aus dem fotoalbum eines pinguins |cs073

[...] Sabine Vogel plays flute and electronics and on her CD there are four recordings made in at a concert in Stockholm, a piece for an exhibition and whole bunch of very short field recording pieces involving ice ('just another state of water, but it makes different sounds'). In her concert pieces, Vogel treats her instrument as an object: careful blowing, producing small sounds, but it's hard to think of this as a flute, at least most of the times. In the exhibition piece see uses a large dose of echo on her field recordings of water to create an atmosphere of walking around, along with her flute, which acts as a bird. It's altogether a pretty varied disc, quiet listening music, but full of tension. Frans de Waard (Vital)

Through different types of flute, electronics and field recordings Sabine Vogel affirms her strong compositional individuality in a truly splendid work, which uses air as a primary ingredient for a series of microscopic analyses of the sonic content of incorporeality. Vogel's phonetics are made of pretty simple elements that reveal multitudes of tiny facets; her pieces scan the no man's lands of sounds lacking the consistency of a proper body, bringing out forward-looking harmonics that render their effect similar to being caressed by marine winds or wandering through desertic desolations. Indeed the sea and the rain are an engrossing presence in "Wax and wane", possibly the finest moment of this conceptual link, a gorgeous piece where flute and bass flute seem to try and determine the geographic coordinates of a lost soul amidst a holy forest of timbral reliquiae and natural lonesomeness. One imagines Vogel with pursed lips and concentrated attitude, captured by her own thought-provoking contemplations while using her instruments for outlandish insufflations of consciousness. Quantifying the value of a record like this is not easy, but there's a definite quality in Sabine Vogel's work that's enough for me to collocate her very high in my recent preferences' scale. "Aus dem Fotoalbum eines Pinguins" is a pleasing surprise from every point of view, a mature statement which effortlessly nails a few fundamental concepts right into our system. It's music that avoids collision but also disdains dialogue, fed by its very depth which could be difficult to understand completely. Not for everybody, then - yet approaching masterpiece status. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

"Aus dem Fotoalbum eines Pinguins" to pierwsza solowa plyta Sabine Vogel. Piszac to zdanie nie mialem na mysli omawianej plyty, lecz identycznie zatytulowany, limitowany CDR wydany wlasnym sumptem przez niemiecka flecistke przed dwoma laty. Tegoroczny "Fotoalbum" miesci w sobie caly material zawarty w poprzednim, a dodatkowe dwadziescia minut muzyki sprawia, ze to wlasnie wersja CD staje sie kanoniczna.
Trzydziestoletnia obecnie Sabine Vogel jest absolwentka Konserwatorium im. Antona Brucknera w Linzu. Zwiazana z niemiecka scena muzyki improwizowanej, wspólpracuje równiez z kompozytorami z kregu muzyki wspólczesnej w przeszlosci otarla sie tez o jazz.
Jej domena jest sonorystyczna improwizacja, przekraczajaca ograniczenia artykulacyjne i laczaca brzmienia akustyczne z elektronicznymi. Cztery utwory zarejestrowane przed dwoma laty potwierdzaja akces Sabine Vogel do grona "poszerzaczy" mozliwosci brzmieniowych instrumentów. Wydaje sie, ze jej zamiarem bylo uczynienie z fletem tego, co inni (np.: Dörner, Kelley, Rainey, Bosetti) robia z trabka czy saksofonem. Trzy nowsze utwory nie zmieniaja tego obrazu, a co najwyzej pozwalaja odnotowac, ze obecnie w muzyce Vogel wieksza role zaczynaja odgrywac nagrania terenowe. Na pozór delikatna, a w rzeczywistosci mocna i gesta, elektroakustyczna pajeczyna fletowych podmuchów, elektronicznych preparacji i field recordingu (glównie sa to odglosy wody i lodu) zachwyca misternym splotem improwizacji i kompozycji, brzmien naturalnych i preparowanych, akustycznych i elektronicznych.
Ta muzyka jest nadzwyczaj delikatna i subtelna, wykorzystuje drobne dzwieki poszerzajace klasyczny tembr fletu, ale to nie poszerzenie mozliwosci sonorystycznych instrumentu jest jej najwieksza zaleta.
Najwazniejsza jest umiejetnosc wykorzystania wszystkich wspomnianych skladników do zbudowania interesujacych, zróznicowanych form, która sprawia, ze "Aus dem Fotoalbum eines Pinguins" to pelna, dojrzala wypowiedz artystki, potrafiacej efektywnie poslugiwac sie wypracowanym przez siebie osobistym jezykiem wypowiedzi. Tadeusz Kosiek (Gaz-Eta)

