DIAMANDA LA BERGE DRAMM - CHIMP [CD]

DIATRIBE

£13.05

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: DIACD038
Barcode: 0749350200714
Release Date: 08 Jul 2022
Genre: Contemporarty Classical

The Quietus – Album Of The Week 07/07/22
‘A pursuit of true artistry.’

It’s Psychedelic Baby Album Premiere 23/06/22
A conceptual, minimal/maximal work that is more than worthy of consideration alongside that of Laurie Anderson and Bjork – indeed, ‘Chimp’ exists alone, in a realm of its own making. Textually and texturally, Chimp is an experience like no other, a journey around its own world that you’ll feel compelled to take again and again.

‘Chimp features innovative avant-pop music by the highly celebrated musician Diamanda La Berge Dramm.

Based on texts by contemporary poet, Steven J Fowler, Chimp is Dramm's first full-length album of her own material.

Classically trained, Diamanda La Berge Dramm has been playing the violin since she was four, but has long exceeded the protocols and boundaries surrounding classical music, bringing all her training to bear on the extraordinary Chimp, a conceptual, minimal/maximal work that is more than worthy of consideration alongside that of Laurie Anderson and Bjork - indeed, it exists alone, in a realm of its own making. Strings are treated in a way that is almost ectoplasmic, going beyond the merely tonal and into the abstract, as words, meanings and phrases, fold in on themselves, and the album enmeshes you in its web of intrigue. "Besides the voice and some Moog, the whole album is made from violin sounds. To make the synth parts, I sampled a few notes from my Bach/Cage album. Then Iwen the engineer and I recorded a bunch of violin noises and constructed the jungle ambiance. The text for this album compiles material from two books of Steven J Fowler's: I Will Show You the Life of the Mind (on Prescription Drugs) (Dostoevsky Wannabe 2020), and The Great Apes (Broken Sleep Books 2022). The juxtaposition of the brain and the monkeys were key to the album. To bring them together, I developed the idea of a doctor's waiting room - where the beginning and end of the album take place. There is a TV in the corner showing a National Geographic episode about monkeys. During the middle section, we go inside the TV and hang out with them.

The album feels like a natural evolution of my desire to unfold the violin, both as an object and conceptually." (Diamanda La Berge Dramm)

Diamanda La Berge Dramm was born in Amsterdam in 1991 and began playing the violin at the age of four.

Having grown up in the Netherlands among the leading figures of the Dutch classical, avant-garde and improvisational music scenes, she incorporates all of these influences into her own concerts. In April 2018, Diamanda became the first string soloist to win the Dutch Classical Talent Tour & Award. Other awards include the John Cage Award, the Nicolai Prize, the Kersjes Violin Award, and the Deutschlandfunk Förderungspreis. She has worked extensively with modern music luminaries such as Louis Andriessen, Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier, Chaya Czernowin, and Georg Friedrich Haas.

1. born
2. horse around
3. voices
4. Jungle
5. Chimp is Who
6. Gorilla, CEO
7. Bonobo's on Time
8. Orangut, the Orangutan
9. more voices
10. 12 ways
11. memory