Dell Lillinger Westergaard & Maneri - MONUMENTS / 25 February 2022 on edition niehler werft (enw)

Monuments offers the exciting collaboration of the trio Dell Lillinger Westergard (DLW) and Mat Maneri. In 2015 the internationally acclaimed trio teamed up with the American viola virtuoso to investigate in a fascinating sound landscape. Maneri's unique style is informed by microtonal concepts and open compositions. It blends perfectly well with the innovative structural approach of DLW, while expanding the latter in its harmonic tonal space. Displaying ground-breaking views on and work with musical material, the recording at hand focuses on the commonality and the aspect of balance, especially between the different and contrasting instrument groupings and timbres.

In all cases of approaching compositional aspects, the musicians take their point of departure in questioning their concepts of a musical work over and over again. It is decisive, that the artists can never be sure exactly what defines modern genre types such as New Music, experimental music or Avantgarde. Instead each single composition should always open a path for new perspectives, options and procedures. Against this background, the compositional interspaces, the open structural and fragile cracks, the organizational fluctuation between action/sound/time levels establish the formal design of this at the sam time important and evocative recording: the differentiality and relationality of the work and its performers.

Since its formation in 2011, the trio Dell Lillinger Westergaard (DLW) have been researching energetic playing and structural composition in real time. Their complex interactions result in high energy materializing in different layers of sounds, relationscapes. Form comes into being through musical production. In this way the trio transcends the usual dichotomy of rhythm section vs. solo player.

Nominated for the German Jazz Prize 2021, the trio has released numerous productions and toured worldwide. Their double album „Grammar“ (released 2013 on gligg-records) demonstrates the trio’s specific structural approach to form-making from a variety of perspectives. The renowned German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau called the band's work "Boulez in real-time". Organizationally and aesthetically, the setup of DLW works as a plug-in structure creating space for guests, who bring their specific character of playing into the band’s sound. One example is the celebrated cooperation with the late John Tchicai, documented on the record „The Traveller“. Released in 2012 on Jazzwerkstatt Berlin, the ground-breaking album received rave reviews and was on the shortlist of the German Recording Award. DLW teamed up with the experimental electronic artist Johannes Brecht for the recording „Boulez Materialism“, released on PLAIST in 2018. Further collaborations include the renowned pianists Tamara Stefanovich, Bob Degen and Søren Kjærgaard.

This publication is the second publication in the new retroactive series of the exclusive artist’s label edition niehler werft (enw). In 2015 Marko Birkner meticulously engineered the session at the Funkhaus-Studios while Gleb Zagrebin provided a retroactive and punctilious mastering of the recordings in 2021.

Tracklist CD

01 Monument 14 * 04:52

02 Monument 13 * 10:24

03 Void 6 00:35

04 Void 4 01:16

05 Monument 12 04:03

06 Monument 18* 11:20

07 Void 10 02:00

08 Void 1 * 00:54

09 Monument 20 10:21

10 Void 11 * 01:11

11 Void 8 01:43

12 Monument 15* 05:17

13 Void 9 * 01:04

14 Void 7 00:40

15 Monument 16* 08:32

Total time: 64:45 *= on vinyl

Christopher Dell – vibraphone

Christian Lillinger – drums

Jonas Westergaard – drums

Mat Maneri – viola

Recorded 15th of May

2015 by Marko Birkner

Mastered 10th of August

2021 by Gleb Zagrebin

All compositions and concept by

Dell Lillinger Westergaard & Maneri

© & ℗ 2021 Christopher Dell

enw 014

retroactive series

Design by Christopher Dell

Produced by enw and DLW

Dell Lilllinger Westergaard & Maneri MONUMENTS is released by the exclusive artist's label edition

niehlerwerft (enw) on

-180g Vinyl CD with inside out cover and inlaycard (LimitedEdition300)

-CD with 6page booklet (Limited Edition300)

-On digital platforms

Dell Lillinger Westergaard & Maneri - MONUMENTS / 25 February 2022 on edition niehler werft (enw)

(In the United States, it will be released on 03/11/2022)

edition niehler werft (enw)

Christopher Dell - Alterity Stream / edition niehler werft (enw)

Alterity Stream presents a unique composition cycle by Christopher Dell, the internationally acclaimed composer and vibraphonist, who is known and highly respected for his experimental music. Taking the confrontation of the jazz quartett and classical wind ensemble as point of departure, Dell transforms this hybrid into an ecstatic montage of forms. Superimposed on the grid of serial structures, Alterity Stream unfolds as a captivating musical relais, which not only indulges in the overview, but also in the insight of the simultaneity of manifold musical practices. This publication is the first publication in the new retroactive series of the exclusive artist’s label edition niehler werft (enw). Conceptualized and produced in the year 2000, the recording was meticulously re-mastered by the German sound engineer and composer Arne Schumann in 2020.

