GUENTER SCHLIENZ “Mutterkuchen” C40 (Auasca)

 

You know something’s up with Stuttgart electronic composer Guenter Schlienz when he starts literally listening to his DNA. He says there are “sounds and styles … encoded” in it, and these “resonate heavily in [his] mind” and “rattl[e] his bones,” until they’re forced to emerge via the fingers touching synthesizers in certain predetermined patterns. These patterns are encoded within a computer program. They are organized and refined. They are offered up to the world.
 
Mutterkuchen finds Schlienz pondering these broadcasts from within his own body, wondering how they connect with the world and the wider universe, maybe offering a way that he, himself, find meaning out there. He’s certainly connected to the artists who have inspired him this time around: Bach on “Bach” (I think …), Tangerine Dream and Cluster on “Spoonful of Stars” and also, quite obviously, “Kosmische Music.” Basically he does what he does best, which is close his eyes and follow a muse out into outer space, like far out, and the sound of it reaches our ears at whatever point the soundwaves travel the interstellar distance back to our receivers. He’s a human broadcasting system, somehow surviving out there. Without a space suit.
 
But it’s really for him, and you can tell. The sound is within him, and he channels it in reverence for itself on its own terms. Doesn’t matter that there are antecedents and inspirations – they just help him translate it. And we are the lucky recipients who have it all translated for us. Bystanders, somehow in the path of excellence and delight.
 
Also, Mutterkuchen translates to “mother cake” – seems obvious, I think?
 
https://guenterschlienz.bandcamp.com/
 
https://auasca.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan