CD tracklisting

01 240-11
02 125-05
03 130-11
04 105-14
05 105-09
06 124-09
07 120-12 Romain Sygroves & B.Friedman remix
08 130-09

performed by Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit
vocals on tracks 3/6/8 by Daniel Dodd-Ellis
acoustic guitar on tracks 5/8 by Tim Motzer
electric bass on tracks 3/5 by Daniel Schröter
electric guitar effects on track 3 by Joseph Suchy
flute and clarinet on track 7 by Hayden Chisholm
produced by B.Friedman, except track 7
120-12 produced by Romain Sygroves and Burnt Friedman
mastering by Rashad Becker
cover artwork by Theo Altenberg (O.T.), Detail, Oil On Cardboard 2012

Jaki Liebezeit numbers among the world’s foremost drummers. Between 1968 and 1978, playing as a founding member of the legendary Can, he produced rhythms to be heard nowhere else, anticipating by many years the loops of modern club music. His delicate and peerlessly precise drum sound is audible in countless studio productions by a range of artists from Conny Plank to Jah Wobble. But by the early 1990s Liebezeit felt he had exhausted the possibilities of conventional drums. He made a radical break, and began to re-define, or re-invent, what drumming was about: “That explains why I’ve meanwhile abandoned conventional drums, the standard American kit. I looked around for something different, and now I just play drums. People keep saying my drumming is so reduced, but there’s nothing minimalist about the way I play, I just leave out the superfluous stuff.” More in German SZ magazine

Simplicity became a core principle for Liebezeit and collaborators like the Cologne formation Drums Off Chaos, or the electronic musician Burnt Friedman, who is noted for his richly detailed, groove-heavy productions. Less is known about his activities in the period from 1978 up to the mid-1990s, when he began to make his own instruments and took up the drums, initially with no thought of electronic music. He was searching for a method that would allow him to play although he lacked any knowledge of music or what it was supposed to be. From the first note on he recorded all his ad hoc compositions, since these attempts were useful for the purposes of learning.

Allegedly the sound of one-armed bandits inspired Paul Desmond to compose “Take Five”: “It was the rhythm of the machine which influenced me, and I really only wrote the track to get the money back I lost that night.”
Although jazz offers examples of odd time signatures stretching back all the way to Lennie Tristano in 1955, for example, or Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond in 1959, fundamental differences persist in the way these rhythms are perceived. Terms like downbeat and offbeat, polymeter or syncopation point to theoretical inconsistencies. They demonstrate that the notion of a uniform, dynamic functional principle is alien to western thinking.

Watching Liebezeit play his drums, or following the developmental path of the Secret Rhythms titles, it becomes possible to understand that the rhythmic formula is comprehended as being circular – in much the same way as in traditional or neo-traditional music in non-western spheres – as opposed to linear and progressive. The formula is derived from a recurrent, necessarily balanced body movement from which every impulse originates as something sensed as opposed to noted down. Once these basal motional patterns have been transposed to the memory of the body, they can be effortlessly transferred to any desired resonance box, string, drum, xylophone or piano. They are in tune to begin with.

“If you find the way the energy wants to flow naturally, you don´t have to force it.” Marko Rodin (scientist, vortex-based mathematics)

This formulaic principle, which can be represented with just two signs, or translated into simple digits, can also be grasped as an energy structure according to which the individual (or an infinite number of individuals) is synchronized. Analogously, all the instruments played on Secret Rhythms 5 are synchronized to the principal motional formula.

B. Friedman: “If a dancer was to think about his sequence of movements when dancing, he would presumably fall over. I don’t believe the so-called brain controls the complex sequence, I think control lies with the structure that has entered the body. In musical terms this structure comprises the repetition of proportions and intervals. But the question of whether this functions, whether the orchestra or the band start to vibrate in unison, depends on whether the musicians listen to each other and are used to working this way. That would be expecting too much from a deaf machine, so the frequent comparisons between Jaki and a machine are rather implausible. As I see it, Can deliberately moved towards a rather simple, straight, repetitive groove in the late ’60s. Basically, they didn’t jam or improvise, but executed what was preordained by a fundamental musical structure, and would keep repeating cycles they wanted to play really well. What we hear when we listen to early Can is, with a few exceptions, the record of a group process that was never completed or even entertained the concept of a finished piece. There would always be room to play something differently.”

Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream): ”You can’t just have anybody playing the flute or the bass or the melodica. That’s why in the past we’ve had, say, Augustus Pablo on melodica, or Jaki Liebezeit on drums, or the Memphis Horns on horns.” Complete Interview in Guardian

Allegedly the sound of one-armed bandits inspired Paul Desmond to compose “Take Five”: “It was the rhythm of the machine which influenced me, and I really only wrote the track to get the money back I lost that night.” 

Although jazz offers examples of odd time signatures stretching back all the way to Lennie Tristano in 1955, for example, or Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond in 1959, fundamental differences persist in the way these rhythms are perceived. Terms like downbeat and offbeat, polymeter or syncopation point to theoretical inconsistencies. They demonstrate that the notion of a uniform, dynamic functional principle is alien to western thinking.

Watching Liebezeit play his drums, or following the developmental path of the Secret Rhythms titles, it becomes possible to understand that the rhythmic formula is comprehended as being circular – in much the same way as in traditional or neo-traditional music in non-western spheres – as opposed to linear and progressive. The formula is derived from a recurrent, necessarily balanced body movement from which every impulse originates as something sensed as opposed to noted down. Once these basal motional patterns have been transposed to the memory of the body, they can be effortlessly transferred to any desired resonance box, string, drum, xylophone or piano. They are in tune to begin with.

