Susanna Gartmayer & Christof Kurzmann - Smaller Sad [Klanggalerie]

Released only recently via the 1997 launched label Klanggalerie is "Smaller Sad", the very first collaborational album outing crafted and created by the two Austrian artists Susanna Gartmayer and Christof Kurzmann. Comprised of four tracks spread out over the course of 38 minutes we see Gartmayer combine the sound of her instrument of choice, the bass clarinet whose sound and sonic implications she has extensively explored throughout her career, with Kurzmann's take on rubber band playing and vocal techniques, opening with "Smaller Sad" which opens up the journey into a highly avantgardistic world with a short, Experimental Jazz-leaning intro followed by droning low end pulses in combination with bleeping computational signals and sparse, stripped down harmonic improvisations that could be best described as influenced by Jazz Noir with a deep melancholic late night twist. Following up is "Little Rage", a tune as yearning and seductive as the sirens in Greek mythology, pairing innate sadness with Kurzmann's well experimental take on multilayered, processed vocal performance and a heartbeat resembling pulse whilst "Dip" weighs in tender, somewhat subaquatic and minimalist Tribal percussions alongside, again, deep droning bass tones at the very end of the audible spectrum and looped, yearning background harmonies whereas the concluding, 16+ minutes long "Novi Sad" finally provides the nightliest, most Ambient-leaning intro sequence on this album, later on introducing busy, somewhat swampy and bubbling electronic background movements and elements of intense disharmonic off-kilter Avantgarde Jazz over the course of its playtime before turning into a highly intimate variation on Experimental Singer/Songwriter x PostFolk music. We're in for this.

Album artwork on Instagram!