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David Helbock: Aural Colors

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Traumton Records
Released: 2015.01.30
Time:
 45:32
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): David Helbock
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.davidhelbock.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Yellow Meets Red (David Helbock) - 6:36
[2] Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op.19, Nr. IV (Arnold Schönberg) - 3:25
[3] Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19, Nr. III (Arnold Schönberg) - 4:06
[4] Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19, Nr. II (Arnold Schönberg) - 4:53
[5] Öpfili, Bist So Kugelrund (Bruno Wiederin) - 5:48
[6] Intro To The Myths (David Helbock) - 2:44
[7] Horus And Jesus (David Helbock) - 6:45
[8] AM – Anonymous Monkaholics (David Helbock) - 4:02
[9] Virus Ukulelen Song (David Helbock) - 3:06
[10] Healing Colors (David Helbock) - 4:20
[11] Para Hermeto (David Helbock) - 4:49

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


David Helbock - Piano, Arrangements on [2-5], Producer
Herbert Pirker - Drums
Raphael Preuschl - Bass Ukulele

Martin Offik - Recording Engineer, Mixing
Wolfgang Loos - Mastering
Lucas Dietrich - Graphic Design
Bettina Frenzel - Photography
Wilfried Rameder - Cover Painting

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2015 CD Traumton Records – Traumton 4615

Recorded & mixed at Traumton Studios, Berlin, June 2014. Mastered at Traumton Studios, Berlin, October 2014.



“It is a luxury, to be able to perform and develop pieces for some time before recording them”, David Helbock asserts happily. He met the partners for his most recent album, the two Viennese Raphael Preuschl and Herbert Pirker, back in 2010 when he moved from his old home Vorarlberg to the Austrian capital. “The two are very active in various formations and have been a well attuned rhythm section since 15 years”, Helbock says, “their playing goes perfectly with my compositions.”

In these years since 2010 the multi-award-winning 30-year old pianist created an international stir first and foremost with his non-conformist trio Random/Control. Its highly concentrated use of diverse brass and woodwind instruments presented and presents itself thus far on two albums and in many concerts as a virtuoso, witty anomaly. Helbock’s current trio shows unconventional and humorous facets as well. Raphael Preuschl (*1977) is not plucking a double bass or an electric bass, but a bass ukulele. „It sounds very loud and percussive, in some way quite African, which suits my music well“, Helbock explains happily. Herbert Pirker (*1981) plays his drums accordingly dynamical, sometimes almost eruptive. In lyrical passages highly sensitive, in fast moments with pronounced energy and hard beats that almost resemble rock esthetics. Pirker works with jazz-players (e.g. Louis Sclavis) as well as with pop bands, for example with the rapper Fiva alias Nina Sonnenberg from Munich. He is certainly not a quiet drummer; his powerful entries accentuate the occasionally ragged charm of Helbock’s pieces.

Before the trio went to the Berliner “Traumton Studio” the musicians were touring all around the globe. They gave a guest performance in Mexico, toured through Australia, played in the Czech Republic and in Morocco, amazed audiences in Kuala Lumpur, Addis Ababa and Vladivostok. In this way the intuitive accordance grew, from which they benefited during the recording. “We were playing in one room without headphones and afterwards neither cuts nor overdubs were done”, Helbock describes the creative and lively atmosphere in the studio. The fun the trio was having is also apparent on the CD, especially because Martin Offik’s production captures the intensity of the moment and gives a feeling of immediate closeness.

“I like playing with different projects, to avoid falling into a routine”, David Helbock says, “but the duo with Simon Frick and even more so Random/Control are rather work-intensive. Thus my desire to put together an uncomplicated band grew.” Thereby Helbock does not mean the music itself. “The pieces of the new album are hardly less complex and we also have a few older, rearranged compositions in our repertoire”, the now Berlin-based key-magician sums up. “But the denseness of events is less. Through more transparent arrangements the focus is more on the music.”

The trio purposefully thinned out the instrumentation more and more. Raphael Preuschl at some point concentrated entirely on the bass-ukulele and David Helbock left out all keyboards and electronics. “For a while I was looking for new sounds and tried out many things. Ultimately though, I came to the conclusion that I can create more interesting sounds by manipulating the strings of the piano”, David Helbock describes his current focus on the mechanical possibilities of the grand piano. Preparing the piano has been generally common since John Cage, Helbock however is more inspired by George Crumb’s ideas. “I only use manipulations that I can remove again quickly”, he explains, “and when I pluck strings by hand or strum chords on them, I mark exactly in advance in what spots I get a certain sound.” So when Helbock reaches into the interior of the piano, he outgoes the traditional level of spontaneous improvisation and aleatorics and rather makes this action a cleverly devised part of his composition.

