Daniel Studer

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Discography

Extended, For Strings & Piano

Harald Kimmig vl
Frantz Loriot va
Alfred Zimmerlin vc
Daniel Studer b, comp
Philip Zoubek p


All works by Daniel Studer

wins the German Record Critics Award: Longlist der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Sparte Zeitgenössische Musik, 3/2020

Recorded Live at Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zürich, Febuary 7, 2018
Mixed & edited at Hardstudios; Engineered by Ron Kurz, CornerOff Productions
CD-master by Peter Pfister
Liner notes by Brian Morton
graphic concept by fuhrer vienna
Executive production by Christian C. Dalucas & Werner X. Uehlinger.

label: HatHut, ezz-thetics 1007, 2019

music (excerpts):
motus
comprimere
verba 2

order: info@danielstuder.ch

liner notes:

…Studer and his colleagues celebrate the dignity of work. It does not matter what you pro-duce, whether it is rivets or cooking pots or the apparently slight “Bagatelles” or “verba 1” and “verba 2” of Extended. If these things are made well, then they are well done. One goes away from Extended reminded that string instruments, most often heard in massed ranks in orchestras or in formal quartets, quintets and upwards, are also capable of great freedom. Long before saxophones and trumpets were used, the first “jazz” groups were string ensembles, employed to entertain rich men but free after hours to explore their instruments, their tools, without restraint. Subsequent history has restored those tools, the means of production, to those that labour with heart and hand. The results extend our sense of what is possible in sound.
Brian Morton

cd reviews:

In his sleeve notes for Daniel Studer’s “Extended”, Brian Morton draws quite an eyebrow-raising comparison between ‘professional’ versus ‘improvisational’ musical methods and the industrial methodologies of old East Germany and Nigeria, praising the virtues and effectiveness of the latter and stating that Studer’s work is effective in the same manner. It’s an ambitious comparison, but in “Extended” you can see what Morton is getting at- that both organisation and beauty lie underneath the apparent chaos.
Playing the double bass himself and working with four other performers with whom he is already very familiar, Studer offers up a series of works that are extremely spacious, sometimes minimalist, impulsive and unpredictable.
…It’s a bold, accomplished and confident 54-minute CD that’s moderately purist in its approach, the sound of assured high quality improvisation and musical virtuosity that defies traditionalism and manages to forge the template for a new form of traditional in the process.

Stuart Bruce, Chain D.L.K. 2019

…Da alle Beteiligten auch ausgezeichnete Im­provisatoren sind, ist das Ergebnis sehr offen und längst nicht immer klar einer Notation oder einem bestimmten freien Moment zuzu­weisen. Auffallend sind die selbstbewussten Kontraste mit ihren zarten Texturen und bra­chialen Interventionen. …Das ist anspruchsvolle Hörmusik jen­seits von Jazz und zeitgenössisch.…
Pirmin Bossart, jazz'n'more, 2019

“…The quintet navigates the pieces in this live recording with an astute ear for the fractured counterpoint and timbral contrasts of the pieces. Spikey angularities, sputtering stopped strings, and strummed resonance fly by with precision and clarity of trajectory. Studer collaborates regularly with the other string players and the synergy of their approach to collective improvisation within the context of compositional forms is what makes this project work so well.
Michael Rosenstein, point of departure, 2019

…Hearing what Studer and his associates can do to extend and distribute notes and tones with ensembles of conventional instruments in somewhat unconventional settings, confirm that future chapters of these musical programs will also be worth exploring.
Ken Waxman, jazzword, 2019

…Une chambre pleine d’espace et d’écho, faite de bois brut et de béton brossé, avec des recoins d’où peuvent surgir des rebonds inconstants, mais une chambre. Ce n’est pas sans une forme d’humour d’ailleurs que Studer propose trois mouvements à « Bagatelle » qui écartent toute velléité de joliesse ou de légèreté pour se focaliser sur la structure des instruments, sur leur corps, sur leur surface vibrante. Voilà qui ne manque pas d’une sensualité qui se niche pourtant dans un écrin complexe. Qui se mérite.
Franpi Barriaux, citizenjazz, 2019

