Ines Birkhan + Bertram Dhellemmes' Ganz Ruhig EP on Smallforms

Last winter, with writer and performer Ines Birkhan, we performed and recorded a piece for guitar, electronics and spoken words at Smallforms in Vienna, that they later released on their label and that you can buy for a ridiculously small amount of money on Apple Music. The piece - Ganz Ruhig (very quiet) - is in German but if you don't understand (I don't), the musicality of it is plenty enough - and there is also an extra instrumental solo piece... 

This is advertisement but c'est la vie. 

first track from Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna's RKH sessions

Last year, me and my pals from Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna had a recording residence at RadioKulturHaus - the Austrian public radio -, and since we've been working on issuing an album... It's a long process and we're still working on it but it's progressing little by little.

To help you wait for the album, here is one track we decided to share.

more sketches and more stuff

More tracks from the past! Back in 2002 I collaborated with butoh dancer Oguri for the series of performances Chisel In. Label Even Stilte proposed me to record the soundtrack in a studio and released it in 2004. It's the only time I used a computer for live music - combined with electronics, mostly diverted guitar effects - and I didn't like it so much, it's a great tool to do studio music but I'm much happier now with my rudimentary analog machines. Originally there was also a part improvised on an Ashbory bass but I  didn't record it. 

So here are two tracks from the CD.

10 000-year headache

Last year I had to spend a few days at the hospital, and I was high on meds so I was in a writing and composing frenzy - though too confused to achieve anything… This song is the only coherent thing I made and a few weeks ago I finally mixed it and voilà!

more sketches

Sorry for the scarce posting of the last weeks, I've been quite busy with music, practicing and composing and organizing thinks for my new band the Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna (that would be my music of the week) - I should be able to announce our next concerts very soon.

Also the Epsilon process showed some difficulties that are now overcome…

N log h 4./CD2

Today, for no reason, I listened to one of my old CDs - something I didn't do for years! It was released in 1999 (if I remember well) on my own short lived label Kinpatsu, under the name I used by then - N log h (don't ask me what it means, it's a long story...) - for different projects, videos, performances, CDs...

I just shared a few tracks on my Soundcloud, if someone's interested... At the time I was into uncompromising noise and experimental music, and I was just starting to put my fingers on music softwares. I'm happy to hear that - in my opinion - this music didn't age too bad, and that I can still stand for it 100% today.

I still have a box full of these CDs somewhere, they sold very poorly for I've never been talented to make money with any of my numerous activities - shortly after I released it I created a dance company and focused on performances for several years...

miscellaneous

1.2.

1. So, I finally reinstalled my workbench and I little by little start to work again on my pedal enclosures.

2. I've been offered today a Hardwire Supernatural reverb - a fine piece of electronics. I will practice with it for a few days and record a demo, but I can tell already that it's a very promising pedal...

3. I was doing some computer maintenance and I found a piece that I made a few years ago when I was learning how to use music softwares - it's been uploaded on MySpace just before they sabotage themselves, and I forgot about it, it might interest someone...

3.

some more music

Happy me, I just got myself a brand new MXR blue box pedal.

It used to be a preponderant part of my sound some years ago, then I had to part with the vintage one I used, around the time I shifted to digital effects - so I never replaced it until now.

But I realize now that pedals are like guitars, versatility is useful but it's not enough, and it's more intuitive and also more fun to combine several analogic pedals. Lately I stored my Pandora and Zoom multi-effects and got old school fuzzbox, tremolo, wah-wah and now the Blue Box - in addition to my 20-year old first stomp boxes.

For those who wouldn't know the Blue Box, it's a kind of fuzzy double octaver that with some settings becomes extremely unstable, as you can hear on this track that I recorded back in the time as the title song of short movie Partie 0.1 (together with experimental junglist LTDB, who is not called like this anymore).

I really enjoy playing with this pinball sound!

Partie 0.1 by bertramD

some music

OK, this blog is about guitar design, but however beautiful and fascinating the object is, its primary function is to produce music. So for the first time I post here something with me playing guitar. It is far from being the best thing I've done (well I hope so), but it's a curiosity worth listening - or at least knowing about.

Sonic Youth's bass player and singer Kim Gordon conceived with artist Jutta Koether the installation Reverse Karaoke in which they invite audience to pick an instrument and improvise together with the pre-recorded voice of Kim. I saw this installation in MAK in Vienna with my friend and Viennese artist David Jourdan and we played the game - that is we listened to Kim's song once and then improvised - one take. The song was roughly mixed right away and 10 minutes later we left with a CD of our recording. So yes, I kind of recorded a song with Kim Gordon. Some info here and pictures here.

Completely forgot about the guitar - can anybody recognize it on this picture ?

Reverse Karaoke by bertramD

More of my guitar stuff on my SoundCloud account.