I may as well admit it: I'm suffering from Solo Wind Instrument Improv fatigue. Even if you're a dedicated fan of this kind of music there surely comes a point when you have to ask yourself how many albums of fffplschpllllkrrrschfff you need, not to mention how often you're likely to listen to them all (even discs I've very much enjoyed in recent times by David Gross, Stéphane Rives and Michel Doneda have sadly been gathering dust on the shelves here of late). I'm certainly not singling flautist Sabine Vogel out for particular attack, having very much enjoyed her work on Schwimmer with Bosetti, Griener and Thieke, and nor is this particular album "just another solo wind instrument improv outing", interleaving as it does Vogel's improvisations with (all too brief) field recordings of ice and an extended exploration of the city of Stockholm, but there's something about the music that leaves me cold. And it's not just the album title. Successful solo improvising is hard to pull off, and it's all too easy to fall back on simple (maybe not so simple technically but simple musically) extended techniques. One is impressed by the sounds – wow, is that really a flute? never mind penguins, a lot of this stuff sounds like hippos having fun in a mud bath – but ultimately longs for a note or two. But, as I say, it's the end of a long week listening to solo wind improv outings here at PTHQ (others include the latest outings by Jack Wright and Henry Kuntz). I'll come back to this one when I've thawed out. Dan Warburton (Paris Transatlantic)

Flute under the microscope. Various gestures are visible through amplification, while vocal techniques appear slow and relaxed. Electronics and instrumental materials, concrete sounds exploring the common ground embedded in silence by way of framing: preference for the meagre, hardly expressive, merely hinting. Pedro Lopez (Modisti)

If Beside The Cage brings forward some typical elements of impro-combos, Sabine Vogel can be better qualified as many solo performers on Creative Sources and on similar labels. Does what I wrote stands for "here’s you have you're average anonymous release"? Absolutely no, with those words I simply meant if there's a modus operandi with which you can distinguish the work of a band as much as that of a soloist like in this case. But given that the world is full of contradictions, let's say if we'd not consider this one as an only acoustic/instrument cd, this should be a big mistake since the fifty percent of this whole effort is made out of field recordings. Believe it or not, the fact is that miss Vogel mixed really well some solo performances with some silent/non intrusive field soundscapes and I dare you to recognize the different sections without the liner-notes accompanying every track. The recording is superb and Sabine mixed the different elements so well it all sounds as a unique continuative trip that passes from a soft half choked blowing to a silent audio-scape. This minimal work is brilliantly engineered and conceived well enough to offer a enjoyable listening even in terms of time length. Andrea Ferraris (Chain DLK)

The other release I have listened to a couple of times this evening is Aus dem Fotoalbum eines Pinguins which I believe translates as From the photoalbum of a penguin, which is of course a great title for an album, irrespective of how good the music it accompanies may be! I have heard Vogel’s music before on a few releases, the best of which is the phono_phono CD alongside Magda Mayas and Michael Renkel on the Absinth label. She plays flute, though on this release her solo improvisations are broken up by seven tiny fragments of sound (the longest is thirteen seconds in length, the shortest just four) scuplted from field recordings made around ice. Water and ice seem to form something of a theme throughout the album. The first four improvisations were recorded in Stockholm, Sweden on a sunny day, but the fifth is all about the water that flows through and around the city, and the short poetic notes included on the piece describe the flute playing here as “like a waterbird, diving, breathing, swimming, bathing in the water- or sometimes just flying above it”
Hmm… how does it all sound? Well not that bad at all really. The album opens with a nice, whispery, breathy piece for bassflute and (to my ears inaudible) electronics that has a nice feel to it, a good use of space and a balance between sudden stabs of air and a lighter dreaminess. It does not overstay its welcome, and is followed by that four second long brief click of sound that could easily be a flick at a laptop keyboard, but is in fact a microscopic extract from a field recording. There follows further pieces for flute and electronics that extend the use of what sounds like digital processing much further, taking the flute sound some way away from its recognisable flutiness in places, sounding not unlike some of Axel Dorner’s brief trumpet exercises some of the time. The fourth improvised piece, the grandly titled Skrekkfyselig is a favourite, made up of rapid-fire blasts of dry air for the most part, but with a grainy undercurrent that actually sounds (and probably not by any accident) very close to the eleven second icy field recording that follows it.
At ten minutes in length, the fifth of the longer pieces here, called Wax and wane is indeed the longest of all and is by some way the most beautiful. More of a musique concrete construction rather than a straight piece of improvisation it combines Vogel’s flutes with field recordings of water, sometimes recognisably so, elsewhere not so much, to the degree that in places it becomes difficult to tell the acoustic playing apart from the recorded material. There are glimpses of crashing waves, a little section of very beautiful rainfall, but for the most part the rainy sounds are less obvious, perhaps originating from the ice recordings as well. This is a gorgeous piece, quiet, understated and attractive from a very simple, natural perspective. The only criticism is that it is too short. I’d have preferred more of the album to be like this. The final pieces return to the more roughly sculpted improvisations with electronics that opened the album, with these closing tracks actually better than the earlier ones, again with a degree of field recordings somehow involved, but never obviously.
This is a fine release, carefully constructed and skillfully performed. I certainly hope there are more like this amongst this collection of Creative Sources discs. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)

