Paul Frick, Ensemble Modern

*2024 stock* When two worlds collide, you clean up afterwards. That's how the first impression of Dach, the joint work by the Frankfurt sound collective Ensemble Modern and Paul Frick, known from Brandt Brauer Frick, feels. Few people know that Paul studied classical composition and that it is therefore not particularly surprising that, in addition to his work with BBF and Tangerine Dream, where he has been dribbling synthesiser capers with the electronic music legend from Spandau for some time now, he has also composed a timeless movement in four parts and performed it live under the roof in Frankfurt.

Fortunately, someone pressed record and Threshold 5, 6 and 7, supplemented by Humidity Problems, was preserved for posterity. The Champions League of New Music meets Frick at the mixing desk and all kinds of electronic equipment. He produces the sound live in all directions, sets accents and frees the classical instrumentation from its acoustic corset. He is more of a tamer of the overflowing joy of playing, always finding his way back to the structures that are compositionally predetermined, only to re-position them with perseverance and inspiration. Freedom meets notes, improvisation, which already played an exciting role in traditional classical music, lines that are followed and everything for the work and the spontaneity in which Dach is created.

The supposed emptiness of the Dachsaal in Frankfurt in the photo on the back of the cover reveals the structure of the lamps on the ceiling and the closely spaced music stands, which at first glance appear to be chaos, but which symbolise the intimate closeness of the Ensemble Modern making music with Paul Frick. And that is the true original mysticism of this music, which only radiates this sublimity in community. Or as my English-speaking friend puts it: (Un)Easy Listening for open minds! Not easy, but with great rewards. A further building block, so to speak, in the universe of Edition DUR, where nothing is as it seems and nothing remains as it once was.