MUSIC 4 BUILDINGS

M4B Vol.06 Białystok Waterworks / concert at old powerstation.

 

Architecture is frozen music.*

After idea of Otwinowski and Peter Conradin Zumthor, Karbido become to explore connections between architecture and sound in 2009.
They called it MUSIC 4 BUILDINGS, and since that till now (2017) the project had 13 editions, 3 publications, podcasts, collection of field recordings, virtual instruments based on discovered samples and so on. Each place is different, thats why range of possibilities is wide open: audio installations, performance, concert in situ, removements, transsmisions and small presentations.

*J.W.Goethe


M4B Vol. 01
Guido Coal Mine / Schomberg Powerstation
Zabrze-Bytom (PL) / 2009

OKLAD01
Peter Conradin Zumthor – idea, drums
Marek Otwinowski – idea, bg, collage production
Tomasz Sikora – field recording, keyboards, mix, mastering
Igor Gawlikowski – field recording, g

Listen album on Bandcamp

Double-positioned double process: Coal mine and huge Powerstation as a sources of sounds and composition themes. Editing collages, created just by cut/paste/volume tools, were reinterpretatated by the band in studio, on drums, guitars and keyboards – with focus to get music as much as its possibly close to collages.

Field recording session was supported by silesian journalist Łukasz Folda.

Album produced and published in Hermetyczny Garaż.

KARBIDO KNOCK OUT WITH EXPRESSIVENESS AND VARIETY OF THEIR PROJECTS
Last year they released a sound poem “Cinnamon/India” recorded in cooperation with Ukrainian poet Yuri Andrukhowych, a masterpiece. Any day a performance called “The table”, known to the audience of theatre festivals all over the world, will be released on DVD. Now “Music4Buildings” has started, a series under the patronage of Goethe, who called architecture “frozen music”. Karbido defrost sounds of Schomberg power station (Szombierki) and “Guido” coal mine.
Each of the objects lived to see two pieces of music. Karbido first create a montage of sounds from the field, then improvise on the sounds. Collage compositions, dark ambient “Schomberg”  and brilliantly bruitistic “Guido” go into the making of esoteric but intriguing sound portrait  of industrial Silesia. Improvisations splendidly complete the curricular climate; from crawling, background bass to predatory, motoric noise, there appears a huge palette of colours, and the sound invention is supported by a trance nerve.

Rafał Księżyk, Machina

DEFROSTING ARCHITECTURE
(…)They collected industrial noise, cut it up and arranged into fascinating machine collages, then commented on them using more standard instruments.

Jedrzej Słodkowski, Gazeta Wyborcza


M4 B Vol. 02
Great Synagogue Drokhobych (UA) / 2010

M4B_02

Peter Conradin Zumthor – drums
Marek Otwinowski – bg, laptop
Tomasz Sikora – spider system, as, mix, mastering
Igor Gawlikowski – g

Listen album on Bandcamp

Concert in situ – improvisation with active frequencies of building. Biggest synagogue in Eastern Europe, destroyed and ruined has interesting reverberations and own sound. Concert realised during Bruno Schulz Festival 2010. First time of use Spider System – audio construction/installaction connected recording with -same-time emition, thru multichannel network, constructed by Tomasz Sikora.

„I CALL ARCHITECTURE FROZEN MUSIC” – J.W.Goethe
Their second album was an accurate recording of the concert Karbido performed in Great Synagogue in Drokchobych. However, it does not resemble a regular concert, concerning the range of sounds they created. Where do all the waves of drones, unexpected resonances, enigmatic karakan murmurs come from? Every now and again I cast a glance in disbelieve at the list of instruments, but there are constantly five elements on it. For the heart of the enterprise is using the authorial system of recording and processing of architecture sounds. It allows you to locate many microphones in places hard to reach in the building, also to record sounds transmitted on the surfaces, and – at the same time –

to emit sounds and process them. You can simultaneously “record” the building and “play” it. The effects are delightful. Listening to albums from the “Music4Buildings” series makes sense only when you devote yourself to them totally.
You need to turn up the volume, use headphones or a good stereo. Best in solitude.
Jedrzej Słodkowski, Gazeta Wyborcza


