Kasar

Arnold Kasar is a musical jack of all trades: in countless projects, the musician grown in the southern area of the picturesque Black Forest left his traces. In 2017 he released the highly praised album "EINFLUSS" together with Hans-Joachim Roedelius on the famous Deutsche Grammophon Label and also a new Album with the FRIEDRICH LIECHTENSTEIN TRIO on OKeh Records/Sony Classical. However, the trained mastering-engineer is also capable of going solo, as he proved with his solo debut „The Piano Has Been Smoking“ in 2012. Now he returned to his first instrument and his timing couldn’t be better, since the piano returned to new strength in the music world, as the numerous releases of pianists in the past few years have shown.„I really hope that the timing is good, but I can’t influence it. At last I do it for my own. When I started doing music as Kasar back in 2010, I just didn’t know Nils Frahm or Brandt Brauer Frick. All these people weren’t on the spot by then. I listened to Gonzales, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Evans, Lyle Mays, and of course Hauschka and Craig Armstrong were there, too. Yann Tiersen was totally famous at that time“, the pianist explains his view on his colleagues when he started making music by himself. But, with releasing his second album „Walk On“ at this point, he didn’t intend to flirt with a hype. The piano, which has accompanied Arnold Kasar from his childhood on, always just fell out of the recordings in the past. Due to this enduring relationship to his first instrument he got bored of it. Instead, he preferred to dedicate himself to sample-based electronic music around the world-famous Berlin based Sonar Kollektiv. But sooner or later the piano had to return to the centre of attention. That was in 2010: at that point the work on the new LP „The Piano Has Been Smoking“ had started, being released in 2012 and fully concentrating around the piano. By then Kasar already used the technique of the prepared piano, which once was introduced by John Cage and nowadays is excessively used by Hauschka, among others. For this Kasar used erasers, tea bags or patches to manipulate the sound of the piano and to bring out unheard and exciting tones of his instrument. Only one song, the designated single „Put A Light On Me“, was supposed to have a vocal track, but after he didn’t find the right voice for it, he simply sang it himself. Like this, for the first time the world got to hear the dark and melancholic timbre of Arnold Kasar. The desired airplay (i.a. Austrian „FM4“ or Berlin’s „RBB RadioEins“) was achieved easily and from that moment on Kasar was delighted by the idea of singing on his own productions, since he had closed the chapter of producing an album on aprepared piano anyway. For this reason the comparison with an artist such as Hauschka, who made this technique the concept of his own creative work, is merely adequate. Kasar rather walks on, restless and always willing to try something new. But this doesn’t mean that he has to quit it completely: also on „Walk On“ one finds a few pieces with the support of the prepared piano, but this time the singing is clearly in the foreground. Like this, the whole vibe of the record changes: „I’d say the last record was way more a city record“ referring to the by then used techno-elements, for example, „and the new one is a record for the countryside.“, especially inspired by Arthur Russell’s most intimate album „World Of Echo“. On this record the composer who rose to cult status in the past years leaves the disco era behind him and presents a fragile artist using voice, cello and a lot of reverb only: „A song like „So Called Lover“ mainly emerged from Arthur Russell listening sessions“, Kasar tells full of admiration for the musician who died of AIDS in 1992. Other role models are surprising as well as comprehensible: „I like singers like the early Manfred Krug a lot, this warm and tender voice – of course, in German, but the way he sang – or Japan’s singer David Sylvian, those were the things I acted on. Much songwriting- inspiration came from Wilco, Nick Drake, Aimée Mann or also Bill Callahan. But how Kasar came to the definition „countryside record“ is a story of its own: „It is way more singing this time, that’s a huge leap, it’s much less electronics and there’s more space. It’s less town and much more landscape and for me it really is this countryside record. „Jungholz“ for example is the name of a village in the southern Black Forest, „Ödland“ is the name of the highest mountain in that area and „Ein Engel Verschwand“ is an adaptation of another village’s name there called „Engelschwand“. „So Called Lover“ takes place in „a shady town in the shore“, which in a way is a reference to the Rhine, which could be the mentioned river, and this „whipping willow“, all these are things coming out of my memories, since I originate from that area. It’s not autobiographic but I simply imagined how it was back then, sitting under the willow by the river. Partly I recorded the songs right there: „Ein Engel Verschwand“, „Jungholz“ and „Ödland“ and nearly all playbacks were recorded on the piano on which I practiced when I was a child. I always hated it to play this piano: a Hohner, awful sound, but once you used the felt pedal it got such an odd sound, really strange – that’s not the sound of a great Steinway, but small and odd.