…spannt sich also ein schöner Bogen über die neun Stücke. Das Konzept Studers, improvisierte Musik auf einzelne Parameter zu reduzieren, ist schlüssig. Keine CD, die man sich nebenher anhören sollte. Aber eine gewinnbringende, wenn man sich gut fünfzig Minuten darauf einlässt.
Alexander Drcar, Jazz Podium, 2019

…Studer e il pool di musicisti richiamato sono uno dei pochissimi poli europei che intercettano studi estensivi sugli strumenti e sulle loro combinazioni libere: pertanto l'ascolto di Extended for String & Piano restituisce nel migliore dei modi un mondo sottile di percezioni e di vie di incrocio con la musica classica estensiva: ad un certo punto sia ha la netta sensazione che Webern sia stato filtrato nelle dita e nelle corde degli strumenti o si sia filtrato il Battistelli dell'artigianato; la verità è che questa libera interpretazione è così ben riuscita da non farci pensare che, indietro nel tempo, episodi dello stesso genere sono comunque numerosi. Difficile mais pointu.
Ettore Garzia, Percorsi Musicali, 2019

…produit une musique "bruitiste" qui, articulee sur la contrebasse pivot, progresse lentement. Si l'on met donc du temps a y entrer, on y pergoit petit a petit une atmosphere et une certaine gravite. Tout au long des pieces proposees par Studer, il se degage une grande attention (absolument necessaire) entre les musiciens.
Jean Buzelin, culturejazz, 2019

…Their music is an authentic fusion of various jazz styles and contemporary academical music. Free improvisation, special effects, sound experiments, contemporary and modern jazz, mainstream and some various jazz styles are combined together to experimental music, academic avant-garde and contemporary academical music. The music is bright and expressive. It’s always balancing somewhere between free improvisation and composing. Musicians have a new conception of jazz – it’s full of innovative ways of playing, crazy ideas, frantic and spontaneous solos, wild and dynamic turns, furiously fast passages and all kinds of modern, evocative and impressive expressions.…
Avant Scena, 2019

…These are compositions, whatever their improvised components — my guess is timbral — might be, and it would have been intriguing, for this listener, to have a few notes from the composer of such intricate and often expansive forms. That said, the sound is the thing, and the music's large and small-scale gestures are executed by an absolutely committed and staggeringly virtuosic group of musicians. Who is who is often relegated to the realm of mystery as orchestral unity takes over. The quintet, under Studer's firm and obvious direction, offers a journey through unsettling but often almost familiar realms that anyone strong of constitution will want to undertake again and again.
Marc Medwin, squidsear, 2019

…Nevertheless, Studer and co. take their amelodic, frequently minimalist tendencies in a somewhat different direction. Dynamics play a major role in this music, as scrapes, saws, and strikes arise almost organically out of silence, only to fade just as abruptly. The tracks cohere, but focus is placed on each piece as an atemporal, non-progressive whole, sans the slow welling and layering of sound… There is a fragility, subtlety, and deep pensiveness to the performances on this album.
This is not traditional jazz in any sense of the term. Yet, it harkens back to the curiosity that inspired those early experiments into the turn of the 19th century’s “new music,” the quest for novel sounds, timbres, and musical space. This string sextet is far from alone in this pursuit. That fact, however, makes the peculiarities of this album all the more important.

Nick Ostrum, free jazz blog, 2019

…De la démarche de Daniel Studer aidé par ses quatre camarades, on retiendra une remarquable extension des possibilités sonores, des formes musicales, de la mise en abîme des timbres, de l’intégration de chaque voix instrumentale dans l’ensemble, … Les neuf pièces enregistrées évitent radicalement ce qu’on appelle « le noodling » (péché mignon de la musique improvisée) par la précision du jeu, la clarté des intentions, et la variété des formes qui se dessinent dans chaque composition. On ne va pas se casser la tête pour ranger Extended dans tel ou tel type de démarches de compositeurs en se référant à X, Y ou Z. La musique d’Extended vit et existe par elle-même et son déroulement se révèle complexe, peu prévisible, et complète par la richesse de son imaginaire et des perspectives nombreuses dans sa géométrie spatiale, intégrant une foule de traitements sonores et de modes de jeux acquis par des décennies de travail ardu dans l’acte d’improviser librement.
Jean-Michel Schouwbourg, 2019

© Daniel Studer 2013. All rights reserved.