Christopher Dell sees composing as a multidisciplinary exploration of the combining elements of music, as well as its modes of representation and its situations of performance. Dell constantly aims to reassess that what is considered as the musically realizable according to its practice and production of signification. He manages doing that by finding new constellations through the structural procedure of focused analysis, shifts and reassemblage of individual musical elements. This disposition also gave rise to the concept of Alterity Stream: How can the ensemble groupings as body of sound be grasped and that in the intricate interplay of the individual and the collective, between difference and equality?

The invitation by the Theo Jörgensmann Quartett in the year 2000, to write a new ensemble piece, encouraged Dell to these preliminary considerations towards this scenario of two ensemble groupings. The ensemble’s totality is staged as the constellation of two quartets a collective of instrumentalists who not only act as soloists, but at the same time as collective body of sound. This way the opposition of groupings emerges as fascinating plasticity of bodily movements relative to different genres of music making. This applies to every single gesture but seems even more intriguing when it comes to the multiplicity of the individual actions in the collective, also known as the ‘acting in concert’. The form and body of the whole are in constant change and it can never be clearly discerned who the actor and who the re-actor might be. Moreover this body of sound is held together by collective moments in alterity – and this is the only way that makes the work effective.

Alterity, as a compositional and potentially political trace, is of central importance in Christopher Dells music. Compositional experiences can be discovered during the structure of musico-clash, the confrontation of musical material, genres or actors propelling and facilitating processes of differentiation. The compositional interspace is the site of the most sensitive musical differentiation. At the same time, Alterity most likely belongs to the central categories of the political. It is the political where categorizations of humans and nonhumans are established, so that the latter can be differentiated in status or identity. This situation of alterity leaves us with the intense presence of the differentiated.

An experimental jazz quartet confronted with a classical wind quartet – both are put into perspective through the lens of a contemporary revision of the historical movement “Third Stream”. An explorative process of identity, style and time, a remix of the approaches of high, as well as late modernism once reflected in “Third Stream”, and most and for all a celebration of one of the most important, most modern ensembles in 20th century music: the Modern Jazz Quartet. Neither mixing genres nor crossing over from one into another, Alterity Stream constitutes the testimony of a casting aside of the category of genre itself, as if it were a relic of a long-vanished era.

About Christopher Dell

Christopher Dell, is a Berlin and Copenhagen based composer and instrumentalist working with a multidisciplinary approach to musical composition, its representation, its performance and the concert situation, resulting in works at the intersection of the genres of music, performance, installation, urban design theory and architecture. In 2001 he founded the Institute for Improvisation Technology (ifit) and in 2001 he founded the artist’s label edition niehler werft (enw).

01 First Piece 4:19

02 Sentenzen 2:54

03 Nummer 26 0:39

04 Kontext 5:05

05 Konturen A 2:44

06 Konturen B 4:23

07 Konturen C 4:31

08 En Face 5:39

09 Oleaster 6:28

10 Sandzeit 2 5:22

11 Glut 2:49

12 Nummer 26 Reprise 0:41

13 Maserung 6:54

14 Vektoren 5:24

15 Last Piece 2:26

Theo Jörgensmann – clarinet

Christopher Dell – vibraphone, composition, conduction

Christian Ramond – bass

Klaus Kugel – drums

Camilla Hoitenga – flute

Anja Schmiel – oboe

Berhard Kösling – clarinet

Christine Chapman – horn

Recorded 11th of April 2000 by Michael Peschko

Mastered 21st of December 2020 by Arne Schumann at Schumann & Bach

All compositions and concept by Christopher Dell

© & ℗ Christopher Dell

Design by Christopher Dell

All Compositions by Christopher Dell (GEMA)

With essay by Christopher Dell

Produced by enw and Christopher Dell

Cover art picture by Christopher Dell

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