Bernhard Lang: loops for basses. ›Politische Reden‹

Loops for Basses was created in the context of the DORA music theatre, where the Neue Vocalsolisten played a key role, and was commissioned by Andreas Fischer for his duo with Theo Nabicht. I have had a long-standing collaboration and friendship with the latter. The piece primarily arose from an auditory conception, already pre-shaped by the two very specific sound sources. In addition, a text emerged, which, like the sound itself, is free from recognizable semantics but still embodies gestural intentionalities that point only to themselves. I quickly associated this with the gesture of political speeches and their transformation into »Empty Words«: You still hear the speech, but you no longer follow the meanings; instead, you are caught in the mere flow of language sounds and gestures. These gestures, in turn, are deconstructed through the grammar of the loops, oscillating between the suggestion and manipulation of meanings on the one hand, and the loss of meaning on the other.

(Bernhard Lang)