Äusserst hörenswert.” Monster and Critics Review
“wunderbare Platte die ausserhalb der Zeitachse zu stehen scheint.” Titel Review
“Öffnet eine neue Welt.” Irie Ites
“Höchst interessante Platte die rhythmische Musik neu erden will.” News.CH
Review at Milkfactory
“Highly original piece of work.”(DMC)
“Charakterfest, anti-opportun und unaufgeregt zeitlos.”(Paco42)
“Employing a range of unconventional instruments.”(Resident Advisor)
Japanese Info at Kanshin
Deutsches Presse Info zu Bokoboko

“Bokoboko is determinedly irregular, singular as snow flakes, and so departed from its sources, so thoroughly developed and intertwined, it can rightfully claim to have evolved into some new state of originality and authenticity.” (Uncut)

“Bokoboko” comes from the Japanese, like the other track titles, and means “uneven”, “hollow-sounding” – adjectives aptly describing the album’s crooked, dynamic grooves as well as the many percussively resounding instruments. Friedman, recognizable more or less by the sound of the ten instrumental tracks, plays prepared oil barrels/steel drums, all kinds of wood and metal percussion, gongs, monochord, a home-made rubber-band guitar, organ, synthesizer, and electric guitar. He is sometimes joined by Hayden Chisolm (wind instruments), Joseph Suchy (guitar), Daniel Schröter (bass), as well as, making his first guest appearance, Takeshi Nishimoto, a Berlin-based Japanese musician playing the sarod, a traditional Indian string instrument.

The uneven types of rhythm, which provide the specific oscillation on which all the tracks are based, in principle obey all the components: melodies, noises, monophone sequences and dub echoes inserted into pre-sketched, programmed basic tracks. The tracks of the current production, like those in Secret Rhythms, Friedman’s live-and-studio project with Jaki Liebezeit, must be viewed as intermediate phases in an on-going process. They are not finalized, completed pieces that permit no further alteration, nor do they correspond to the idea of an original with unmistakable identity. On the contrary: permutability is their salient feature, and they are built according to a plan that follows natural laws.

The first two Flanger albums (1997–99, with Atom™) and Burnt Friedman’s Just Landed (1999) and Con Ritmo (2000) still aimed to juxtapose fully programmed, electronically generated productions (“reality constructions”) with the universally known production model involving instruments that were actually played. The “authentic” sound of the programmed music revealed the inherent artificiality of the “real” productions. In Secret Rhythms, and now Bokoboko, it is no longer a question of mixing, simulating or faking genres that already exists – the aim is to invent music that is extra-territorial, non-national, non-place.

“The entire Industrial movement in England was not just inspired by Can, Cluster and Kraftwerk – they were all-pervasive. As an Englishman it’s hard for me to judge just how German the German avantgarde was back then. But I reckon very little about it was specifically German, otherwise those bands wouldn’t have become so important for musicians around the globe. I even believe the Germans put up much more resistance to being identified with their country than we Brits did. I was always fascinated by how international Can were: maybe they used world receivers, Morse code and Afro beats because they wanted to distance themselves from that accursed image? We were so fascinated by Can precisely because they treated all forms of national or ethnic music purely as a question of the sound – and in that way arrived at an international form.” Richard H. Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire) in Martin Büsser´s Testcard Zwei (1995)

“The colonial exploitation that annihilates the ‘other’ in favour of the ‘own’ and the ‘same’ must be strictly distinguished from appropriation, which is constitutive for education and identity. Only an idiot, or God, lives without appropriation. The ‘own’ is not simply given like a date. Rather, it is the result of successful appropriation. Without appropriation there is also no renewal. (…) Those who appropriate the ‘other’ do not remain identical with themselves. Appropriation entails a transformation of the own.” Byung-Chul Han, Hyperkulturalität (2005).