M4 B Vol. 03
Orkney Islands Neolithic Tombs Complex (UK) / 2010

OKLAD03
Igor Gawlikowski – field recording
Marek Otwinowski – editing, mix
Tomasz Sikora – field recording, mix, mastering

Simply work based on Karbido research and records in claustrophobic stone tombs, build 2000 b c.; no reverb, no echoes, no life…

Polirythmic structures and collages were postproduced in Warszawa, Manufaktura Dźwięku and K_Stacja Studio, Wrocław. Finally, three pairs of compositions (field recording edit vs programming adaptation) and a collection of samples (CC) were realized in December 2010.


M4B Vol. 04 – Centennial Hall, Wrocław, collection of samples / 2010 – 2011

During big reconstruction of this architecture treasure, musicians were recorded (plenty of sessions) different sounds in -and around the structures of Hall. Some of these files were used as part of music in later works.


M4B Vol. 05
Grohmann’s Villa Book Art  Museum
Łódź (PL) / 2010

M4B-5

Jakub Kwaśniewski – dr, loops
Igor Gawlikowski – g
Marek Otwinowski – bg
Tomasz Sikora – kb, mix, mastering
with guest: Dariusz Adriańczyk – g

Watch real video (docu) on YT

The concert with sounds of old typographic machines, collected in Łódź, in Janusz Tryzno’s Book Art Museum.  Sounds were transmitted upstairs, looped and builded into rythm structures – industrial background for groovy improvisations. After that, mixed effect was send to speakers outside the villa. Concert was a part of Open Exhibition Festival.


M4 B Vol. 06
Białystok Waterworks (PL) / 2010

M4B_Bialystok_600pix

Igor Gawlikowski – g, field recording
Peter Conradin Zumthor – dr
Marek Otwinowski – bg, editing, mix
Tomasz Sikora – as, electronica, field recording, mix, mastering

Listen album on Bandcamp

The artistic (music) reconstruction of the way that the water travels – from picking from the river, through filters, conditioning to distribution… The project included field recordings in the Waterworks Complex, editing, composition and finally the transfer to the public concert in old power station building (BWA Arsenał, Białystok).
Read more (PL)…


M4 B Vol. 07
Underground City, Rzeszów (PL) / 2011

M4B_7
Peter Conradin Zumthor – dr
Marek Otwinowski – bg
Tomasz Sikora – as, electronica, mix
Igor Gawlikowski – g, field recording

with guests:
Daha Braha (UA) – voices, accordion, drum
Zavoloka (UA) – electronics
Yuri Andrukhovych – voice

In medieval corridors, with no visual contact between (just with headphones), gathered musicians played a 40-minute improvisation, transmitted thru 5 km of wires onto the stage, where music was mixed live by T. Sikora. Final mix, with a company of synchronous, giant visuals (VJ Group Cube), was played for audience gathered on the market.

The concert ended at midnight with the spoken word of Yuri Andrukhovych. Work was prepared for ART.BOX UA/PL festival, a part of European Stadium of Culture 2011. Produced by Hermetyczny Garaż.


M4 B Vol. 08
Golden Gate, Kiev (UA) / 2012

ZLOTE-WROTA

Igor Gawlikowski – g
Marcin Witkowski – dr
Marek Otwinowski – bg
Tomasz Sikora – as, electronica, spider system

with guests:
Yuri Andrukhovych (UA) – voice
VJ Group Cube (UA) – video and e-clock

Golden Gate was the main gate in the 11th century fortifications of Kiev, completely rebuilt by the Soviet authorities in 1982, though no images of the original gates have survived. Inside this imitation of a historical monument, Karbido performed „imitation of the concert”: fifteen extremely different music tracks, 2 min 15 seconds each, divided into 3 45-seconds long parts, composed in random order. Each piece was preceded by a 15 seconds of silence (the team was led by a specially built clock, measuring 60 seconds).

The audience was on the streets around the building, where the sound system was set up. Also Karbido, placed in the middle of the Golden Gate was separated from the public by a giant iron grating, and the screen on which was the projection – the video transmission from the „stage”. An interesting fact is that one of the guests of this „anti-concert” was Petro Poroshenko.


M4 B Vol. 09
XXXXXXXXXXX
2012

Project was deleted from archive as unprepared fiasco.


M4B Vol.10
The Capitol Yard, Wrocław (PL) / 2013

m4b_10

Marek Otwinowski
Michał Litwiniec
Tomasz Sikora
Jacek Fedorowicz
Paweł Czepułkowski

According to experiences with John Cage methods of composition (and building the sound structures), Karbido played with huge hall of Capitol Musical Theater in Wrocław, adapting space, enhancing the sound of the floor and walls, mounting giant strings, musicians transformed this place into a multi-instrument, and gave the ephemeral unique concert / performance. Whole operation was recorded by a local a-v monitoring system.

 

M4B Vol.10 The Capitol Yard. Photo: Miłosz Poloch/TM Capitol


M4B Vol.10 The Capitol Yard. Photo: Szymon Szcześniak


M4B Vol.11
Silesia Ex Machina, Museum of Silesia
Katowice (PL) 
/ 2017 

SILESIA_EX_MACHINA

Artur Dominik – dr, prepared percussion
Tomasz Sikora – field recording, mix, electronics, as
Marek Otwinowski – mix, electronics, bg

First time in M4B history, by expanding their experience, musicians started looking for the architecture of language, and they took up the local dialect of Silesia as additional material for composing. In cooperation with the linguist, prof. Zbigniew Kadłubek and the actors of Silesian Theater, the authors recorded special characteristic phonemes and sounds of speech, from which  they then built musical structures. Backgrounds were enriched by remixed tones of post-industrial architecture of Silesia with collected sounds of unused old mine machinarium, and, at last, by live improvising trio: dr/bg/as.

The whole work was presented as an open-air concert in the former Katowice mine, at night, accompanied by large-scale video-mapping (VJ Group Cube), displayed on the buildings of the former company. The concert was a spectacular event of the Industriada 2017 Festival in Museum of Silesia.


M4B Vol. 12
Shanghai Underground Noise (CRP) / 
2017

m4b12

Tomasz Sikora – field recording, mix
Marek Otwinowski – field recording, mix

Field recording files, made in May 2017 during Karbido Tour in China, are a part of wider project, which include recordings from London Underground, Kiev Metro, NYC Metropolitan… The concept runs about the intensity of the sound in extreme social architecture, by using these sounds as inspiration for music collages.
Project under construction.


M4B Vol.13
Audio-photography
F.O.D. Bydgoszcz (PL) / 2017

Jakub Kwaśniewski – dr, tank drum
Tomasz Sikora – electronics, as, g, theremin, samples
Marek Otwinowski – bg, laptop, samples

Field recording – composing – removing sounds. Within 7 days, musicians recorded several locations on the TEH2O (Water, Industry and Craft Trail) in Bydgoszcz – among others: Exploseum, Museum of soap, Museum of Photography, F.O.D. (Wood Processing Machinery Plant). These recordings were a substructure for the musical compositions, that afterwards were performed in concert at the huge factory hall of F.O.D. During the event, production at the factory was stopped.

The concert was accompanied by a video-mapping (VJ Group Cube), animated on the walls of the production hall.

Produced by Hermetyczny Garaż, with kindly support of MCK Bydgoszcz.

 

darek gackowski_m4b13M4B Vol.13 F.O.D. Bydgoszcz, photo: Dariusz Gackowski


darek gackowski_m4b13_2

M4B Vol.13 F.O.D. Bydgoszcz, photo: Dariusz Gackowski


darek gackowski_m4b13_3

M4B Vol.13 F.O.D. Bydgoszcz, photo: Dariusz Gackowski