Hanno Leichtmann

Distilling sounds from the now 70-year-old archive of the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, the Berlin based electronic artist Hanno Leichtmann presents a stunning album which is remix, collage, and homage at the same time. On his latest work Nouvelle Aventure, Berlin's Hanno Leichtmann -- who besides his solo works, also plays with Jan Jelinek and Andrew Pekler in Groupshow and recently released his second album with Valerio Tricoli on Entr'acte in 2018 -- presents his very individual approach to the task of remixing and reworking the IMD archive. As in his previous installations (e.g. "Skin, Wood, Traps" for Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, celebrating the 100th birthday of the drum set), the electronic artist distills his sound material exclusively from a thematically fixed archive, in this case: concert recordings, lectures, and discussions from the famous Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music (Stockhausen, Nono, Ligeti, Xenakis, et al.) Originally a six-channel installation as part of "Historage" at Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, the composition is here presented as a 46-minutes stereo mix. Leichtmann sent the subjectively-chosen sounds through his unique machinery of voltage-controlled (micro-) loopers, re-recorded them and then in a last step pieced them together in his studio, primarily applying the traditional parameters of early electronic (tape) music such as amplitude, pitch/speed, playback direction, series/cuts, but most of all: repetition. The result is a stunning album and a highly psychedelic affair, as mirrored by the amazing artwork by Caro Mikalef (Cabina). Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code.