“If you find the way the energy wants to flow naturally, you don´t have to force it.”
Marko Rodin (scientist, vortex-based mathematics)

This formulaic principle, which can be represented with just two signs, or translated into simple digits, can also be grasped as an energy structure according to which the individual (or an infinite number of individuals) is synchronized. Analogously, all the instruments played on Secret Rhythms 5 are synchronized to the principal motional formula.

Burnt Friedman: “If a dancer was to think about his sequence of movements when dancing, he would presumably fall over. I don’t believe the so-called brain controls the complex sequence, I think control lies with the structure that has entered the body. In musical terms this structure comprises the repetition of proportions and intervals. But the question of whether this functions, whether the orchestra or the band start to vibrate in unison, depends on whether the musicians listen to each other and are used to working this way. That would be expecting too much from a deaf machine, so the frequent comparisons between Jaki and a machine are rather implausible. As I see it, Can deliberately moved towards a rather simple, straight, repetitive groove in the late ’60s. Basically, they didn’t jam or improvise, but executed what was preordained by a fundamental musical structure, and would keep repeating cycles they wanted to play really well. What we hear when we listen to early Can is, with a few exceptions, the record of a group process that was never completed or even entertained the concept of a finished piece. There would always be room to play something differently.”

Secret Rhythms 5 (non35)
Release Date: 20th April 2013
Formats: CD/2×12″/Download 

Can’s legacy has never felt more apparent than now, and Cyclopean brings together two giants from this legendary band, Jaki Liebezeit and Irmin Schmidt alongside long time collaborators Jono Podmore (Kumo / Metamono) and musician and producer Burnt Friedman.

Listen to CYCLOPEAN “Fingers”

As you might expect from the line-up, the four tracks are profoundly original and bursting with imagination. The title provides a metaphor for the music: Cyclopean forms are beautiful, massive and intriguing structures that interlock, intersect and connect seemingly contradictory components. Heavy, yet light, powerful, subtle, intriguing and playful. There’s also a flavour of the ancient in this music – an artefact from a sophisticated pre-culture perhaps. Extraordinary instrumentation – rubber band guitar, theremin, prepared piano – is unified through the monumental and unique drum patterns, as the characters of the four players are at once individually unmistakably and irrevocably intertwined.

The release of the Can album The Lost Tapes this year has brought a wealth of new recognition and plaudits to the legendary band, and as befits members of a band who constantly challenge, innovate and inspire, an entirely new project was born when Friedman, Liebezeit, Podmore and Schmidt got together at Studio Les Rossignols, France, in May 2011.

With its non-placed devices and hard-to-pin-down aesthetic falling between electronic and psychedelic music and the warm-hued sounds of traditional acoustic instruments, Burnt Friedman’s Zokuhen (‘second edition’), produced exclusively for vinyl, may be considered an extension (or second instalment) of Bokoboko (non33, released in February 2012). On this new double EP, too, the music focuses on uneven rhythms that dictate the groove for all the participating musical elements and display a formal logic to which all the instruments gladly succumb. With its even rhythm and proximity to dub reggae, the track ‘Kon Ki (C2)’ shows that exceptions from the rule are permitted among the five new tracks and three re-worked Bokoboko themes that round off this follow-up.

“Although my ears tell me that the tracks often include robust collections of drums and staccato string arrangements, Friedman uses those instruments to resonate and reverberate into arrangements that do not feel physical. (…) Regardless of the number of instruments employed, from strings or wind instruments to handmade percussion or steel drums, Friedman is always using his elements to emphasize rhythm. These rhythms are often intense, building into patterns that transcend their body. As a result, Friedman creates ambiance through a diversity of elements that seem to drone together into one righteous frequency.” 5th Sep 2012 Nicolas Zettel Foxydigitalis

“Tail-swaying jazz, sarod-woodwind fusion and steamin’ but gleamin’ organ blues also poke their heads up through the many-hued hailstorm of percussion. And far from uneven, every downstroke is perfectly timed.” 7th Sep 2012 Stephen Fruitman Igloomagazine

Burnt Friedman
Zokuhen, 2×12″
available: mid October 2012

tracklisting 

A1 EN BU
B1 RIKU RO
B2 DEKU NO BO 2
B3 BOKOBOKO 2
C1 EN BU 2
C2 KON KI*
D1 KOWAI KOIRU
D2 RIKU RO 2

*The original, extended version of KON KI , Roots Automation, was released on CD (non28) Nonplace 10th Anniversary compilation

BURNT FRIEDMAN: Percussion, Cymbals, Organ, Korg MS20 Synth., Monochord, Sampler
JOSEPH SUCHY: Electric guitar B1, B2, C1, D2
TAKESHI NISHIMOTO: Sarod B1, B3, D2
MANDJAO FATY: Electric guitar C2
DANIEL SCHRÖTER: Bass guitar B1, D1
JAKI LIEBEZEIT: additional drums B2
HAYDEN CHISHOLM: Reeds
RASHAD BECKER – Mastering
THEO ALTENBERG: Cover Image, O.T. (Detail) Oil on Cardboard 2012

German record reviews
Review at Groove Magazine
Review at Monster and Critics
German review at Rote Raupe 
“Wunderbare Platte die ausserhalb der Zeitachse zu stehen scheint.” (Titel Mag)
“Öffnet eine neue Welt.” (Irie Ites)
“Höchst interessante Platte die rhythmische Musik neu erden will.” (News.CH)

International record reviews
Record review at Juno Download
Review at INK 19
“Krautrock with a 21st century Sun Ra spirit” (Paris DJs)
Review at Artistxite
Review at Big Shot Magazine
Review at Milkfactory
“Highly original piece of work.”(DMC)

Japanese record reviews
Review at Resident Advisor
Review at Cookiescene

German Press release
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)

Official Press release

“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.

2012: MaisUmDiscos Lucas Santtana Ca Pra Nos, Friedman Remix
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