Franz Hautzinger

'Trumpet virtuoso Franz Hautzinger has played with Derek Bailey, Christian Fennesz, Ekkehard Ehlers and Otomo Yoshihide and is a member of Berlin's legendary Zeitkratzer, but his most arresting work is his solo material. On 'Gomberg III-V: Airplay' he follows up 2000's milestone solo plate 'Gomberg' and its 2007 sequel, advancing his unique technique using the quarter tone trumpet, a Bb instrument with an extra valve to microtonally lower the pitch. His compositions and improvisations play as if he's sparring with the instrument, attempting to force it to work in completely different ways. Sometimes he reimagines the trumpet as a percussion instrument, using the pad sounds and his breath to create raucous rolling rhythms and guttural, reverberating blasts of noice. 

'Hauer 9,7' turns his instrument into a whirr of clicks and occasional hums that sounds so elastic and improbable that if we hadn't known better we might have assumed it was made using Max/MSP. Easier to grasp is the dark, droning '1812', a shadowy moment that harmonizes with Jon Hassell and Gavin Bryars, sinking breathy loops to the bottom of the ocean in a froth of restrained noise. On 'Anna Politkowskaja', Hautzinger sounds more restrained, coaxing cloud-punching sustained tones from his trumpet that swirl into the void. If we didn't know better we'd swear it was electronic, but Hautzinger is a purist - his avoidance of electronic sound sources has only made his playing more exploratory and more impressive.' - Boomkat