Berlin School (Electronic Music)
Berliner Schule (also: Berlin School) is a style of electronic music that developed in Germany in the mid-1970s. The name arose from the main place of activity of the representatives of this style - Berlin (West) .
Along with the Düsseldorf school, the Berlin School is one of the two main styles of German electronic music from the mid-1970s.
Origins
The Electronic Beat Studio Berlin at Pfalzburger Strasse 30, led by the Swiss composer Thomas Kessler , and later in the Halensee primary school at Joachim-Friedrich-Strasse in Berlin, was important for the emergence of the Berlin School for Electronic Music . Various groups such as Agitation Free, Ash Ra Tempel and at the beginning also Tangerine Dream rehearsed here.
As early as 1969, the Berliner Abendschau ( Sender Free Berlin , ARD ) made a contribution about the Beatstudio. The comments were almost groundbreaking about the still very young avant-garde band Agitation Free with its founding members Ludwig Kramer (later Walpurgis ) and Christopher Franke (then Tangerine Dream for 18 years). "You try to continue the beat that you see in electronics" ... "That is nothing more". Bands like Nina Hagen , Ideal , Neonbabies and Rammstein later produced their first albums here.
Representative
Pioneers
Well-known representatives are or were artists based in Berlin such as Klaus Schulze , Tangerine Dream (founding member Edgar Froese ) and Günter Schickert as well as bands such as Ash Ra Tempel (Ashra), Harmonia with Dieter Mœbius , Hans-Joachim Roedelius ; Michael Rother , Agitation Free with Lutz Ludwig Kramer , Manuel Göttsching , Harald Grosskopf , Harald Nies, Robert Schroeder or Michael Hoenig .
There were also interactions with the Düsseldorf school. Such was Conrad Schnitzler , a pupil of the object and action artist Joseph Beuys , came in the 1960s from Dusseldorf to Berlin. In 1970 he formed the second formation of the group Tangerine Dream together with Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese . In the same year he obtained the first synthesizer for the Kraftwerk group .
New Berlin School
At the beginning of the 1990s the style flourished, also under " New Berlin School " in contrast to "Berlin Old School" , through artists such as Bernd Kistenmacher , Mirko Lüthge , Frank Klare , Mario Schönwälder , Thomas Fanger , Detlef Keller , Rainbow Serpent and Uwe Saher , Frank Dorittke and others open again. A basis for the "New Berlin School" was the club scene in reunified Berlin, for example in the techno club " Berghain ".
Old pioneers of the first generation such as Klaus Schulze, Manuel Göttsching, Manfred Böcking or Torsten M. Abel continue the style to this day.
In contrast to Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream left this style in the early 1980s and devoted itself more to melodic electronic pop music and new age music. This development was supported by the high popularity of Tangerine Dream, which began in the mid-1970s. Converted into different formations, Tangerine Dream cited the Berlin School again from around 2016 in the three- person line -up Thorsten Quaeschning , Hoshiko Yamane , Ulrich Schnauss and thus returned to their roots.
Other successful international performers are Radio Massacre International from England, Free System Projekt , Dweller and René van der Wouden, Rene de Bakker, Gert Emmens , Ruud Heij and Bas Broekhuis from the Netherlands and The Nightcrawlers from the USA.
Younger representatives of the Berlin School are artists like, Johan Tronestam, Norbert Hensellek (Cosmic Project), Thomas Bock (Realtime), Fryderyk Jona, Moonbooter, Air Sculpture aka Johannes Cernota, Jörg Bialinska, Maciej Wierzchowski, Adelbert von Deyen , and groups like Sequentia legenda or cube cut.
License plate of the Berlin school
Style direction
The style is characterized by long pieces, repetitive but continuously modified structures (sequences), spherical surfaces, hypnotic rhythms and pronounced solos. The Berlin School style is also characterized by an enormous willingness to experiment during the game.
Sound generation
The main stylistic feature is the use of synthesizer sounds and mellotron sounds . A synthesizer is a musical instrument that electronically generates various tones using so-called sound synthesis. A general distinction is made between analog and digital synthesizers.
Programmed sequencer patterns are often used, over which solos and atmospheric sounds are improvised. The improvisations often last 20 minutes and longer, so that an LP often only had one piece per side. The music is characterized by a high degree of spontaneous experimentation while playing, as well as modulation of timbre, fundamental transpositions and the use of effects devices (mainly delays ) also in the metric off. Günter Schickert completely renounced the use of synthesizers and only manipulated or processed guitar sounds using effects ( Samtvogel , 1974). Tengri Lethos combined Arnold Schönberger's techniques (dodecaphony) with heptaphony and refined them with functions such as interval transformation and scalegliding. At the same time he used techniques such as Mozart's musical dice game to create new compositions.
The digital recording technology started around 1986. Electronic sounds that used to be generated in analogue can now be digitally generated, reproduced, stored, put together in a modular fashion, varied and looped. Today's cheap "means of production" enable it to spread to the art scene. This ushered in the current "decentralized era".
Festivals
- Ricochet Gathering Festival 2010, October 2010, Schöneberg Town Hall, Berlin
Music publishers
The Berlin label Manikin Records and the Eifel labels SynGate and MellowJet Records offer various artists who are still committed to the Berlin School today.
effect
Many of the ideas developed from the Berlin School were taken up in musical forms such as electronic dance music , ambient music , trance and Goa trance . The Berlin school also influenced the later Krautrock .
Examples
- Klaus Schulze: Moondawn (1976)
- Klaus Schulze: The Theme: The Rhodes Elegy (Contemporary Works II - No. 1) (2000)
- Klaus Schulze: Big in Japan (2010)
- Klaus Schulze: Live at KlangArt (2001)
- Klaus Schulze: USO Privée (Contemporary Works I - No. 4) (2000)
- Tangerine Dream: Phaedra (1973)
- Tangerine Dream: Rubycon (1975)
- Tangerine Dream: Stratosfear (1976)
- Tangerine Dream: Coldwater Canyon (1977)
- SYNCO (Lüthge & Klare): Evolution of Events
- Tengri Lethos: Surrealistic Pictures
- Tengri Lethos: River of Time
- Detlef Keller: Faces (2005)
- Detlef Keller: Faces (2005)
- Manfred Böcking and TMA aka Torsten M. Abel: Nerdlich Jam (Return of Two old Men) (2016)
- Radio Massacre International: Organ Harvest Pt. 1 (2016)
- Bernd Kistenmacher: Head-Visions (2015)
- Moonbooter: Both Sides of the Moon (2019)
Individual evidence
- ↑ HPDaniels: Hits from elementary school. Der Tagesspiegel, April 11, 2007, accessed on December 18, 2015 .