Crunch

It crunches, rustles, whispers, rattles, bubbles – extended playing techniques, preparations and various everyday materials produce a seemingly endless variety of sounds in Eloain Lovis Hübner's compositions. Hübner does not understand sound as fixed material, but rather as a state or “as a living relationship between bodies – instrumental, vocal or electronic,” as booklet author Sophie Emilie Beha describes it. “The music is constantly in motion, attracting, repelling, tilting, shimmering, breaking apart and reassembling itself. It creates spaces in which listening itself becomes a physical experience: focused, fragile and yet full of energy.”

Two series of works are at the heart of the CD. “crunch modes 1.0” (Schallfeld Ensemble) and “crunch modes 3.0” (Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble) initially reveal what is typical of Hübner's composing – they zoom between micro- and macrocosm and move between structure and loss of control, accumulation and decay, and radicalism and delicacy. 

“Trauma und Zwischenraum” [Trauma and Interstice] was composed under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic and features three very different instrumentations: in the first part of the work, the ensemble airborne extended plays the recorder, flute, prepared harp and harpsichord. In the second part, the musicians of the Arditti Quartet swap their bows for whisks, corks or toothbrushes, creating acoustic metaphors. In the third part, interpreted by the Lange//Berweck//Lorenz Trio, hybrid sound bodies such as accordion plus effects unit or Korg MS 20 Mini with electric guitar are used.

In “[untitled]”, the only vocal work on the CD, AuditivVokal Dresden deals with nonsense speech, noise imitation and film language, referring to the legendary airport scene from the film “Casablanca”.

A release of Contemporary Music Edition
Production by Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Österreich 1) (1), Production Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble (2), Coproduction Deutschlandfunk and Deutscher Musikrat gGmbH (3–6)