SASCHA DEMAND – Plakation
(Creative Sources)
While the CD cover is adorned with intriguing drawings by the artist, halfway through hieroglyphical writing and complex mathematical formulas, the musical matter of “Plakation” is a series of short improvised studies on the resonance of electric guitar, which Demand plucks and strikes with hands or sticks to raise minuscule tempests of harmonics, humming grumbles, pretty elegant buzzes and distortions. Each idea is tackled by repeating it two/three times, usually amidst a complete silence rarely enhanced by the cable and/or pickup hiss. This boney minimalism spans through many fields of similarity – Oren Ambarchi, Fred Frith, Arek Gulbenkoglu are three names that came to my mind; also, Robert Hampson’s ghost is evoked in the most spellbinding moments – yet the electric ripples and volume swells generated by Sascha’s instrument tell a few stories of solitary experimentation whose incubative intensity does not require shouting or making noise to be conveniently adapted to our rational needs.
"With this disc Creative Sources present a solo-work for electric guitar, by an unknown player/composer. For those who know this label it is clear that we are in the zen department of improvised music. Music that concentrates on sound in a non-rhetoric, ego-less way, often very near to silence. This is also the case for this album. Demand is one of those musicians who work as a performer of serious modern composed music on the hand, but develop themselves as improvisers, or better in the case of Demand, as a conceptual artist. With Boris D. Hegenbart he forms the duo 9khz, who have a cd out on Bottrop-Boy. With sound-artist Ralf Kleinemas he made an album for Nurnichtnur. On his solo album 'Plakation' Sascha Demand plays 39 miniature compositions in 55 minutes, only a few lasting longer then 2 minutes. In it's totality the make up a mosaic of small, slightly different sound-paintings. Minimalist and sparse pieces on timbre and texture and sound. They were recorded at her home in Hamburg in the spring of 2005. Demand makes use of unusual guitar techniques."-Dolf Mulder (Vital)
"With this disc Creative Sources present a solo-work for electric guitar, by an unknown player/composer. For those who know this label it is clear that we are in the zen department of improvised music. Music that concentrates on sound in a non-rhetoric, ego-less way, often very near to silence. This is also the case for this album. Demand is one of those musicians who work as a performer of serious modern composed music on the hand, but develop themselves as improvisers, or better in the case of Demand, as a conceptual artist. With Boris D. Hegenbart he forms the duo 9khz, who have a cd out on Bottrop-Boy. With sound-artist Ralf Kleinemas he made an album for Nurnichtnur. On his solo album 'Plakation' Sascha Demand plays 39 miniature compositions in 55 minutes, only a few lasting longer then 2 minutes. In it's totality the make up a mosaic of small, slightly different sound-paintings. Minimalist and sparse pieces on timbre and texture and sound. They were recorded at her home in Hamburg in the spring of 2005. Demand makes use of unusual guitar techniques."-Dolf Mulder (Vital)