B-Dubs by Bernhard Wöstheinrich
FOREWORD
"Here is a compilation bringing together a few pieces of the huge and eclectic oeuvre of Bernhard Wöstheinrich. It’s curated by yours truly, Jean-Philippe Rossi (heart and brain of the Unquiet Music Ltd. project)
Some of you might know that my own music may not have existed without the big impact of me meeting Markus Reuter a few years back; but on the same occasion, I also met Bernhard and found out about his music. I was immediately attracted to his unique blend of electronics, atmospheric compositions and extended pieces, which dragged me into a totally unknown world.
How Bernhard brings this music to life remains a mystery to me to this day.
The series of pieces I have selected and edited here are an attempt to collect and contact some of this mystery. Arranged and sequenced according to my own taste and fantasy, they also happened to loop into my mind with a strange set of visions - unfolding landscapes and surreal events - that I tried to lay down in writing as they came together while I listened to the music.
For those who do not know Bernhard’s music, here is my attempt at setting you up to be transported the same way that I was.
For those of you who do, here’s another trip through this universe of sound and its way of interwining the self-evident with the transgalactic."
Jean-Philippe Rossi
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WE’RE NOT AFRAID
Can you believe it? I’m in Cairo, and I am in a funky mood today - I'd even say “groovy”. I have this beat in me, which accompanies me and reassures me. I'm not afraid of anything. I'm going to cross this cluttered boulevard, avoid the cars without even taking the designed pedestrian crossing.
I look up to try to perceive a little something, anything, beyond the surrounding dust. I see a big bowl standing there, a sphere at least a kilometer in diameter, emitting jerky vibrations. It’s a spaceship - just over the avenue - and no one seems to notice, although its white marble color blazes through the dry mist. Its mass is imposing, but it seems very light, like a gigantic Taj Mahal floating above the traffic.
The weather is devilishly hot, we are in the middle of July in these suburbs of Cairo. I think “Perhaps that’s a big alien bomb coming to explode near the pyramids.” Its round shape is as perfect and regular as Kephren's triangles.
From the album Collider
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/collider-2
Music written, arranged and played by Bernhard Wöstheinrich, a. k. a. The Redundant Rocker.
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THF EXPERIENCE SHOW 20210424 PART 2
A crystalline sound makes me turn my head. Now, I can see a sybillin cloud of broken glass developing, solidifying from a bluish mist that has formed around the machine. It seems to herald the arrival of something new - perhaps a landing. The fragments gradually arrange themselves in order to form a transparent blue span, which splits the ochre dust of the city.
A sombre gap starts to appear in the ship at the level of the translucent gateway. It gradually divides the sphere into two; then four; and then into multiple elements which melt into what seems to become a liquid ash covering everything. Cars, trucks, shops, street vendors and windscreen washers, road. The red dust and white noise of the city are no more.
From the album THF Experience Show 20210424 - Part 2
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/thf-experience-show-20210424-part-2
Live-Performance and -Arrangement by Bernhard Wöstheinrich
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SUBMERGING IN A FORGOTTEN POND
A sudden sound rings out, like a single note from a gigantic piano, filling the space. And they appear. A flat pool of grey forms under the gray-blue stretch of glass, and resolves into these new beings - looking like greenish amphibians but with some human parts; sometimes a torso, sometimes a leg, even a face. Apparently peaceful, they move slowly. They do not seem friendly or aggressive, or even indifferent. They're just... there. They move calmly, leaving the bridge one by one, and start swimming in this environment that has now become indigo... A faint pulse of light emanates from the horizon... It sounds like they're singing. A static melody comes to me, a drone-cloud made of docile and throbbing rhythms. They are scanning the surroundings with the light. They scan me, and I feel that I start to melt too; or rather, everything starts to melt, all of the landscape before my eyes. The sounds slide down my eardrums... Fade to blue, I'm inside myself.
And the groove is here. All this time, it has not left me. I now realise that these are my body pulsations; not those of the city, which is only an artefact we created to be recognized... I am aware of the blood moving forward and backward; of all my muscles; of the tiniest nervous sensations.
From the album Submerging in a Forgotten Pond
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/materiaal-060-submerging-in-a-forgotten-pond
Bernhard Wöstheinrich – Keyboards, Samplers, Synthesizers and Sequencers
Editing & mixing: Bernhard Wöstheinrich
Sound recordings with the Aquabeat Hydrophone by and with David Rothenberg
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MUSCHELKALK
It’s the lymph that transmits the information to keep me alive. Let's say: essential to my functioning. I am not just my thinking, I am all that, this body and these organs, these sensations and the sensation of them.
