Couture is the portrait CD of the Berlin composer Genoël von Lilienstern, and it bears the mark of a childhood spent in the 1980s. Synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7 shape the sound of his works, and radio, the source of countless mixtapes at the time, is at the centre, sometimes openly and sometimes hidden. Four works explore that decade's sound and what remains of it today.
The singers Johanna Vargas and Soetkin Elbers appear with Ensemble Garage under Mariano Chiacchiarini. In the title work the synthesizer players Benjamin Kobler and Lars Jönsson are the soloists with the SWR Symphonieorchester, conducted by Ilan Volkov. Ensemble Interface plays the last piece under Scott Voyles. The recordings are coproductions of Deutschlandfunk and the German Music Council, with the orchestral work produced by Südwestrundfunk and Top by Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
Voz Comercial, for singer and ensemble, uses transcriptions of radio commercials from Mexico and Peru, sung by Vargas. In Big Picture, also for singer and ensemble, the source is a one-hour recording of internet radio stations from around the world. Its five sections carry titles such as Mallsoft, Cat Ramen and At the rally, with Elbers as the voice. In both pieces the interplay of voice and ensemble builds an image that swings between excessive consumer society and acoustic reflection. In Couture (two solo synthesizers and orchestra) and Top (ensemble) the synthesizers dominate, used as sound generators of a bygone era. In Couture they mix with the orchestra until the individual sources can no longer always be told apart.
In the booklet, Julian Kämper describes the composer's return to the pop-cultural artefacts and practices of the Eighties. The new studio technology of that decade defined and perfected a distinctive sound. According to von Lilienstern, that sound has never mouldered away, and it is still everywhere through radio, television, department stores and the internet.
CD, Wergo WER 6439 2, released in 2023 in the German Music Council's Edition Zeitgenössische Musik, running 49 minutes.