“ So all of this isn’t supposed to be autobiographic but without all these experiences Kasar gained in the depths of the southern Black Forest, „Walk On“ probably would never have come into being. In late 2016 Arnold Kasar released the solo piano album “INSIDE DEVILS KITCHEN on his own label. After finishing the recording he noted :” Two years ago, when I pressed the record button and played these short piano improvisations, I really didn’t expect that the music I played would bring me such a close and intimate connection to myself and to my home. I had once again begun to play on the piano I used to have as a child. There was something about this piano that had always bothered me in my childhood, or rather, stopped my ideas from developing how I wanted them to. It lacked a bass frequency here, a resonance there, or had something else I couldn’t figure out. Now as an experienced musician and sound engineer I know what was going on: the sound chamber of the piano was too small and the room it was sitting in – the living room of my parents house with wooden walls, heavy carpet and bookshelves full of books – swallowed up the overtones and created a dull, expressionless sound. Maybe this is getting too specific, but it really bothered me in my youth! But, when I started that “Devil’s Kitchen” recording session two years ago I found myself hugely inspired by the very same set of circumstances. The piano has a “practice” pedal, which when pressed, puts a felt cloth between the strings and hammers, and as a result makes it sound particularly poignant and quiet – like being under a warm blanket, close and intimate. So I recorded it exactly like this and consequently I found myself playing more carefully and with more delicately. After a couple of days I had the framework for a whole album. Eighteen months later it was released as “WALK ON” after elaborating on these piano recordings with additional electronics and vocals from my studio in Berlin. When you’ve found a room, a sanctuary, which inspires creativity and inspiration in such a strong way, you shouldn’t change it. Never change a working system! From now on it will be: head south for piano recording. The work emerges unique with the rediscovery of old places, the old home – as I’ve now been living in Berlin for twenty years – and memorable times with family and old friends. I see these old places now in a new light and they have a much deeper meaning to me now: Ödland, Jungholz, Krai Waag Gumpe, Engelschwandt – and Devil’s Kitchen. Places I’ve known since I was a child and now experience differently. I even called my studio ‘Devil’s Kitchen’ after the beautiful secret waterfall hidden away in a Black Forest valley. Improvisation is always the base. From there songs grow and everything else blossoms. Sometimes the improvisation is the finished piece. I’ve been improvising for as long as I could play piano, in my own systems and patterns, but always ‘in harmony’. When I moved to Berlin and started producing electronic music, the piano fell out of the central creative role and almost completely fell out of view. But the piano was always there in the background and has now pushed itself back as the focus of my work. These improvisations are very important part of my work. Sometimes they seem like the left over remains of a chemical reaction, but they’re far too precious to simply throw away and have become very dear to me. So I have compiled a few of them for my album “INSIDE DEVILS KITCHEN”. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded as authentic and direct as on these recordings because they’re all improvised out of nothing, created in the place where I grew up. From here the road could lead in many directions. New songs, maybe new sounds on another piano, but this is the foundation. Purity and tranquility. I went back to the beginning so that I could keep going forwards. Joachim Roedelius & Kasar präsentieren ihr gemeinsames Album "EINFLUSS" // Jan 14, Berlin Volksbühne // Jan 20, Bochum Christuskirche