Freed from the search for identity, from the burden of soloists striving to be expressive, from the pressure of avant-garde dictates, the music discovers the magic moments during the repetition of musical patterns based on the material that comes into being. For example, moments when the background unexpectedly becomes the foreground, like an optical illusion, when patterns considered to be unalterable suddenly appear to stand on their heads, or evolve in a wholly new direction. Such effects presuppose the existence of something active between transmitter and receiver: the understanding of a musical message that is also dependent on the listening, and can change in the course of the listening. These are the traces of the process in the course of which the musician took decisions in the capacity of a listener at the same time.

The ten tracks on Bokoboko, as well as the four exclusive tracks on the preceding EP Zen’Aku, were recorded and mixed in Friedman’s Berlin studio during the past three years.

The cover shows a detail from a work by Theo Altenberg. Motifs by the same artist were used for the covers of the EP Zen’Aku and the Friedman & Liebezeit EP 5 7.

2011: Honest Jons Records Burnt Friedman Meets Zinja Hlungwani
2011: Crammed Disc (D-CD)/ cng (Vinyl) Konono No.1 Rubazech Friedman Remix
2010: Nonplace Prof.Psygrooves Flow, Friedman Remix
2010: Nonplace Friedman & Liebezeit Remixes 
2007: Samadhi Sound Nine Horses Remixes 
2006: 4AD His Name Is Alive Remixes
2006: G-Stone Tosca, John Lee Huber Remix 
2005: Samadhi Sound David Sylvian, Blemish/Late Night Shopping Remixes
2003: Nonplace Lychelassi, Shades Of Mosley Remix
2003: Silent Recordings Prop, Erste Landung Remix
2003: Open record (South Africa) Benguela, Southern Right Dub Remix
2001: Scape Pole Raum1 Remix
2001: District Six, Wiliam Rusere, Shona Folk melodies Remix
2000: G-Stone Tosca, Suzuki Remix
2000: Round Trip Mars, Phase 5, Mothman Skunk Remix

After studying art in Kassel, Bernd Friedmann decided in the late 1980s to pursue his creative ideas exclusively over the medium of music. He attended the Academy of Media Arts Cologne as a postgraduate guest student, and subsequently began to publish the audio repertoire built up since 1979 along with current studio productions.

He also gave concerts and became involved in collaborative projects overseas. His productions were noticed by the Cologne electronic music scene in the 1990s, and roused even more attention at international level. His output is characterized by a series of collaborative projects with, or published under, names like Max Eastley, Atom™, Flanger , Jaki Liebezeit, Hayden Chisholm, Root70, Spacek, Patrice, Steve Jansen and David Sylvian.

In 2000 Friedmann launched his own label Nonplace, with 33 releases to date. Working under the name Burnt Friedman and aiming to address widespread prejudices about the authenticity of programmed music and the role of the artist, he has developed ironical, true-to-detail “reality constructions” that overturn western notions of original and forgery as well as the concept of “authenticity”.

His studio and on-stage partnership with Jaki Liebezeit, the drummer of Can, now dates back eleven years; the two musicians have developed pioneering electronic-acoustic ritual music that employs uneven rhythms. On the strength of their craft and universal vocabulary they have consciously distanced themselves from the formulas of western European, or Anglo-American, music. Friedmann’s more recent solo releases similarly pursue the model of new “ethnic” music but in essence are not related to any music bearing that description.

Bernd Friedmann was born in Coburg, Germany in 1965, and has lived in Berlin since 2009.

UNCUT: “Bokoboko is determinedly irregular, singular as snow flakes, and so departed from its sources, so thoroughly developed and intertwined, it can rightfully claim to have evolved into some new state of originality and authenticity.”

review at Big Shot
review at Ink 19
review and purchase from Boomkat
review at DMC World
French review at LeGrandBazart 
German review at Paco42
German review at Monster And Critics
German review at Titel Magazin
review at Resident Advisor 
German review at Flight13
Japanese review at Japonica
Friedman Charts at Technique, Japan
download purchase from Zero Inch 
album vinyl purchase from Hard Wax 
purchase directly from Nonplace 

“Bokoboko” comes from the Japanese, like the other track titles, and means “uneven”, “hollow-sounding” – adjectives aptly describing the album’s crooked, dynamic grooves as well as the many percussively resounding instruments. Friedman, recognizable more or less by the sound of the ten instrumental tracks, plays prepared oil barrels/steel drums, all kinds of wood and metal percussion, gongs, monochord, a home-made rubber-band guitar, organ, synthesizer, and electric guitar. He is sometimes joined by Hayden Chisholm (wind instruments), Joseph Suchy (guitar), Daniel Schröter (bass), as well as, making his first guest appearance, Takeshi Nishimoto, a Berlin-based Japanese musician playing the sarod, a traditional Indian string instrument.