There is no more straight way in all this than there is a circle. Separating the cycle from the evolution now seems to me quite childish. There is only impermanent permanence, the “coniunctio oppositorum”. The Groove That Hovers. I perceive new sensations. I hear this sound that beats me and carries me at the same time, and I surrender myself. And I'm here, too.
Is the echo good for us, or does it destroy us? Memories rock us to the core and capture our attention, pinning us to the past. Do we have to get rid of them in order to roll into the present?
From the album Muschelkalk by Reichenhall
https://reichenhall.bandcamp.com/album/muschelkalk
Bernhard Wöstheinrich: Sequencer, Keyboards & Synthesizer
Lukas Radiomodul: Loopmachine
Mathieu Sylvestre: Looper and Electronics, Real-time Sound Transformations
Edited & produced by Lukas Radiomodul and Bernhard Wöstheinrich
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METHOD COUNT
The groove goes underground. A wave lifts my body, and pushes me out of me. I find myself once again in "the world".
I am on a vast flat plain with fine, thin, clean dust at my feet, as if I’m standing on a giant clay tennis court. It's morning. I see tall towers bristling with spikes planted here and there. Thousands of people pass in all directions. They seem to know where they are going. They are busy and focused; they do not touch; they even avoid each other; but they only temporarily deviate from their trajectories, which remain very precise. As they walk, hastily, they all mumble numbers. Are they, perhaps, counting their steps?
I decide to embark on this same movement, thinking "well, just go straight like everyone else, and we will see where it leads.". It is suddenly clear that I, too, know where I am going. Well, straight ahead. Watch out for this lady in a green fichu on the left; this young man in a suit and briefcase who walks by lowering his head ... I arrive at the entrance of a tower of spikes... The glass door opens in front of me.
From the album Moiré by Ian Boddy & Bernhard Wöstheinrich
https://din.org.uk/album/moir-din18
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TOPIC OF DUST
There are about ten elevators in the vast lobby. I take the closest one and press the button for the highest floor. The button says “39”. The elevator rises, and since it’s formed from glass with a view of the outside, I can see the incessant bustle of the population down below. It’s another city, futuristic but no less dusty and hectic.
From the album Ambidextrous Sun by Erik Emil Eskildsen & Bernhard Wöstheinrich
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/ambidextrous-sun
Erik Emil Eskildsen: guitar, electronics, drum programming, programming, sound design, editing, treatments, spectral editing, bass
Bernhard Wöstheinrich: synths, electronics, programming, piano, sound design, drum sounds, treatments
All tracks composed by Erik Emil Eskildsen & Bernhard Wöstheinrich
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VARIATIONS ON VASARELY PART 1
The elevator comes to a rapid halt and opens onto a large vestibule, topped by a vaulted ceiling marching off in silver arcades. Long steel desks are aligned on either side of the vast corridor that offers itself to my steps. Behind the furnishings, many employees move in different ways... it’s impossible to understand what they are doing. I can’t tell if they are excited traders launching virtual orders, or if they are making kitchen preparations for a high-end gourmet restaurant. Abstract paintings with geometric shapes adorn the walls... I must be in an artistic center rather than in a stock exchange room or a workshop... Maybe a bit of all this... But no, when I get to the end of the vestibule, I understand. I come out into a large room with many tables set. Strange beings (I recognize the half frog, half human) are seated there, and apparently sampling some extraterrestrial gastronomic lunch. Robots pass by, vibrating softly, serving strange dishes; many looking like jellies made of various metallic and shiny substances.
From the Album The Wedding Sessions 20220129 by Wöstheinrich, Spahn & Lankow
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/materiaal-055-the-wedding-sessions-20220129
Bernhard Wöstheinrich: Keyboards and virtual synthesizers, Live-Sequencing
Wolfgang Spahn: self-built analog synthesizers and neuron networks
Volker Lankow: drones and samples
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THF EXPERIENCE SHOW 20211030 PART 2
I sit down. They place a barcode in front of my eyes. It soon becomes a holographic list: words in strange undecipherable writing, probably the menu. A robot next to me wants to take my order. I just show him a few lines at random, since I know nothing about any of these dishes.
