Dieter Schnebel

condition (record/cover): M / M Gatefold sleeve. Laut Gesten Laute is a seminal piece of experimental 'theater' that ranks alongside Dieter Schnebel's later collection Zeichen-Sprache (recall Poem for One Jumper) as examples of Schnebel's “visible music.” These two works help define Schnebel as a formative voice in this genre for voices and gestures. “Redeübungen für Hand und Mund” (Speech Exercises for Hand and Mouth), clearly demonstrates how Schnebel's theatrics present the performer's body afresh, using rhythms that are danceable on lopsided floors. Dieter Schnebel does not form words, but explores the vocal and tonal possibilities of body, gestures and movement: sometimes humming, sometimes quacking, then babbling, full of energy or almost breathless, the variations of loudness are lined up one after the other, sometimes accompanied and influenced by rhythmic gossip and beat sounds of the hands. Whatever the correlation between sound and gesture, Schnebel attempts at every turn to remind his audiences of the corporeal component of musical performance and the art of listening. He wants to “change our relation to our bodies, to teach us to be more aware; there is an incipient didactic program to this work, consonant with his former activities as a pastor and religious teacher.