WIENER ART ORCHESTER – Tango From Obango (Art Rec. – 1002 / LP-1980)

Label: Art Records – 1002

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Austria / Released: 1980

Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation, Free Jazz

Recorded on the 22/23 Nov. 1979 at the Schmettersound Studio Bisamberg/Vienna.

Design [Cover] – Herbert Pirchner, Roland Wernbacher

Photography By – Elisabeth Fleischmann, Herbert Pirchner

Recorded By – Herbert Kopecky

Mixed By – Josef Braitenthaller

Producer – Hans Heinrich C. Stoller, Mathias Rüegg

Distributed By – Extraplatte

Printed By – HofmannDruck

Matrix / Runout (Side A): X 273 - AR 1002-A

Matrix / Runout (Side B): X 274 - AR 1002-B

Rights Society: Austro Mechana

side 1:

A1 - Tango From Obango ........................................................................................ 13:27

A2 - Polish Contrasts ................................................................................................. 9:31

A3 - Voila Di Here ...................................................................................................... 1:25

side 2:

B1 - The World Of BeBand & BigBop ...................................................................... 12:40

B2 - Panta Rhei ......................................................................................................... 5:55

B3 - Charly's Trauma ................................................................................................. 0:37

Personnel:

Mathias Rüegg - arranger, conductor

Lauren Newton - voice

Karl Fian - trumpet

Herbert Joos − flugelhorn, baritone horn

Christian Radovan − trombone

Wolfgang Puschnig − alto saxophone, flute

Harry Sokal - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute

Roman Schwaller − tenor saxophone

Uli Scherer − piano

Harry Pepl – guitar

Werner Pirchner − marimba, vibraphone

Jürgen Wuchner − bass

Fritz Ozmec − drums

Wolfgang Reisinger – percussion

The Vienna Art Orchestra is a 14-member jazz orchestra that features the avant-garde arrangements and compositions of its leader, pianist Mathias Rüegg. This LP is a 1980 debut, an important document in the post-modern jazz movement...

The opening, title track is a joyous, folkish tango that's been cartoonishly toyed with, featuring three solo sections. The marimba section is also ornamented with vocalese from Lauren Newton, followed by an extremely playful horn lead that sounds like a toy instrument. The solo offering from violinist Rudi Berger has an electronically effected fusion sound. A tight, alto sax solo by Wolfgang Puschnig ties everything together neatly with a lengthy, unaccompanied performance. This leads right into a mellow, tenor sax and marimba introduction to "Polish Contrasts." The lead here is eventually taken by a bright, cosmic soprano sax (Harry Solkal)... For a short piano piece, background singing and clapping recorded on the tour bus serve as a backdrop. Newton brings back her playful scatting, in clear imitation of a squawking free-jazz sax solo for an a cappella intro to "The World of Be-Band & Big Bop." After about three minutes, the instrumentalists slowly materialize behind her until the mad marimba possesses her. After a full six minutes of amazing scatting, the song itself is introduced and six more minutes of cross-genre pollination follow.

... Musical puns and variations on serious themes abound from the orchestra pit, but unlike Rüegg's Euro counterparts like Franz Koglmann and Stan Tracey, this man has a sense of where colorization and parody end and a new musical language is created. In this sense he resembles both Frank Zappa and Willem Breuker, but uses tradition differently -- not as a guidepost but as a landmark on the way to someplace else (and Rüegg knows exactly where he's going, judging by his charts). The man's imagination is the limit because his band can do virtually anything he dares to dream up...

Truly, Tango From Obango is an amazing debut from a band that offers more than it could possibly receive.

(Reviews by Tom Schulte and Thom Jurek)

If you find it, buy this album!

WERNER PIRCHNER – Ein Halbes Doppelalbum (wp numero eins / LP-1973)

Label: Werner Pirchner ‎– wp numero eins

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Austria / Released: 1973

Style: Avantgarde, Parody, Contemporary, Psychedelic, Experimental, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Tonstudio Hanno Ströher, Innsbruck bei Rum, Tirol, Austria, 1973.

Artwork [Repros] – Sir Heinz Grosskopf

Artwork [Silkscreening] – Michael Berger

Recorded By – Hanno Ströher

Photography By [Vorderfoto] – Bert Breit

Photography By, Graphics [Fotografik] – Gert Chesi

Lyrics By, Music By, Producer – Werner Pirchner

Orchestra – Mitglieder Des Kammerorchesters "Lokomotive Rum"

Pressed By – Taunus Ton Technik

Matrix / Runout (Runout A, stamped): WP-1-A-2 TTT

Matrix / Runout (Runout B, stamped): WP-1-B-2 TTT

Comes with silkscreen printed fold out cover in 3 parts. Gold letters printed on inside and on transparent booklet.

Orange labels, also exists as german reissue with red labels.

side 1:

EIN HALBES DOPPELALBUM .................................................................................... 23:19

A1  -  Prolog

A2  -  Das Land Der 1000 Träume   

A3  -  In Dem Bestreben, Edlere Werte Als Heimat, Scholle Und Vaterland Zu Besingen

A4  -  Mein Gewissen Erlaubt Mir Nicht     

A5  -  Lasset Uns Singen

A6  -  Lied Über Nicht Gesellschaftsfähige Tätigkeiten , Die Jedoch In Trautem Kreise Einen

          Großen Teil Der Bevölkerung Immer Erleichterung, Oft Entlastung, Manchmal

          Zerstreuung   Und Nicht Selten Vergnügen Spenden

A7  -  Manchem Lehrer Hinters Ohr Zu Schreiben

A8  -  Ein Halbes Kilogramm Brot

A9  -  Das Steinerne Gesicht

A10 - An Die Ungestümen Weltverbesserer

A11 - Wir Haben Ja Unsere Zwei Akkorde

A12 - Ende Der Ersten Seite

A13 - Bitte Wenden

A14 - Ein Merkwürdiger Trialog

side 2:

