TTW#117 – Swantje Lichtenstein & Jono Podmore – Hallraum
Cassette only – limited edition of 100 copies
SOLD OUT AT SOURCE
Improvised site-specific performance accompanying and responding to the sights and sounds of Worringerplatz, Düsseldorf, Germany, 10 August 2018. Swantje Lichtenstein: voice, electronics. Jono Podmore: electronics. Additional recording: Kai Winter. Mixed by Jono Podmore. Artwork: Sayako Sugawara.
A: Part 1
B: Part Two
Jono Podmore writes… “After the release of our 7" single ‘Miss Slipper’ / ‘Lewes’ on Psychomat Records in 2017 it was time for another release in keeping with our spirit of adventure and interrogation of established forms. We'd played a few improvised shows which lead us to think of combining the anvil of the audience with the hammer of recording. A plan was hatched to create an event that would lead to an artefact – both an open recording session and a recorded event: a site-specific incident and a time-specific document. A number of venues between our homes and workplaces in London, Köln and Düsseldorf were mooted. Suddenly Swantje found herself in possession of the keys to the Hallraum...
10th August 2018 was a balmy night on Worringerplatz. The good, bad and the ugly of Düsseldorf were out in force; promenading their profusion of languages, habits, needs and grudges. The architect of the platz built benches (Bänke in German) into the design, so the homeless that gather on the Bänke to put their tired feet up and have a drink, have become known as the “Bankers”. Nestling under the trees on the northern corner of the platz is the Hallraum: a wee glasshouse that functions as a gallery, a venue and as a piece of public sculpture in its own right.
We set up our gear, a PA system and an array of microphones amidst an installation in the Hallraum, opened up the doors and windows, then played for the peoples of Worringerplatz, gathering an audience as we went along. Setting the panes of glass rattling, accompanying the trams, serenading the bankers and those hungry for Pizza und Kultur, we played karaoke to the sounds of the platz. As we busied ourselves in the Hallraum, fellow traveller Kai Winter, armed with a digital recorder and synchronized to the master clock, prowled Worringerplatz and beyond to capture the environment mingling with our sound writing and wave shaping. Later, all the sources were brought together and mixed exactly as they happened in time and place to produce these pieces.
The artwork takes a similar trajectory: photos from the event are mixed, printed, collaged, balanced, re-processed, enhanced and degraded to produce a unique and enigmatic image.” – Jono Podmore, London, 16 August 2019.
Reviews
Bleep (UK):
The Tapeworm expand their decade-strong legacy with a series of (strikingly designed) releases from modern avant garde’s fringes. Swantje Lichtenstein and Jono Podmore first came together in 2017 with their Miss Slipper/Lewes 7”, and Hallraum sends the duo in search of further adventures in unsettling directions. Consisting of field recordings taken from the public spaces of Worringerplatz, Düsseldorf, Hallraum turns a boozy night on the town into manic, Nurse With Wound-like hellspaces.
Electronic Sound (UK):
“Hallraum” is a live, improvised response to the environs of Düsseldorf’s Worringer Platz. Recorded in August 2018, it finds multi-media artist Swantje Lichtenstein on a sonic adventure with Metamono’s Jono Podmore. Lichtenstein’s observational spoken-word lamentations are processed into demonic utterances, while the pair’s electronics develop from innocuous sounds into harrowing beds of beautifully inescapable noise. Street sounds punctuate the recording, interjecting a normality into the otherworldliness.
The Wire (UK):
Cool, site specific performance/recording by this interesting duo. Lichtenstein is a German multi-disciplinary artist who does some sound stuff. Podmore is a UK musician/studio guy who works in a wide variety of musics. For this collaboration (their second), they tapped a busy public space in Düsseldorf where their sonic inventions (for voice and electronics) worked together with the collected/ collective sounds of the space itself and its inhabitants. The results (although spontaneous) have a weirdly composed feel and brim with events both dreamy and unexpected. The way the vocals merge with spaced electronics in spots, makes me think of a very stripped down version of Flying Teapot-era Gong. Which is probably about as far from what this duo was imagining as possible, but I can only call ’em like I hear ’em.
