ekkehard

While eMusic has some good material made by Ekkehard Ehlers already on the site (namely März’s Wir Sind Hier), we just recently received his solo releases on Staubgold.

They’re better.

Politik Braucht Keinen Feind
Ehlers’ 2003 album is broken into three parts. Each movement takes source material from a particular instrument. “Mäander” is the bass clarinet, “Blind” the cello and “Woolf Phrase” a vinyl recording of a string ensemble. You’d be hard-pressed to really tell that, however, without the help of liner notes or the internet. Ehlers breaks down these seemingly innocuous instruments into slow-moving cascades of unsettling ambience, unveiling the hidden textures inside each note. Ehlers isn’t interested in what the bass clarinet sounds like, so much as what he can make the bass clarinet sound like without completely losing the essential idea of the instrument.

Plays
François Couture, the AllMusic Guide reviewer of Politik Braucht Keinen Feind alludes to Plays in his review by talking about how Ehlers “plays” the source material given to him. In Plays, Ehlers plays people. Or, rather, the ideas of people. Here, he’s playing what John Cassavetes’ films or Hubert Fichte’s writings bring to mind. Some of the tracks are named after musicians, of course. But if you can find the throughline between Albert Ayler’s spiritual and uplifting free jazz and the tiny, glitches hiding amid drawn-out chords on the cello, you’re a better theorist than I. My favorite track is “Plays John Cassavetes 2.”