The uneven types of rhythm, which provide the specific oscillation on which all the tracks are based, in principle obey all the components: melodies, noises, monophone sequences and dub echoes inserted into pre-sketched, programmed basic tracks. The tracks of the current production, like those in Secret Rhythms, Friedman’s live-and-studio project with Jaki Liebezeit, must be viewed as intermediate phases in an on-going process. They are not finalized, completed pieces that permit no further alteration, nor do they correspond to the idea of an original with unmistakable identity. On the contrary: permutability is their salient feature, and they are built according to a plan that follows natural laws.

The first two Flanger albums (1997–99, with Atom™) and Burnt Friedman’s Just Landed (1999) and Con Ritmo (2000) still aimed to juxtapose fully programmed, electronically generated productions (“reality constructions”) with the universally known production model involving instruments that were actually played. The “authentic” sound of the programmed music revealed the inherent artificiality of the “real” productions. In Secret Rhythms, and now Bokoboko, it is no longer a question of mixing, simulating or faking genres that already exist – the aim is to invent music that is extra-territorial, non-national, non-place.

Freed from the search for identity, from the burden of soloists striving to be expressive, from the pressure of avant-garde dictates, the music discovers the magic moments during the repetition of musical patterns based on the material that comes into being. For example, moments when the background unexpectedly becomes the foreground, like an optical illusion, when patterns considered to be unalterable suddenly appear to stand on their heads, or evolve in a wholly new direction. Such effects presuppose the existence of something active between transmitter and receiver: the understanding of a musical message that is also dependent on the listening, and can change in the course of the listening. These are the traces of the process in the course of which the musician took decisions in the capacity of a listener at the same time.
The ten tracks on Bokoboko, as well as the four exclusive tracks on the preceding EP Zen’Aku, were recorded and mixed in Friedman’s Berlin studio during the past three years.

Burnt Friedman – pans, drums, organ, Korg Ms20,
sampler, guitars, rubberbox (track 7), monochord
Hayden Chisholm – reeds, tracks 3/4/6/7/8/10
Daniel Schröter – bass guitar, tracks 5/6/7/10
Joseph Suchy – electric guitar, tracks 4/5/9
Takeshi Nishimoto – sarod, tracks 4/8
David Franzke – field recordings, tracks 1/3/6/7/8/9/10

composed and mixed by B.Friedman 2009-2011
mastering by Rashad Becker
original versions of Rimuse and Tom Tom Keppo appear
exclusively on 12″ Vinyl entitled Zen´Aku (non31)
cover artwork by Theo Altenberg (O.T.) oil on cardboard 2011

tracklisting CD

01 Rimuse 2 2:28
02 Uzu 9:25
03 Deku No Bo 3:17
04 Sendou 4:49
05 Totan Yane 3:16
06 Tom Tom Keppo 3:16
07 Mura 4:43
08 Bokoboko 3:50
09 Rimuse 3 5:46
10 Memai 6:24

tracklisting 2×12″

A1 Uzu 9:25
B1 Deku No Bo 3:17
B2 Sendou 4:49
B3 Totan Yane 3:16
C1 Tom Tom Keppo 3:16
C2 Mura 4:43
C3 Bokoboko 3:50
D1 Rimuse 3 4:57
D2 Memai 6:24

The remix appears on a split 12″ with a Theo Parrish remix of Mancingelani. Produced during summer 2010. The original tune can be found on a compilation entitled “New Wave Dance Music From South Africa” (Shangaan Electro)

More infos about the remix series

Interview with the producer