Peter Jacquemyn and Ute Völker, only partners with one musicians on Einst. The main difference between it and Duos is that it’s divided into 13 separate tracks ranging from 42 seconds to more than 7½ minutes. Ironically she too adds vocalized mumbles and rants to string aggression and Konrad’s  synthesized and programmed wave forms. While some pieces include overlapping string slaps and sweeps, other suggest that computer processing is creating a second mirrored string part.

Meanwhile a track like “Die Oga Schwingen” confirms the presence of the machine. Rather than barely there pulses elsewhere, squirming voltage oscillation take up part of the aural real estate alongside the fiddler’s emphasized spiccato runs. Afterwards computer-generated vibrations evolve in tandem with string squeezes and picking.

Other tracks like “Ad Tack” and “Freivogel” are tougher and more contrapuntal. The first positions menacing drones from the computer against lively plinks and pops from the strings. The second, evolving prestissimo, plays off string chirps and squeaks that gradually get louder as they angle in different directions, with a voltage buzz and a final switch off. Elsewhere “Paradiescreme” is the prime instance of a fiddler feigning so many spumescent passages from the real and faux strings. that sounds could be coming from a standard string ensemble.

The concluding “Passacaglia” also suggests how the two adapt to the triple-metre dance variations with almost anthem-like repeated passages. However the concluding section that speeds up to allegro and adds pinpointed string slaps and computer buzzes confirms that putting the form through this meat grinder allow the two to project innovation and modernity.

Each session makes its salient points in its own way. Each also offers an instance of contemporary string permutation without compromise.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Duos: 1. The Poetics of Sharing# 2. Contrapuntal Empathy*

Personnel: Duos: Mia Zabelka (violin and vocals with Alain Joule# (cello with percussive extensions) or Tracy Lisk* (drums and cymbal bowing)

Track Listing: Einst: 1. Alice 2. 2 X 8 Plus Minus 3. Die Oga Schwingen 4. Die Oga Schnarchen 5. Der Riesenkater 6. Bringt Nix 1 7. Dampflockdown 8. Ad Tack 9. Paradiescreme 10. Bringt Nix 2 11 Freivogel 12. Bringt Nix 3 13. Passacaglia

Personnel: Einst:  Gunda Gottschalk (violin, viola and voice) and Achim Konrad (computer)