Das Geräusch von gefrorenem Wasser. Wind, der über weite Schneeflächen streicht, das leise Klirren gefrorenen Wellenschaums, Schritte auf brechendem Eis. Die experimentelle Improvisatorin und Flötistin Sabine Vogel hat das alles hörbar gemacht. Auf Einladung des Instituts für Elektronische Musik (EMS) in Stockholm reiste sie in den Norden Schwedens, sammelte Eisgeräusche und improvisierte mit ihrer Querflöte darüber.
Technisch ist ihre Improvisation sehr anspruchsvoll: Hochempfindliche Mikrofone nehmen den Klang im Inneren der Flöten ab. An Sabine Vogels Handrücken und -gelenken sind Sensoren befestigt, mit denen sie die Flötenklänge durch Körperbewegungen beeinflussen und die aufgezeichneten Wasser- und Eisgeräusche wie Bausteine abrufen und verändern kann. Umschlungen von Kabeln und Isolationsklebeband wirken ihre langsamen Bewegungen wie ein ritueller Klangtanz. Vorsichtig arbeiten ihre Lippen oberhalb der Flötenöffnung, sie atmet, pustet, schnalzt, summt.
Das Forschen am elektroakustischen Ton und die Klangveränderung im Moment des Spielens sind Sabine Vogel Ausdruck innerer Weite. Vor allem das Leise und die Stille als Teil der Musik sieht sie dabei als Herausforderung. Sie erzählt von ihrem Jazzgefühl, das sie immer weiter seziert habe, bis zur nackten Klangbetrachtung und der Abkehr vom gewohnten Umgang mit der Querflöte. So habe sie im Bereich der Neuen Reduktion, der akustischen und elektroakustischen, leisen Improvisation, ihren Platz gefunden. Eine lange Suche sei es gewesen, über ihr Studium in Linz und herkömmliche Jazz-Sessions bis zu der Begegnung mit Anthony Braxton und den Fieldwork-Arbeiten experimenteller Improvisatoren wie Ignaz Schick und der Gruppe Cobra. Die Improvisation gleiche einem Kommunikationsmedium, das weltweit auch ohne Sprache funktioniere, sagt Sabine Vogel.
Ihre CD Aus dem Fotoalbum eines Pinguins erschien in zwei Teilen, vor zwei Jahren fügte das portugiesische Label Creative Sources sie zusammen. Es waren einige der ersten Aufnahmen, die mithilfe elektronischer Improvisationsmuster und Körpersensoren entstanden. In der reduzierten Echtzeit-Improvisation verwischt die gewohnte Zuordnung der Klänge zu bestimmten Instrumenten. Die aufgezeichneten Feld-Aufnahmen – wie die von Wasser und Schnee – ergänzen das Klangvokabular der Musikerin.
Die Klänge gleichen gefrorenen Landschaften, die langsam bedrohlich werden. Das Knacken der Schritte und die fühlbare Kälte rufen Bilder des Ausgeliefertseins hervor. Die Schönheit des Eises und des gefrorenen Lichts verwandelt sich in Hilflosigkeit, Wärmeverlust und Erschöpfung. Gefrorener Atem vor einer endlosen Eisfläche. Die Schritte entfernen sich. Maxi Sickert (Zeit Online)