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As I mentioned in my preview for Saturday’s Lampo show by saxophonist Ulrich Krieger, he’s a regular collaborator with Berlin new-music ensemble Zeitkratzer, for which he adapted Lou Reed’s feedback masterpiece Metal Machine Music for mostly acoustic instruments. He’s one of several guests who frequently augment the ten core members of the group–others include trumpeter Franz Hautzinger, reedist Frank Gratkowski, tubaist Melvyn Poore, and cellist Anton Schlothauer. Formed in 1999 by pianist Reinhold Friedl, Zeitkratzer has earned its reputation by focusing on canonical 20th-century composers with whom few chamber ensembles dare tangle, including Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis, James Tenney, and Luigi Nono, but the group also deals with material by living musicians from outside the academic milieu.
The Thaemlitz disc is the least successful of the three. On the opening piece Zeitkratzer sounds almost like the as Kronos Quartet in high kitsch mode, with Thaemlitz adding vocals that do piss-poor job at channeling the spirit of a Southern Baptist preacher. On most of the other pieces the group never seems to take flight, as the more conventional tendencies of the pieces aren’t well-suited to Zeitkratzer.
