Band - ULRIKE BRAND

The specific consonance of cello and electric guitar creates the unique poetics of this duo. Despite of belonging to very different semantic fields —cello the instrument associated with the romantic sound ideal and electric guitar as a synonym for rock music — they reveal confusingly similar timbres and playing techniques. Arco and pizzicato are just as exchangeable as are overtone sounds, arpeggios, clusters, noise and other extended techniques. This is only possible because of an elaborate setup of loudness-modulation on the electric guitar. The result is a stylistic freedom in an associative "play" with similarity and role exchange, reprise and anticipation. The duo-constellation is potentiating these effects when the continuing input of sounds from one player becomes part of the overall sound and at the same time acts upon the other player creating a reciprocal flow of communication. Because of her experience in performing contemporary classical compositions in the past decades, cello player Ulrike Brand can draw upon all the varieties of different extended playing techniques that are used there. She uses sounds and noises as equivalent material, pitch is treated as a continuum and the whole body of the instrument can create sounds. This is also accentuating the gestural element of the performance. Guitar player Olaf Rupp explores on his instrument in uncompromising radicallity the field of free improvisation. The extreme virtuosic playing techniques which he has developed by himself are the result of a unique artistic discipline far away from the usual standards and conventions. He is always expanding the sonic range of his instrument evermore. In his subtle, pointillistic soundworld every single note appears as a colour-dot inside of a larger matrix.