Another robot-device arrives, equipped with a pipette. A translucent balloon on the table is being filled with a sticky, cold and transparent liquid... It’s a little bit disgusting, but the smell is extremely appetizing; a bit like going to drink a meadow full of daisies. I've been hungry and thirsty for quite a while... A range of the strange silvery jellies appear on my plate. It seems that the robots have just served me in a covert, subtle way that I have not even been aware of. It is a peculiar meal, but I am not picky. I enjoy myself.
From the album THF Experience Show 20210130 - Part 2 by Bernhard Wöstheinrich
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/thf-experience-show-20210130-part-2
Live-Performance and -Arrangement by Bernhard Wöstheinrich
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THE CONFETTI MACHINE PART 1
My belly’s now full; I can look around. Around me the human frogs have stopped eating in order to look at me. I must have been rude, I suppose. With all this attention, the space would become almost palpable. The atmosphere remains calm. Only a few diffuse percussion sounds indicate that this place continues to be active in some way. But are they really focused on me? Or has the film-reel of life suddenly stopped, trapping us within a single frame? I realize that time has frozen, finally “linear time”, in the sense that we usually understand... Some mysterious mechanical vibrations start building up from the back of the room, and the wide glass windows silently decompose into myriads of confetti, giving way to a surreal escalator, showing me the way outside. I pass through the empty bay, standing on this strange staircase.
From the album The Wedding Sessions 20201008 by Bernhard Wöstheinrich & Wolfgang Spahn
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/the-wedding-sessions-20201008
Bernhard Wöstheinrich: Keyboards and virtual synthesizers, Live-Sequencing
Wolfgang Spahn: self-built analog synthesizers and neuron networks
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LORE
https://reichenhall.bandcamp.com/album/hunt-lore
It rises well above the city, above the towers. It leads me to the evening that fades into the night, to a sky that for the moment seems black and starless. But the groove is still here, inside me. I perceive it again, and this support allows me to stay grounded and thus to let myself go towards this unknown without any apprehension.
From the album Hunt & Lore by Reichenhall
Bernhard Wöstheinrich: Sequencer, Keyboards & Synthesizer
Lukas Radiomodul: Loopmachine
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CONGESTED
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/cosmopol
The sky is not black because of the absence of matter. Rather, it is a vivid color, like a Soulages black. I see that it contains the organs of the living - those of heaven and those of hell - inextricably intertwined. They form a Dantesque inked knot. However, this knot is not a knot, because these intestines, livers, frog thighs and tongues slide against each other continuously. It's a huge congestion, but one in which everything is moving... and I'm moving towards that. I am one of these organs, but I realize that all the same I play my own score, my own solo. It’s all groovy and melodic, and I feel relieved not to have been dissolved in this dense environment. Besides, I now see some smaller particles, like shiny grains of black sand, which emerge and roll between the entrails... But no! They are stars, true stars, not here but thousands of light years away, and at the same time in the middle of the bio-entities to which I am glued... A sense of awe and ubiquity seizes me. How can I be intimately encircled and contemplate the far-off universe?
From the album Cosmopol by Bernhard Wöstheinrich & David Kollar
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/cosmopol
Bernhard Wöstheinrich – Synthesizer, Keyboards, Sequencer
David Kollar – David Kollar - guitars
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IN THE BLUR OF A VAST BOULEVARD
A sewer mouth spews smoke. Trucks, cars, scooters roar on the avenue in both directions. I stand on a narrow strip of yellow grass, right in the middle. I’m caught in a heat wave. The ochre dust flies in dry clouds on this Cairo artery, and whips my face. I don't see very far. I do know, however, that the pyramids are not too far, waiting. I'm going to cross.
From the album Live at Radio RSD 20170527 by Bernhard Wöstheinrich & Tim Motzer
https://bernhardwoestheinrich.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-radio-rsd-20170527
Tim Motzer - guitar, electronics
Bernhard Wöstheinrich - keyboards, live-arrangements, electronics
recorded live in Berlin at RSD-Radio
Tracklist
Videos
Credits
Text by Jean-Philippe Rossi
Fine-tuning by Dann Chinn
License
All rights reserved.
Bernhard Wöstheinrich elicits meaning from abstraction in electronic music and painting. He has studied graphic design and has created an eclectic body of work in both graphics and music.
Bernhard speaks in his own musical voice; the musical arc of his work often moves from the curiously beautiful to the beautifully curious.
redundantrocker.com
bio.music-hub.com
centrozoon.de
iapetus-media.com