AUGST & DAEMGEN (formely known as "arbeit" until 2010) / since 1998
Virtuoso mix of avant-garde pop and acoustic art (DeutschlandRadio)
Memory work far-removed from musical-linguistic rules'
(Frankfurter Rundschau)
Sense and nonsense flow together, electronic interference becomes a symphony of rustling, crackling and screeching
(Frankfurter Neue Presse)
Material from romantic music and literature, spoken rubbish of the group dynamic, contemporary self-finding seminars, personal memories, computer- generated sounds…exquisite!
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung)
Uncensored field of sound
(Bayrischer Rundfunk)
In the realm of symbols
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Important, contemporary, highly imaginative and brilliantly produced text and sound work
(DeutschlandRadio)
A cross between Udo Juergens, Iron Maiden and Christoph Schlingensief
(Stuttgarter Zeitung)
Submerged and highly processed vocals of Augst. If you're up for a challenging listen, look no further!
(Cadence)
You know all the patterns, but you have never heard them like this before. Distorted, blank, reduced and in each moment like created by irony,, fear, humour and melancholy – the ancient tradition of German songs … Mahler’s magic horn songs of 1892, Eisler’s New German folksongs of 1949 and Augst & Daemgen's "revised" German folk songs of 2001- all three are attempts to free the ordinary and the collective from aesthetic restriction. One thing is sure: the latest attempt has hit the mark exactly.
(Frankfurter Rundschau)
A radical deromanticisation
(WDR, Studio for Acoustic Art)
Meticulously calculated sound-track
(Bayrischer Rundfunk)
Virtuoso mix of avant-garde pop and acoustic art
(DeutschlandRadio)
Brillant
(az)
The link between commerce and acoustic art which moulds this concept album is deliberate and makes the outcome delightful. It stands out from the flood of traditional work in Brecht and Eisler’s anniversary year.
(Deutschland Radio)
The duo does not so much follow the old Brecht-Eisler-Diseuse tradition, but the Frankfurt trail specifically. After all, Heiner Goebbels and Alfred Harth got to grips with Brecht and Eisler in a big way in "Four Fists for Hanns Eisler" several years ago. Augst/Daemgen carry on in this tradition and take the work in a new direction at the same time.
(Frankfurter Rundschau)
Avant-garde U-music with electronically reinforced hooks, which is catapulting a supposedly dusty duo (Brecht/Eisler) to the forefront of the digital age.
(Kultur News)
The experience gives us a subtly arranged song cycle which is in keeping with the times, free from nostalgia and full of unfettered "utopian power" and sensuality. Wonderful.
(Journal Frankfurt)
The new interpretation has something chanson-like about it with all the sentimental impact of that genre, bathe have come to terms with the fact that this can tend towards trivialisation. There is a yearning for positive utopia which is removed from but at the same time reminiscent of protest songs of the sixties and seventies, distanced by the new digital and modern technical possibilities of the generation and processing of sound.
(Sender Freies Berlin)
One of the trio’s points of reference of is the work that Heiner Goebbels and Alfred Harth did on the same theme with some of the same materials at the start of the 80s. It is also a synthesis of Brecht and Eisler’s last material in the form of today's pop music. Once again it becomes clear that Brecht and Eisler fit so well with the trash culture of today.
(WDR)
Paradoxically they cover the way that the "artless" singing makes high art possible and a sparing, well thought-out instrumentation allows a lot of spaces of sound and expressive arrangements to come into being.
(Dreigroschenheft)
The result is a music far-removed from well-worn new-music sound, it is a free-associative journey on an uncensored plain of sound. This experimental style is perhaps closer to Eisler than the material itself. He manifests himself in a musical curiosity that creates a new vision … a constant fusion of contrasting pieces, which form amazingly consistent structures and a higher sensuousness.
(Bayrischer Rundfunk)
The work on Eisler does not aim to be an objective picture of the composer as a historical figure, but a fully-formed entity, and the contributions are not meant to make up a collection of separate pieces, but rather a single piece of gold. The wonderful thing is that it works. Anyone who identifies with Eisler and brings some knowledge about him to the evening will sense his presence: it sparkles.
(Frankfurter Rundschau)
The five move in the realm of symbols; they create their universe of sound under a glass bell in which each tone split up many times echoes back to the place of its conception, erases it and makes it unrecognisable. Their sounds, which are sometimes reminiscent of concrete music with horn-sounding and traffic noise, otherwise play more with memories and resonances than recognisable quotations …Hanns Eisler, his music and his time are constant throughout the evening without being concretely identifiable.
