Boris Baltschun | JI organ, sines
Koen Nutters | upright bass
Morten Joh | JI electric vibes, cassette tape delay
Michael Thieke | clarinet
1. Vibraphone & Sines 05:15
2. Frozen Just 21:29
3. Bass, Sines, & Cassette Tape Delay 05:49
4. Clarinet & Vibraphone 06:23
5. Just Pillars (String Quartet Redux) 12:34
6. Sines & Cassette Tape Delay 04:58
Stereo recording made by David Walker
at Karl-Marx-Straße 28 on October 2nd, 2020
Mastered by Taku Unami
Cover photography by Udo Siegfriedt
Graffiti by bOb
All pieces composed, played, and extended upon by The Pitch.
about:
KM28 is a registration of a Pitch concert in their hometown Berlin, in their favorite borough: Neukoelln, and their favorite venue: KM28. After having played in Poland the night before they’re warmed up, slightly hung over, and very ready to play this new repertoire to a, Covid-restricted, sold-out house.
The musical material delves deeper into Just Intonation and, for the first time, uses subgroups (solos, duos, trios) in a substantial way, to create a richer palette for the whole performance. In parts eschewing the otherwise quite dominant Harmona organ for an in depth listen to the timbres of scordatura tuned, plucked, bass harmonics, clarinet multiphonics blended with Just Intonation vibraphone, home-made, manipulated tape echo and a variety of computer-generated sine tone textures.
Included in this set, played as one long hypnotizing suite, are a new JI version of the classic ‘Frozen Surface’ piece and a reworking of a recent Pitch and String Quartet ‘Pillars’ piece.
This is truly a comprehensive aural picture of The Pitch in late 2020.
The Pitch is a Berlin-based ensemble founded in 2009.
With acoustic instruments and minimal live-electronics they collectively compose structures which generate hypnotic melodic movement and deep acoustic textures. Bowed and struck vibraphone tones resonate with bowed bass harmonics, doubled by clarinet and reinforced by organ and sine tones. An intensely focused performance creates an atmosphere where the listener’s perception is slowed down to make the smallest sonic details move from background to foreground. The group continually expands into new terrain of musical material and playing styles inspired by fundamental states of matter (and variations thereof) – frozen surfaces, gaseous states, plasmatic fibrils, liquid patterns and molecular motion.
Intensely colourful, shifting densities, concentrated, slowly-shifting patterns and fluctuations.
links:
Listen on Bandcamp: km28
Label: Tripticks Tapes
reviews:
Noise Not Music
I first encountered Berlin ensemble The Pitch via their 2015 live album Frozen Orchestra (Amsterdam), released just a month after their studio debut, and which features an impressive guest roster of Lucio Capece, Valerio Tricoli, Okkyung Lee, and others in addition to the core lineup of Baltschun, Nutters, Olsen, and Thieke. The sublime Sofa release, which remains a staple on my always rotating set of reliably somniferous records, demonstrates the group’s ability to conjure arresting drone meditations that sounds massive and frail at the same time, gathering both density and diaphony from their subdued string-based approach. KM28, a new cassette from formidable new improvised music imprint Tripticks Tapes, documents a live performance from October of last year that presents a few apparently novel directions for the musicians, namely forays into just intonation tuning and duo/trio subsets. Besides “Frozen Just,” a reimagining of a 2018 piece originally recorded with the prodigious Splitter Orchestra, and “Just Pillars (String Redux),” each of the sections of KM28 is titled for the materials used to create it, i.e. various combinations of vibraphone, clarinet, bass, sine wave generator, and custom magnetic tape delay systems. Though the former two tracks will feel the most familiar to existing fans—and the sustained, crystalline trance of “Frozen Just” especially is an otherworldly high point of the whole tape—the more adventurous excursions introduce welcome diversity to this often deliberately glacial music. The pair of cassette delay experiments are particularly strong; despite making use of effervescent electronic textures atypical for The Pitch, they ultimately feel just as relaxed, contained, and purposeful as the rest. What a lovely evening this must have been for those lucky enough to witness it
Jack Davidson
Salt Peanuts
The Pitch is a Berlin-based experimental quartet founded in 2009 and featuring organist and sine-waves player Boris Baltschun (of Splitter Orchestra), double bass player Koen Nutters; electric vibes player Morten Joh (of Naaljos Ljom, MoHa! and Ultralyd) and clarinetist Michael Thieke (of The International Nothing, Magda Mayas’ Filamental and the Blurred Music duo with violinist Biliana Voutchkova). The Pitch employs minimal live electronics and collectively composes structures that generate hypnotic melodic movement and deep acoustic textures, inspired by fundamental states of matter – frozen surfaces, gaseous states, plasmatic fibrils, liquid patterns and molecular motion.
«KM28» was recorded at the live music venue by the same name (registered in Karl-Marx-Straße 28) in Berlin in October 2020. The venue is considered by the ensemble as their favorite, located in their favorite borough: Neukoelln. The album was recorded a day after The Pitch played in Poland and the ensemble was slightly hungover but ready to play new repertoire to Covid-19 restricted, sold-out house. «KM28» is released as a limited edition of 75 cassettes plus a download option.
The Pitch’s sonic vision is realized by slowly shifting patterns and fluctuations created by the bowed and struck acoustic instruments. This almost static sonic aesthetics suggests an elusive atmosphere where the listener’s perception is slowed down, and the smallest sonic details constantly float from the background to the foreground, and vice versa. The Pitch delves deeper into just intonation and, for the first time, uses subgroups (solos, duos, trios) to create a richer sonic palette for the whole performance, augmented by homemade, manipulated tape echo and a variety of computer-generated sine tone textures.
The six pieces are performed as one long hypnotizing suite, but each one offers a distinct variation on The Pitch’s disciplined, carefully layered acoustic drones with subtle electronics. The 21-minute, resonant vibrations and overtones of «Frozen Just», a just intonation version of the ensemble piece «Frozen Surface» (from «Transposition Zero», Gaffer, 2010), demonstrates best The Pitch’s refined and detailed approach that seeks a purifying and sublime statis, where the meditative, sustained tones and overtones accumulate into a vivid and tangible aural presence. «Just Pillars», a reimagining of «Pillars» (from «s/t [κασέτα» Granny, 2018), adds a ritualist undercurrent and a powerful sonic presence to the minimalist, hypnotic strategy. This compositional strategy is distilled into the last piece where only the only sounds of sine waves and cassette delay tape paint an alien, transparent aural presence.
Eyal Hareuveni