Of course improvisation happens nonetheless. For example in the late-romantic sounding introduction to “Horus and Jesus”, which Helbock plays without accompaniment, and likewise in his transcendation into three Schönberg variations on the current album. “About two years ago we were invited to the Outreach Festival in Tirol, where Schönberg was the topic. There was an exchange of letters between Schönberg and Kandinsky and I decided to improvise about Kandinsky’s pictures”, David Helbock outlines the story behind these three variations. “Of course I could just play a jazz-solo after the main theme, but I find that dull”, Helbock describes his aspiration, “so I try to continue Schönberg’s motifs in his style.” In this way David Helbock’s touch mutates the classic into a timeless game of deception, in which even reminiscences of blues can flash up.

Also “Öpfili”, already known from Random/Control, experienced a form of transformation. Its main melody is rooted in folk music; its crazy, driving groove comes from Helbock though. He also makes reference to his all-time heroes Hermeto Pascoal and Thelonius Monk again, to each with self-composed pieces. “Even though there are also other musicians that amaze me for shorter times, I always come back to Monk and Pascoal, because they both stayed true to their own thing so consequently.” Pascoal’s unconditional devotion fascinates Helbock, just like Monk’s individual style, “Unifying composition and improvisation instead of isolating them as in the old style.”  Artistic decisiveness is unquestionably also a trait of David Helbock’s character. In every new production the variable virtuoso surprises with personal ideas, thumbs his nose at the Zeitgeist and exhibits impressive profile.

© Traumton 1998 - 2015



...The David Helbock Trio is full of tricks...But this isn´t really a gimmicky show. In fact, when Helbock shifts from frantic virtuosity to lyrical expansiveness the true mettle of his technique and musicality can be seen...

David Washington - InDaily Australia



OK, you got me: What is a “bass ukulele”?  Raphael Preuschl plays it under the leadership of pianist David Halbock’s trio along with Herber Pirker on this collection of tunes that combines originals with pieces by Arnold Schonberg under the leader’s arrangement. You get an interesting mix here, not in the traditional feel of a piano trio, nor even in the feel of modern leaders such as Brad Mehldau or The Bad Plus.

They definitely have their own sound. Helbock likes to toy with the piano strings as on “Yellow Meets Red” while Pirker leans toward a funky groove, both here and on “Virus Ukulelen Song.”Preuschl does some nice riffing on “Opfili, Bist So Kugelrund” and all get  playful on “Sechs Klein Klavierstucke Op 19. Nr. IV.” Helbock’s touch is quite versatile , going angular and Monkishly askance on “AM.” And prancing daintily like Eric Satie on “Healing Colors.” The most impressive is when they all go a bit dreamy on “Intro to Myths” which eventually builds to a nice rich wave of wonder. A nice mix of mirth and mayhem.

George W. Harris • March 12, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Jazz Weekly



The set-up here is letter perfect for what's being done: just piano, bass (and occasional ukelele…!), and drums, allowing tons of space for the trinity to get their groove on while sitting vividly in wide open spaces (Marton Offik engineered the gig like a Kurosawa movie, simultaneously open to the skies while so compressed so that not a note is a micron out of focus). Yellow Meets Red opens the date and is a constantly moving signature, piano dominant but with a upwelling bass going almost solo athwart ceaseless drumwork…and, man, that ending! Then comes the Schoenberg Meets Kandinsky Suite (though the CD cover actually more indicates Mondrian in a color wheel, as does the angularity of the music) in three movements, a good deal more fragmentary yet always mindful of the melody, as abstract as even that is.

Op. 19, No. 3 contains marvelous, even daring, negative spaces within a cerebrally loungey ambience you'd never have heard from Schoenberg's pen, yet Helbock knows just what he's doing, a prolific and depth-oriented composer (he published a 600-page book of music and in 2009 wrote a song a day), and so he carries things over to the next movement, albeit a bit more meatily and with sass. The main voice throughout of course is Helbock's, and the guy's inventive as hell, but Raphael Preuschl (bass) and Herbert Pirker (drums) were well appointed, their work more like two painters constantly limning in the dimensions surrounding the main man.

