Christof Kurzmann
Christof Kurzmann was born in Vienna in 1963. He started out in the early 1990s with the avant-rock duo Extended Versions, moved into experimental electronics and founded the label charhizma in 1999. With Christian Fennesz he set up Orchester 33 1/3, a large ensemble whose album Maschine Brennt featured guests including Peter Brötzmann. Other groups include Schnee, his duo with Burkhard Stangl, The Magic I.D., El Infierno Musical and Ken Vandermark's quartet Made to Break.
Aliases: Christof Kurzmann
El Infierno Musical II
By inevitable coincidence, a street vendor in Buenos Aires became an instrument of providence, when he compelled attention of Christof Kurzmann, sitting outside a coffeehouse. His merchandise were small books of Hispanic writers, and the chosen one that ended up in the buyer’s pocket some eighteen years ago was a collection of poems by Argentinean poet Alejandra Pizarnik. Her works abound with music and sounds or absence of it, appreciating silence. For Kurzmann, this served as a sufficient reas…
Falling And Five Other Failings
2025 stock Mats Gustafsson plays slide, tenor, baritone, bass saxophones. Christof Kurzmann uses special ppooll software and voice, live processing. Recorded, mixed & mastered at Garnison 7, Vienna by Martin Siewert. Artwork by Jimmy Draht. Liner notes by Ken Vandermark. Limited vinyl edition of 300 with screen-printed covers. Ken Vandermark, from the liner notes: "On the surface, its fundamental components seem to come from the 20th century: the saxophone (invented in 1846, but not coming to th…
Prosperity
*In process of stocking.* Next Festival Records is thrilled to announce that the new album 'Prosperity' from Mats Gustafsson & Christof Kurzmann, has been added to the catalogue.
Mats Gustafsson is a Swedish saxophone player, composer, and improviser. Gustafsson works on the boundaries of noise, electronica, contemporary rock, and free jazz, as well as contemporary dance and theatre production. He performs solo and in various all-star impro projects. He has gone on international tours with artis…
Снег
* Edition of 150 * The fourth album in 20 years from the Schnee duo of guitarist Burkhard Stangl (efzeg, Polwechsel) and Christof Kurzmann performing on lloop, voice and "ruber bands", creating music for films that have not yet been created through intensely moody electroacoustic environments, Kurzmann's voice sometimes guiding the narrative of their visionary sound. " "I love plainness in colour, monotony, snow is rather a monotonous tune. Why should colour not give an impression of singing? W…
El Infierno Musical
** 2021 Stock. Edition of 300 ** Mikroton Recording presents the self-titled LP El Infierno Musical. Alto Saxophone – Christof Kurzmann, Bass – Clayton Thomas, Design – Marion Epp, Stefan Haupt, Drums, Vibraphone – Martin Brandlmayr, Engineer – Christoph Amann, Guitar – Christof Kurzmann, Lyrics By – Alejandra Pizarnik, Recorder [Contra Bass] – Eva Reiter, Strings [Dan Bao - Vietnamese Monochord] – Eva Reiter, Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet – Ken Vandermark, Translated By – Cecilia Roj…
Palmar Zahler
It is now 5 years that I travel to Latin America. My home base in Buenos Aires; and from there to almost all the other countries. When I arrived there first, I did not know much about the music scene, especially about any scene committed to “New Music” or “Improvisation”, but with the time i encountered a lot of movement, a lot of interesting music (of any form or genre) and I encountered musicians, that if they had been born in the so called “civilized West” would be within the most important p…
Jukebox-Series 002
Trost starts a new 7" series called Jukebox Series, specially for one-time collaborations & projects. The paper-sleeve stays the same, labels are changing, and there's artwork by Lasse Marhaug. This time Christof Kurzmann teams up with Sofia Jernberg (Fire Orchestra) on one side, and with Ken Vandermark and Martin Brandlmayr (Radian) on the other for two versions of the beautiful song "Beggars." The lyrics are written by Joe McPhee.
Then & Now
Christof Kurzmann, Austrian musician and composer, curator, label-founder (Charhizma), co-founder of the legendary Viennese bar for electronic music (Rhiz) with many releases/bands/projects over the years, turns 50. A perfect time for a big multi-variant collection of his unreleased work: solos, duos, special collaborations, groups, for instance with B. Fleischmann, Ken Vandermark, Robert Wyatt, Mats Gustafsson, Tony Buck and many more. From electronica to avant-garde and improvisation to p…
Casa Corp
Second release for the accomplished trio of Leonel Kaplan, Christof Kurzmann and Edén Carrasco on the follow of last years brilliant Una Casa/Observatorio. Recorded in Buenos Aires, roughly a year after the two pieces that compose the first release, Casa Corp reveals both a continuity and a progession of the trios improvisation. Throughout the single pice, the most outstanding aspect of the record is the interplay between the musicians, up to a point, when several times the sound source becomes …
Neuschnee
The five tracks on neuschnee form an ambitious meta-song suite, with the various lyrics and musical styles combining to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The design is again from Berlin designer Marion Gerth, previously responsible for The Magic ID-till my breath gives out on ErstPop. The front cover juxtaposes a satellite picture of snow with the Mao Zedong poem 'Snow', which the musicians discovered in a book bought while on tour in Beijing. "After a long phase of experimental…
Dafeldecker / Kurzmann / Drumm / eRikm / dieb13 / Noetinger
Recorded live 2000 at Berlin (1) and 2001 at Graz, Wien (Vienna) and Berlin.
Schnee live
ErstLive 003 is from the duo of Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann, titled 'schnee_live', the final show on the last night of AMPLIFY 2004: addition. Stangl and Kurzmann began working as a duo in late 1999, releasing Schnee in 2000, and playing numerous concerts over the past four years throughout Europe, the US, and Asia. schnee_live documents how much their duo has changed since the initial recording of Schnee, which was the first time they ever played together as a duo.
Schnee
The first domestic release from these two youngish Austrian improvisers. Guitarist Stangl (Polwechsel, Ton Art, etc.) and Powerbook player Kurzmann (co-leader of Orchester 33 1/3) improvised tributes to four of their favorite films (from Barbara Albert, Fassbinder, Chris Marker & Godard). Rather than simulate a vertical narrative to showcase plot development or the buildup of tension in the films, "Schnee" is concerned with the actual sensory non-cerebral experience: the relationship between col…
Aso
Ami Yoshida and Christof Kurzmann are both well-respected artists within the international community, each performing in a wide range of contexts from abstract to pure pop. Both are best known for their long-running duos, Yoshida for Cosmos (with Sachiko M) and Kurzmann for schnee (with Burkhard Stangl). This project finds them in far less comfortable territory, and a s o is the outcome of two years of hard work.Ami Yoshida strives to create a pure sound, abstracting her voice until it becomes a…