EIN HALBES DOPPELALBUM .................................................................................... 23:06

B1  -  Lob      

B2  -  Fürchtet Euch Nicht   

B3  -  Das Lied Vom Guten Ausländischen Kameraden

B4  -  Bundeslied Der Traditionsverbände Aller Länder

B5  -  Wo Das Büchserl Knallt

B6  -  Das Mühlenrad, Welches Durch Sein Verhalten Seinen Klassengenossen Die Augen

          Öffnete Und Einen Neuen, Revolutionären Weg Wies

B7  -  Bescheidene, In Mittelkärntner Mundart Abgegebene Erklärung Arbeitstechnischer

          Vorgänge Aus Dem Fachbereich Tonschnitt In Beantwortung Eines, Offenbar Durch

          Einen Laien Getätigten, Bewunderden Ausrufes

B8  -  Ein Ungewöhnlicher Bluestext Oder Das Zusammentreffen Zweier Nicht Vereinbarer

          Welten

B9  -  Gschamsta Diena, Herr Zensor

B10 - Über Verschiedene Institutionen

B11 - Ein Vorschlag Zur Unblutigen Und Dauernden Lösung Eines Problems, Das Einen

          Alpenländischen Volkskörper Dritheilt Und Solcherart Demütigt Und Quält, Daß Er,

          Obwohl Von Natur Aufrechten Und Geraden Wesens, Sich Schmerzerfüllt Im Grame

          Beugt

B12 - Eisenkäppchen

B13 - Was Wir Über Das Leben Nach Dem Tode Wissen  

B14 - Epilog  

B15 - Coda

B16 - Ein Hinterfotziger Streich Des Tonknechts

Werner Pirchner (born February 13, 1940 in Hall in Tyrol, † August 10, 2001 in Innsbruck) was an Austrian composer, poet and draftsman.

Personnel:

Werner Pirchner – vocals [alle playbacks], voice [sprache], harpsichord, piano,

                              vibraphone, clavinet [clavichord], tuba [ultraschalltuba], glockenspiel,

                              guitar [hackgitarre], flute [zehenflöte], sitar [tastensitar], tape

                              [tonbandmontagen], typography, layout, painting, other [hölzernes

                              glachta, schwarzbrot, speiben, schmatzen, räuspern, einzählen,

                              zusammenpacken, kohlen holen]

Franz Renwart – flute [tse-flöte], voice [jammern]

Josef Binder – trumpet

Florian Pedarnig – flugelhorn, bass

Vladimir Navratil – oboe [oboje]

Hanno Ströher – harp [tastenharfe]

Dieter Merth – bassoon [fagott]

Christine Pedarnig – vocals [z'öschtezu]

Bert Breit – voice

Heinz Cabas – guitar, electric bass

Günther Pollack – bass

Peter Mayrhofer – percussion [schlafzeug], other [mühlenrad]

Hansjörg Maringer – percussion [schlachtwerk]

Pirchner began his musical career in jazz, but dealt with early on the contemporary music and its theorists (Theodor W. Adorno, Arnold Schoenberg, Olivier Messiaen, etc.). From 1963 he was a vibraphonist of the Oscar Klein Quartet; He plays marimba on the first record of the Vienna Art Orchestra. In the last 15 years of his life he worked mostly as a composer. In 1973, he released his first LP with a self-drawn cover, "half a double album", which triggered a positive to enthusiastic media response in the German-speaking world. He then plays a large number of different instruments in the playback, sings self-texted songs, alienates familiar templates and mixes, almost always provocative, styles and sounds. This has earned him his reputation as a representative of the new folk music and as the author of "critical Heimatmusik".

He later used some of the songs of the "half double album" in a film that he produced together with Christian Berger in 1974: "The Fall of the Alpine Country". He not only wrote the music, but also the lyrics and appeared in the film as a singer and actor. He ironically uses Tyrolean folklore stereotypes, which earned him fierce criticism from conservative circles. In 1975, Bert Breit invited him to compose music for a film about Tyrol, which Breit planned with Otto Grünmandl. The result was the "String Quartet for wind quintet", PWV 15.

Werner Pirchner became known throughout Austria for his sound design for the ORF cultural channel Ö1 in 1994. In 1995 he composed the incidental music for Hofmannsthal's Jedermann at the Salzburg Festival. Another commissioned by a large public was the music for the television break film of the New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic on January 1, 2000.

Werner Pirchner's multi-layered music uniquely combines elements of jazz, entertainment and so-called serious music. From the electronically processed Yodler to the obliquely harmonized Schubert, from a tribute to John Cage to the persiflage of the adolescent Indian pilgrims and drug users, from the parodied language of advertising to today still valid sociocritical texts spans a wide arc. His works often alternate between direct vitality and a kind of meta-music, which deals analytically with many-used music models. As a self-taught Werner Pirchner had begun to classify idiosyncratic and in no style stereotype until his death.

Anyone who deals with Austrian artists (of whatever genre) will find again and again that this is a particularly oblique genre. As authors, I come to mind for example Thomas Bernhard.

Werner Pirchner is the musical counterpart. So, watch out: Here is strong Tobak offered, only something for die-hard!

.... "Weird, weird, the weirdest" ... Werner Pirchner!

(Original text is in German and borrowed from sammelsuriumblog.wordpress.com)


Note:
For the sake of protecting my photographs, I deliberately in Artwork made the reverse in a couple montages, which of course does not affect the quality of the original design.

If you find it, buy this album!