Berlin - Real Time Music

2016
20Hz / 2nd issue

What brought you to Berlin?
Each time someone asked me that question, I felt a bit confused and always failed to give a clear answer. I guess I didn't have any clear and concrete reason to come to Berlin at the time. In my student days, I visited New York several times. At the end, I was a bit disappointed because I realized NY had changed. The SoHo district, which was a place I admired, had turned into a fashionable and commercial area, and not the town of avant-gardists anymore, where Fluxus and other artists from the 60s to 70s were once active. I accepted the change as a matter of course. However, I could not stop feeling disappointed, as if I missed the train. After a while, in 1999, the February issue of the Japanese art magazine Bijutsu Techo caught my eye. The featuring title was "Berlin - The Last Utopia". I was stunned learning about the ruins and chaos of reconstruction after the demolition of the Berlin Wall, what is more, there were artists living in that chaos. It felt like I had rediscovered the place I had once longed for. Now I can say at least I know the prime incentive that caused me to come to Berlin. Perhaps I wanted to throw myself into the chaos of this city before I missed out on it.

Let's briefly look back into the history of Berlin after the fall of the wall. It fell in 1989, and East and West Germany reunified the next year. After that, many artists and musicians from within Germany and other countries gathered here. Most of them chose the Mitte District, which was full of ruins back then, to open their ateliers, alternative spaces, galleries, concert spaces, bars and clubs. It was very common for artists to illegally squat in buildings back then. Try searching the words "besetztes haus berlin", and you'll probably be able to get a glimpse of how it was back then (it was still like that everywhere when I came in 2003). In 1998 Berlin started advertising its culture to the world, holding the first Berlin Bienniale. This new movement grew rapidly and got sophisticated, repeating a resistance and a transformation against the wave of capitalism during the chaos caused by the collapse of communism. Besides, if you want to know about the music scene in Berlin, there is a collection of great interviews with Toshimaru Nakamura , who has constantly been visiting Berlin since the 1990s and has strong ties with Berlin based musicians. Please see the Improvised Music from Japan EXTRA 2006. In addition, I recommend you another book whose title is echtzeitmusik berlin -selbstbestimmug einer szene published by Wolke in 2011 (English/German). If you are interested in the music scene of Berlin, this book is well worth reading, and gives you comprehensive information. Well, I will stop reviewing the past here and start introducing you to the current situation by centering around the book Echtzeitmusik mentioned above. Let's first visit this site.

Echtzeitmusik
This site posts a lot of information about improvised and experimental music concerts held in Berlin. Throughout many years it was almost the only resource available for the audience to get that kind of information, while organizers, venues, performers advertised their events on this site. The original purpose of this site was to prevent organizers from scrambling for the small number of audience and guide them not to hold their concerts on the same day. However, nowadays 5 or 6 concerts are often held simultaneously on weekend evenings. This means that during the past 10 years, the number of spaces, musicians and audience has increased that much (though there's sometimes an audience less than 10 people). In addition to this site, Facebook has also become an important tool in recent years. If you are connected to many people that live in Berlin, you will probably be receiving invitations for events every day. Furthermore, a lot of invitations for private events held on an irregular basis at homes or in a studio are sent out by e-mail. In short, there is too much information to follow.
By the way, Echtzeit in German means "Real-Time". Its not a particular genre of music, but rather a generic name of the real-time, parallel music scene of Berlin where improvised music, free jazz, new music, experimental music, sound art and other types of music go on at the same time (it is different from the club scene that mainly plays techno-music). The word also means the movement itself. The players, places and all related things inter-connect in real time, and create one active movement. In other words, the whole city of Berlin is one large space for social contact and experiments. Musicians get to know each other in this city, and then invite eachother to do sessions, recordings or collaborations. Through this process, new works are being created one after another.

Labor Sonor and ausland
In addition to many spaces introduced in the site Echtzeitmusik (some spaces no longer exist), there are still a number of other venues in Berlin. While some places already stand as long-established venues, there are a countless number of spaces that have just started up. Some of them remain for a long time, and others close after a few years for many different reasons. Looking at Berlin over a span of two or three years, its like seeing mushrooms rapidly growing and then suddenly disappearing. Berlin is still a place where people can start up new things without a management policy and strategy if they have inspiration and passion. Among many spaces, I would like to introduce two spaces I chose arbitrarily and from personal strong feelings.
Labor Sonor Once a month from the year 2000, Labor Sonor has been held at the venue Kunsthaus Kule on Monday nights. Labor Sonor is the name of a concert series, but in Berlin's music scene, Labor Sonor and Kule have such a strong connection that when someone talks about Labor Sonar they must mention Kule, and if someone talks about Kule they must mention Labor Sonar. This venue is located in August Street (Auguststraße), which has become the main street for galleries after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It all started out when art school students began to squat around there. Even though the neighborhood has turned in to a tourist area, this venue is in one of the few buildings that preserve a remnant of that era. Now it is renovated to meet certain laws, and functions as a studio and residence for artists besides being a place for events.

