German experimental jazz-electronica group characterised by soothing, throbbing soundscapes (the band name translates as 'Ventricular Fibrillation Collective') accented with disjointed sounds played by instruments such as the saxophone. Although the fragile rhythms draw heavily from free-jazz improvisation the final overall effect is closer to ambient electronica.
The Story so far...
It all began in a bright storage room of the Upper-Rhenish poet’s museum in Karlsruhe in the mid-nineties: With old-skool equipment and an overdose of FMP & Wu-Tang, the first sketches of what would later be released under the nom-de-guerre "Kammerflimmer Kollektief" were conceived. I felt like a group of one. The resource as well as the raw material was my record collection; the result appeared in 1999 under the titled Mäander on the Weilheim-based payola-label. A simulation of jazz with pop appeal (melodies!). "Instrumental drones & central European freakouts on violins and reeds. A kind of European down home NoWave" was what Matt ffytche in The Wire called it.
At first, a live realisation seemed unthinkable. As it happened, the people necessary for such an undertaking gravitated towards the Kollektief in a very short time and without having been summoned. They were Johannes Frisch on the double bass; Dietrich Foth on a variety of saxophones; Heike Wendelin on the violin; Michael Ströder on drums and Anne Vortisch at the synthesizer. The tracks of the first album were the point of departure for our joint excursion; the result was a concert tour and a huge and wild chaos, which in turn was documented at the Uphon Studio in Weilheim and released as a CD (Incommunicado, 2000, again on payola). It included "Venti Latir", our version of a song by Robert Wyatt, one of our great heroes and: one of the greatest soul singers ever. "Music is a chance for self development. It‘s another life, in which it‘s easier to develop the art of giving" - which is how John Stevens put it in the liner notes for Karyobin, the epoch-making first LP of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble from 1968. Felix Klopotek in German music magazine Spex, said it thus: "Listening to this music, it seems that free jazz as being played by, say, Pharaoh Sanders and Cecil McBee in 1969 has been put into a context where it meets and mingles with pop and electronics with consistency and effortlessness."
Mp3 | Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Uber die Wasserscheide
Mp3 | Kammerflimmer Kollektief - lichterloh
Video | Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Gras
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