Frank Niehusmann
Day Tracks 1

[01] 2005-07-25 (3'22)
[02] 2005-07-21 (3'00)
[03] 2005-08-13 (3'47)
[04] 2005-06-14 (2'32)
[05] 2005-07-02 (2'25)
[06] 2005-05-30 (2'45)
[07] 2005-07-18 (3'11)
[08] 2005-06-21 (2'41)
[09] 2005-07-10 (3'20)
[10] 2005-05-27 (2'35)
[11] 2005-06-17 (2'42)
[12] 2005-07-08 (2'43)
[13] 2005-07-29 (2'46)
[14] 2005-07-19 (2'48)
[15] 2005-07-20 (4'05)
[16] 2005-06-02 (2'35)
[17] 2005-07-26 (4'06)
[18] 2005-08-12 (3'28)
[19] 2005-07-28 (3'22)
[20] 2005-08-19 (3'27)
total: 62'57

Listen to a 45 second soundfile of this release (~80kB).

Musique concrète, elektronische Musik, soundscapes, noise music - Frank Niehusmann hat eine Software entwickelt, die es ihm ermöglicht, unterschiedlichste Klänge und Geräusche aus seinem umfangreichen Archiv "live" mit der Computer-Tastatur zu steuern. In mehreren parallel kreisenden Tonspuren positioniert er damit präzise Klang-Schnitte und sinfonische Geräusch-Kombinationen zu komplexen rhythmischen Formationen. Die Titel der "Day Tracks" geben Jahr, Monat und Tag ihrer Entstehung an.

Musique concrète, elektronische Musik, soundscapes, noise music - Frank Niehusmann developed a software which enables him to control "live" all kinds of sounds and noises from his extensive archives through the computer keyboard. In several parallel rotating soundtracks he arranges precise sound cuts and symphonic noise combinations into complex rhythmic formations. The titles of the "Day Tracks" indicate year, month and day of the compositions.

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

The German composer Frank Niehusmann decided to go in the studio last summer to record one track on a daily basis. He did this in a srt of live session, without overdubs or multitracking. By means of eleven samples, collected during field recordings and experiments in his studio, Frank Niehusmann created pieces built upon amazing combinations of sounds. During each track (most of them with a length between two and four minutes), lots of things happens. For instance sounds of water go together with heavy bangs, to be followed by a bypassing train and feedback noise. Each track offers plenty of action, due to a constant flow of new sound combinations. Twenty tracks in total, which leave the listener behind in a state of positive exhaustement.

Paul Bijlsma, Phosphor Magazine

When we first wrote about Frank Niehusmann (Vital Weekly 378), he released a CD of him using 'open reel analogue tape machines', which he used almost like a DJ. Things has been quiet in the meantime, but Niehusmann went entirely digital: he wrote a software program that enables to control live all sorts of sounds from his computer. Maybe he could have saved time, and buy something like Ableton Live or Audio Mulch, me thinks? His description of his self-built software sounds very much like something similar. Niehusmann's sound input is a wide variety of sounds, indoor as-well as outdoor, synthetic and drum computers, and also machine sounds. They are thrown into the blender that is the core of Niehusmann's music and cooked up into twenty small portions, and each of these portions are made in one go: no overdubs or multi-tracking. In each of the tracks things move up and down the granular scale, changing pitches, machines running amok, synthesizers moving about etc. It's a bit too much for me. In the end it's hard to see the difference between the various pieces and the trick is known after say ten tracks. It's worthwhile to select your own ten favorites and put them on your player, as it's hard to imagine anyone sitting through this in one go altogether. But there are certainly quite nice pieces to be detected around here. Look and you'll find.

Vital Weekly 510, Frans de Ward