Rare original issue. Recorded by the husband and wife duo of Kurt Schwertsik and Christa Schrwertsik, “Manchmal Vertrödelt Christa S. Den Tag” is a dreamy gestalt, an album that borders Chanson, spoken-word, Ubu-esque passages, chanting and singing, against a variety of textures and jazz noir. Kurt Schwertsik (b. 1935) is an Austrian experimental/avant-garde composer. His music is mercurial and idiosyncratic with a refreshing lightness of touch. Though a pupil of Karlheinz Stockhausen, the composer rejected serialism in favour of his particular exploration of tonality and his musical irony and humour. His search for an 'alternative' modern culture draws inspiration from Satie and the Dada movement.

The memories of Cologne and Darmstadt that have remained closest to Schwertsik’s heart (as his five “Nature Pieces” movingly testify) are those of his friendship with Stockhausen’s English pupil and amanuensis, the composer Cornelius Cardew. Equally influential and in some respects decisive were his encounters with John Cage. Although the ‘experiments’ with triadic harmony in the “Liebesträume” of 1963 owe nothing to Cage’s music – indeed, they are already characteristically Schwertsikian – they represent as clear a break with Darmstadt orthodoxies as do the more Cageian chance-operations he applied to Liszt’s own long-suffering “Liebesträume”. It was surely from Cage that Schwertsik now found his way back to Erik Satie, just as it was through Satie that he soon began to develop a chanson-style that would incorporate elements from American and European popular music of the '60s and '70s.

Recorded at Motivastudio and produced by Jeunesses Musicales.

Christa Schwertsik: Vocals, Guitar, Melodica
Nali Gruber: Bass
Kurt Schwertsik: Vibraphone, Melodica, Horn