A rereading of Kurt Schwitters' Dada sound poetry by vocalist, singer and composer Anna Clementi and sound researcher, producer and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Stern (Mona Mur / Einstürzende Neubauten).
The story of this record starts in 2011 on Anna Clementi's balcony in Rome. Her long time musical collaborator Thomas Stern is reading a poetry book by famous German MERZ/DADA-artist Kurt Schwitters (Ur-Sonate, Anna Blume) which belonged to Anna's father, Italian composer Aldo Clementi (1925-2011). Stern and Clementi are immediately attracted and fascinated by the power of the poetry. The poems in this book ignite the decade-long artistic research of the duo.
Since then, Anna Clementi has been working intensively with Thomas Stern to extract the sound from the poems of Kurt Schwitters.
In doing so, they maintain a fine line between being faithful to the original and radically cutting up the poems and integrating them into into contemporary electronic sounds. From pure poem recital, to walzer tunes, played on pots and pans, cut-up sound poetry eruptions to vintage analogue Space Echo rhythms, loops, synthesizers and even pop quotations, Clementi and Stern put their hands on the poetic foundations of 20th century modern art, extracting the spirit of Kurt Schwitters' "Merz-Gesamtweltbild" and moulding it into a sound poetry album.
Anna Clementi is a Berlin-based Swedish-Italian performer and vocal acrobat, an "actress of the voice." Through her ability to combine language(s), song, dance and acting, Clementi is considered a significant interpreter of contemporary compositions. During her decades spanning career, Anna Clementi has performed at the most important festivals, theater and opera houses, premiering numerous works, many of which have been composed especially for her (voice). Famed internationally for her interpretations of
John Cage pieces, she has also worked with composers such as Laura Bianchini, Emanuele Casale, Fast Forward, Christian Kesten, Alexander Kolkowski, Olga Neuwirth,
Phill Niblock, Daniel Ott, Josef Anton Riedl, Nicola Sani, Iris ter Schiphorst,
Dieter Schnebel, Die Maulwerker, Laurie Schwartz, Charlotte Seither, Elliott Sharp, Roberta Vacca and produced numerous releases a.o. with Steffen Schleiermacher (John Cage: Voice and Piano), Tosca (Dehli9), Phill Niblock (Zound Delta 2) and many more. Her repertoire moves between a wide variety of musical genres: experimental music, electronic, pop, jazz, sound poetry, cabaret, free improvisation. She is a member of the vocal group Voxnova Italia, of the ensemble European Music Project (EMP) and of the duo Divas Desviantes founded with Laurie Schwartz.
Anna Clementi is the daughter of Italian composer
Aldo Clementi (1925-2011).
Thomas Stern (born in Bremen) is a German musician, sound engineer and producer After running a P A Company and a sound studio distillery he defected to Berlin in the famous 1984. In 1986 he joined the band Mona Mur with Alex Hacke and F. M. Einheit from Einstürzende Neubauten,composing music and playing bass. His debut recordings were performed for their album Halber Mensch. Their collaboration continues to this decade touring with them as live sound engineer. Around 1987 he co-founded the Berlin set up of Crime and the City Solution (Simon Bonney, Bronwyn Adams, Mick Harvey, Chrislo Haas, Alex Hacke) composing music and playing bass. Crime toured Europe & the USA several times, releasing four albums with Mute Records. In 1992 they wrote and performed the song The Adversary for the Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World. Further film soundtracks followed. 1993 enjoyed the next Mute release Phew with Can drummer Jaki Liebe, Mick Harvey, Alex Hacke, Chrislo Haas and the Japanese singer Phew. In 1994 Stern designed, edited and executed digitally the entire soundtrack for the short film Das Loch, starring Otto Sander (Berlinale '95). After playing bass as a guest for the band Rausch, he adventured into the digital delightenment of Artificial Intelligents. This evolved into a series of radio plays, some performed live on air, with F. M. Einheit, Ulrike Haage and Katharina Franck.