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
It is not just about Eisler but also the theoretical correlation, which reaches from the classical to his socialist contemporaries, about the ueber Eisler if you like. The play does not try to over-expose this link, but it is always present, represented by the repetitions, the hard, distorted voices shouting again and again "Workers’ revolt, working world, working classes…". But they no longer constitute a projection surface . The questions, and not just the melancholic ones, are directed at a void; they not only remain unanswered – they become increasingly unanswerable.
(Jungle world)
A remarkable piece.
(Epd medien)
And sometimes questions suddenly appear: "Was that a cry of horror when you heard that your friends are slowly being butchered?" All this happens in the form of a superior, perfectly - structured dramatic use of silence and by electronic interference and alienating sound effects which manufacture a sense of distance.
(Frankfurter Rundschau)
The third is the perspective of both authors on Eisler in a blurred relationship, a distance, which at the same time creates a subjective closeness because it does not aim to "reconstruct" or "objectify", but shows the empty spaces. The story is not told in the linear form of a biography, but through the use of fractured pieces, time - leaps, superimposition, and reversion the possible story of a "different" Eisler is told, an Eisler looked back on from another age, adopted by a "distant" generation.
(Dreigroschenheft)
"The song is the focus" by Hanno Ehrler (DLF):
Like the core of an atom which every thing else revolves around the song as such represents the centre of all creative activities, and fascinates the duo to the outmost. The song pictures the initial point of the projects, and the work space for extended creativity in terms of composing. It also serves as a formal pattern that is used to embed the musical results.
The tight connection to the popular and to a high degree traditional art form in no way means that the duo from Frankfurt is moving around within the boarders of a conventional, familiar or simply entertaining territory – on the contrary: The musicians take all freedom of modern composing into account. This can be for instance the option not only to use modern, contemporary tunes, but any available material, including folk songs, “Schlager” (genre of German pop songs), or an art song. These songs are either implemented like a kind of quotation or as rearranged sound fragments. In this way the original context of the song blurs and opens itself to new interpretation and new ways of composing and rearranging the tune of the title, the harmony, or even the impression.
For their projects the duo picks out special themes that can be found in their source songs. Only those subjects are selected which in the duo’s opinion are relevant today:
They use German folk songs to digest the field of “Heimat” (“home”). Hereby they make their contribution to the public dispute over this subject, which is determined by debates about patriotism, discussions on a film by Edgar Reitz with the title “Heimat”, and much more.
Under the headline “Marx”, the duo tracked down and studied socialistic and propagandistic songs to reflect the idea of communism, which apparently is falling apart a decade after the Fall of the Wall. This and all other themes have a socio-political character. The artists work on the blimpish or progressive, the dogmatic or utopistic content of the respective songs. They project it onto today’s society and incorporate their personal experiences. Concerning the “Marx” project this process led to a panorama of a satirical GDR (German Democratic Republic) nostalgia, criticism of socialism and sentimental contemplation of one’s own teenage utopia. This panorama is determined by a kaleidoscopic complexity with strictly educational qualities.
The work of the duo is based on a close connection between content and music. The artists choose a subject, to which they devote themselves for a while. Investigating the chosen topic in detail, every member handles the accumulated material including text samples, references, and sounds by himself. The result of this process - comprising individual creation of variations, collages and tones - is an evolving pool of material which becomes the heart of exchange and improvising, and leads to the “final products”. Thereby, the artists tear down the boarders of the concept of “work”. It is all work in progress: Every step is followed by another step, but the individual methods of realization differ from one another.
The musicians of “arbeit” form a duo, but at the same time they see themselves as individuals. This balancing act provides them with their creative tension. Regarding the matter of esthetical sound qualities, there are elements all duo members prefer likewise, for example the excessive use of noisy, electronic distorted sounds such as crackling, clicking and rustling. What they do not share are their preferences for special working methods and types of music. The latter covers almost everything from popular tunes and melodic vocal elements to radical noise experiments that are made use of in a quotation-like way.
Breaking with the restricted options that the term “song” – at first sight - offers concerning its connotation, the duo from Frankfurt and its unique working field of sound redefines the genre in a modern and fresh way.
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