Recently, I appeared in this series for the first time in a while. It was surprising to see that the outside wall that was once covered by graffiti was repainted and clean, and the lobby illuminated by fluorescent lamps was shining so white that it dazzled my eyes. The young generation that currently live in Kule seem to prefer a nice and clean space. Personally, I miss the previous messy decorations hanging down at the bar, so its kind of a pity... Although this series is held on Monday nights, it attracts a large audience because its also an opportunity for musicians and the regular audience of this series to socialize. After several shifts of members, currently Labor Sonor is organized and managed by five members, who are all musicians and performers very successful at the forefront; Christian Kesten, Andrea Neumann, Arthur Rother, Derek Shirley and Fernanda Farah. What I like about this series is that just before the performance starts, the managing members close the bar, lock the entrance, carry in the cash box and listen to the concert with all ears along with the audience. For them, music is both something to perform and to listen. I have an impression that they respect the musicians they invite, and have a sincere attitude to learn from their performances. This series receives a grant from Berlin city. In my opinion it is good that a small but long-lasting project like this concert series can receive support. However, I am a bit concerened because in 2016, they were only able to hold a concert once in two months because of budget limits. After a concert, I talked with Burkhard Beins who came to see the show, while having a glass of beer together. He is one of the editors of the book Echtzeitmusik Berlin I introduced earlier. He was born in Lower Saxony and has been living in Berlin from 1995. He is also one of the living witnesses of the earliest scenes of Echtzeitmusik from its birth. According to him, he chose to come to Berlin from the same reason as others; many of his friends invited him to come live in Berlin, and the rent was also very low. In our conversation, we both agreed that Berlin might loose its atmosphere of freedom because of the recent rise of rent and retail price, and also the increase of crimerate, meaning that Berlin, which was once like a village is now urbanizing, and truely turning in to a city. However, at the end he said, "It will still be okay. Berlin is a good city." and laughed.

ausland
This is a symbolic space of Echtzeitmusik, which is in the Prenzlauer Berg district. It's one of the most familiar and important spaces to me. The German word "ausland" means "a foreign country". It is the entrance to "an exotic land" that was made after the wall collapsed, and Berlin no longer was an isolated land. It was originally an underground club called "Lychi 60" that began in 1991 (they were actually in a basement). Lychi 60 was forced to close down in 1998 due to noise problems, but the founding members such as Gregor Hotz equipped it with soundproofing and restarted it as ausland after legally approving it.
Recalling the past, the first concert I saw after coming to Berlin was a duo performance of Ignaz Schick and Thomas Ankerschmit at ausland. I remember that I went there 10 minutes before the announced time, but there was no one except for me, and I felt anxious and dissatisfied because the concert was unlikely to start. About an hour later, people gradually showed up and then they started to collect admission fee. They marked me using a strange stamp on the back of my hand. After a while, a man that had been drinking and talking to people next to the bar counter the whole time went up to the stage slowly and started playing. Some call it "Berlin Time". It was the first time I experienced the unpunctuallity particular to this city. If you go to a venue at the announced time like I did, you usually feel like a fool. The audience comes late because they are used to this, and the players and organizers will wait forever until they come. This is why it never starts on time. As a matter of course, the closing time delays too, and concerts often end sometime around midnight. But there is no need to go home in a hurry due to the convenient transportation situation in Berlin. On Friday, Saturday and the day before a public holiday, public transportation runs until the next morning. Even on weekdays, you can use a night bus which runs every 30 minutes for regular charges, so you are able reach home in some way. In summer it is also good to ride a bicycle. I recommend you to experience (and enjoy) this Berlin Time every now and then, because it also functions as an opportunity for social contact.

By the way, eight years later, in December 2011, me and Ignaz planned and organized a concert named Cage Test at ausland. This concert dealt with works of John Cage, especially ones dealing with electronics from the 60s. After I arrived to Berlin and met and heard the music of many artists, I noticed that some of them were practicing music that reminded me about Cage, even though they did not know much about his work. For the better or for the worse, I was influenced by the work of Cage when I was a teenager, but for them, in some sence Cage didn't matter at all. That's why I thought it might be interesting to have them perform some pieces of Cage. To realize this idea, we made our efforts step by step, searching for scores, holding workshops about how to read the scores, and also arguing with each other. Cage's work was fresh and stimulating for us. As a result, this concert, the last concert in 2011 at ausland, attracted the most audience in that year, and I am confident that the concert itself was also interesting enough to meet with that result. I cannot thank enough to Ian Douglas-Moore and the other staff of ausland. Personally, I was very satisfied with the accomplishment that I made by planning this event with the friends I met in Berlin, and at the place that I first came to see a concert after moving here. Although it is a digression, the 17th of December, which is the date that this concert was held, happened to be the same date of when I arrived in Germany in 2002, 8 years before that.

Even now I am not sure why I decided to come to Berlin. But I am getting to understand why I continue to live here for such a long time as I write this article. Berlin is a place that accepts anyone to be a part of it, and I was also accepted by this city.
Even today, many artists play real time sounds at many different places in this large experiment station called Berlin. There are still many interesting spaces, events and people in Berlin. If I have another chance, I would like to introduce more to you.

Seiji Morimoto- Artist
Seiji Morimoto is mainly a performer and an installation artist that uses sound as his medium. Based in Berlin, he participates and submits works to festivals and exhibitions all around Europe and Japan. As a performer, he has collaborated with many artists from around the world. He lives in Berlin from the year 2003.
translation-support: Makoto Oshiro