“Urban String”, an experimental series in chamber music that was created by Hamburg-based Ensemble Resonanz in 2011, features a DJ every time: These are not service DJs for lounge music or drunken work parties, but music archaeologists who interpret the ensemble’s program based on their own musical background – and give them a framework.
Changing DJs create seemingly endless chains of association – the scene in Hamburg offers fertile ground in this regard. In almost every bar in St. Pauli, one can find two turntables and a mixer. It is here where the later club DJs grow up and openly experiment until dawn – every night, and in direct communication with their audience. Those qualities especially emerge during the Urban String evenings, because the DJs do not play their “club sets” as they don’t have to animate anyone to dance, except for the synapses of their listeners.
In Hamburg, they mostly come from the surroundings of the Golden Pudel Club: sound poet Nikae, house music “thinking differently” RVDS and the internationally sought after dance expert Phuong Dan are regular guests. Veteran bass explorer Marcus Maack – aka the Vinylizer – and Swing DJ Swingin’ Swanee also add to the evenings’ hybrid range. Another who has often participated is Sebastian Reier alias Booty Carrell. He is the vanguard of the ensemble during their tour in Southeast Asia, immerses himself in the music scene and history of different cultures and tells us here about his new acquaintances:
The Goethe-Institut sends “Urban String” on tour in Southeast Asia, to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, Hanoi and Singapore – with an extensive program: an elegiac strings symphony by Felix Mendelssohn meets the distorted cello solo Industry by Bang-On-A-Can co-founder Michael Gordon. The proto-experimental early Baroque of Heinrich Ignaz Franziskus Biber encounters physical borderline experience in the rarely performed piece Scanner by Alexander Schubert.
Everywhere, the ensemble will face a local DJ, a personality of the local scene. I had the opportunity to meet all the DJs during the Urban String Southeast Asian DJ Conference in Studio Lam Bangkok, organized by the Goethe-Institut Bangkok. For two days, we spoke intensively about the concept of Urban String, exchanged knowledge, developed ideas and showed each other our working methods. Allow me to introduce to you…