Improvisation not a fetish, but rather as material, as an object of process, as a means to save past gestures, those hardly left in memory – this is the musical procedure of the Frankfurt trio Blank.
Blank consists of Oliver Augst (voice, no-input mixing board, harmonica, etc.), Christoph Korn (guitar, live electronics, melodica, and voice from time to time) and Rüdiger Carl (claviola, a small keyboard with rhythm functions, a little accordion, no clarinet this time around, but with voice, a world premier!). The Frankfurt-based group has been working together for seven years, and not only musically. For five years they curated the experimental music festival Pol. They have long left the realm of the Aha-effect, since an improviser from the very beginning (Carl) has met up with two younger musicians (Augst, Korn).
They are a group that has developed a dream-like understanding among each other. And it hasn’t happened via the classical path of free jazz noise, but rather via a highly reflective method of always questioning themselves: this year they have released a LP, Duden (on Eventuell/a-Musik), which exists solely of endless grooves, loops in other words, each of which lasts less than a second. Whoever buys this LP, buys a current working instrument of the band. In the last few months, they performed, each with an LP and record player, and mixed the loops to a complete texture live. Post appears as a logical consequence of this working method. The CD contains 33 tracks with a complete time of 52 minutes; the tracks are based on loops for the most part. The material that forms the basis of the music was played spontaneously (“improvised”), but was arranged later on a computer into miniature songs.
Post is an exemplary expression of working antitheses. The music seems static and diverting at the same time; there are virtually no references and concessions on the zeitgeist, and yet Post is saturated with historical gestures – punk, techno, the proletariat song tradition, trace elements of blues and new wave.
And history, by the way. It’s exactly the opposite of what one’d expect: first Post was recorded, then Duden. Due to current reasons the last was published first. But it’s unimportant – Blank master their material, playfully not dictatorially. The strict logic of their work is always broken by the involuntary spontaneity and free imagination. Improvisation can’t be entirely subjugated.
The cover was designed by Albert Oehlen.

Oliver Augst (also on GROB538, GROB657)

Rüdiger Carl (also on GROB538, GROB542, GROB650)

Christoph Korn (also on GROB538, GROB657)

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