Aural Colors is jazz, avant-garde, neoclassical, serial caprriccio, and maybe even an unidentifiable mode or two, all in one, Virus Ukelelen Song a spirited example, Preuschl sounding like Percy Jones as Helbock meanders all over the place, Pirker keeping everything centered in a home environment they always return to. AM - Anonymous Monkaholics is just as delirious' as it should be, given the hilarious title, but with a broad humor to it. I suspect the ensemble had the most fun with this one, they couldn't help but!, as it blends carny sideshow with midway promenade and speakeasy antics, even flashes of Guaraldi. There's a lot to hear here, so I suggest you dig a trench, hunker down, and let everything wash over you. It's not like you have a choice, these guys are

Mark S. Tucker
Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange



When David Helbock’s Random Control made Think of Two that album was so angularly brilliant that it seemed hard to imagine how Mr. Helbock could surpass the creativity and dynamic energy of that album. However, with Aural Colors he has done just that. His new Trio is but another extension of the extraordinary musician leading to the belief that the chameleonic pianist might have much more up his sleeve. The quality of his playing is altogether exceptional. Pianist David Helbock takes nothing for granted. Nor should we in listening to him. He is as irreverent, yet as ingenious as Cecil Taylor is: wildly idiosyncratic and provocatively iconoclastic. It is as if the spirit of his more illustrious countryman, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were reborn in him. Even with his own compositions he plainly understands that every interpretation is just one possibility, and he offers us a very enticing opportunity to open our minds, especially in those charts we came to be familiar with from Think of Two: “Para Hermeto,” for instance.

David-Helbock-Trio-Aural-Colors-cover-fnlSome, like me, may become wide-eyed by Mr. Helbock’s utter disregard for convention. But then that can also be an amazing characteristic of this delightfully impertinent and enchanting musician. He gives us all a feeling of rush, and unexpected revelations also abound. In the embedded minimalism and aristocratic elegance of the “Schönberg meets Kandinsky Suite,” any other pianist would be spare and perhaps even repetitious to a fault, but David Helbock takes us into another world. It is full of glittering lights, mysterious depths and expectations, like the shattered shadows of a sinister quasi-Schönberg glimpsed in the magnificent moonlight of Kandinsky in a forest of a myriad of aural colour. The sheer colour and variety of the aural colors of the title as well as infinitely more than that in the depth of characterisation both extraordinary men. Here is where we also encounter the exceptional range and refinement of Mr. Helbock’s pianism. The pianist imparts a power and monumental stature to the surrounding rhapsody of the piece.

The surprise and variety of stylishness of the rest of the programme is matched by the performances not only of Mr. Helbock, but also the drummer Herbert Pirker and the extraordinary bassukuele player, Raphael Preuschl. David Helbock brings an effortless Monkish angularity and lyricism to the pieces he has composed. His partners in crime in the trio do likewise. It seems so easy because the music is as seductive as the musicians are compelling. More than anything, David Helbock provides an object lesson in the very essence of style. He plays his music with buoyant, aristocratic grace and psychological ambiguity, and he is (rightly) almost insolently effortless as he brings a debonair virtuosity and swagger and a sassy swing to his music. Many of the compositions lend themselves to this kind of treat as they are—and we must highlight “Para Hermeto” once again—virtuosic, goblinesque and ravishingly beautiful. All in all, this is a record that many musicians would give an arm and a leg to make.

Raul da Gama - Feb 16, 2015
© 2014-2015 Jazz Global Media Network



Seit 2010 sorgte der vielfach ausgezeichnete österreichische Pianist David Helbock vor allem mit seinem nonkonformistischen Trio Random / Control international für Aufsehen. Auch Helbocks aktuelles Trio zeigt unkonventionelle und humorvolle Facetten. Raphael Preuschl zupft nicht etwa Kontra- oder E-Bass, sondern eine Bass-Ukulele. »Sie klingt sehr laut und perkussiv, in gewisser Weise recht afrikanisch, was gut zu meiner Musik passt«, freut sich David Helbock. Entsprechend dynamisch, mitunter beinahe eruptiv spielt Herbert Pirker sein Schlagzeug. In lyrischen Passagen ausgesprochen sensibel, in schnellen Momenten mit pointierter Energie und harten Beats, die sich fast schon einer Rock-Ästhetik nähern. Bevor das Trio ins Berliner Traumton-Studio ging, waren die Musiker rund um den Globus unterwegs, so wuchs das intuitive Einverständnis, das ihnen während der Aufnahmen hörbar zugutekam.

JPC.de



»Von den virtuos musikalischen Möglichkeiten her gesehen ist dieses Trio ... voll auf der Höhe.«

Fono Forum, Februar 2015



... gut aufeinander eingespielt, legen die drei Musiker mit ›Aural Colors‹ ein Album vor, das die Klischees der Gattung Jazz-Piano-Trio weit hinter sich lässt.

Jazzthing, Februar / März 2015
 

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