Reviews

Aus Zeitungsberichten über die damaligen Konzerte:
...den interessantesten Beitrag lieferte die kleinste Formation ... ein Zusammentreffen, das zur vermutlich kreativsten Dreiviertelstunde der gesamten Jazzwoche geriet, ein fasizinierendes Erlebnis mit der Spannung des Ungewissen und der Ueberraschung des Unerwarteten. (Albrecht Gasteiner, Basler Zeitung 1981)
... umspannten mit ihren feinen Klanggemälden verschiedenste Arten von Phantasiegebilden und ermöglichten den spannenden Einblick in neue Sphären. (Peter Niederhäuser, 1983)

"Albert Mangelsdorff entdeckte mit dem Quartett "Movin'on" dem Publikum eine ganz neue musikalische Welt. Die vier Musiker und Zukunftsforscher entwickeln und vermessen die Welt des Jazz neu - und bleiben dem suchenden Geist der 60er Jahre treu" (Göttingen, 13.11.2000)

"Und dass ausgerechnet der älteste Jazzer mit das "modernste" Programm spielte, war auch bemerkenswert. Sehenswert vor allem die Motorik des Saxofonisten Bruno Spoerri, der die Computertechnik per Bewegung steuerte sowie die rhythmischen Finessen des Perkussionisten Reto Weber. "Shake, shuttle and blow" - sphärische Klänge, aufregende Sounds und treibende Rhythmen - ein tolles Konzert vor einem begeisterten, teilweise geradezu andächtig lauschenden Publikum." (Hessisch-Nieders. Allgemeine, 14.11.2000)

Jazz quartet 'movin' on' offers finely played straight ahead jazz with a difference: saxophonist Bruno Spoerri's computer-assisted playing. Spoerri, an excellent player in the conventional sense, utilizes David Rokeby's 'very nervous system' (which generates control data by means of a video camera interpreting Spoerri's physical gestures) to trigger and play musical patterns, rhythms and textures. The results add a canvas of textural sound and machine-like rhythms. Spoerri also plays a MIDI wind controller, the 'synthophone', offering an additional type of timbre to his sound repertoire. The quartet also features highly regarded trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, known from the European art music and avant garde jazz scene. Reto Weber's non-western hand drums supplement keenly played traps, adding spice to the group's sound mix, rounded out by the skillful playing of guitarist Christy Doran. (www.cdemusic.org)

New Musical Express, 28.3.1981 (Angus McKinnon): "Toy Planet" succeeds on every count. I doubt we'll hear as good an album in this field until Schmidt and Spoerri make another like it.

Sounds, 18.4.1981 (John Gill): ...Bruno Spoerri doing for the sax what Marilyn Monroe did for sex....A bouncy disco pulse (timed close to the heartbeat?) enters to the accompaniment of an electronic bell-tree, ... veering from a bubblegum tune to a pirouetting melody. Pumping towards the climax, Spoerri surges in, blowing the craziest syncopation you've heard since Parker (although they'd prefer Ben Webster). A dancefloor wipeout...."Toy Planet" bombs cultural roadblocks with a devastating, arrogant elegance.

Here's a special offer, a limited edition! This CD, charming light jazz, is the result of a rather strange (non-) collaboration between Swiss rock singer-poet Hardy Hepp and (then) analog synthesizer specialist Bruno Spoerri in 1967. Hepp demo-recorded some of his songs with the help of an old piano and a harmonium in Spoerri's studio. Bruno later (and secretly) added his jazz interpretations, using saxophones, lyricon, and the many synthesizers that he had at that time. He then presented the result to an astonished Hardy and they made an LP, which quickly became a collector's item. This CD is a limited (500 copies) and privately produced re-edition. (www.cdemusic.org)

Auf eine ganz andere Art setzte Bruno Spoerri die Technik ein: als Element, das die Reaktion des Klarinettisten auf das Geschehen beeinflusst. Auf Grund eines Zufallsgenerators wusste Matthias Müller nicht, was der Computer machen wird, und hatte sich quasi als Musiker im Nebel flexibel darauf einzustellen - deswegen der Name Brouillard-débrouillé für das Stück, das zweifelsohne zu den Höhepunkten des Abends gehörte. (Neue Zuger Zeitung, 29.5.2001)

Am frappantesten war Bruno Spoerris Performance, die ganz das war, was der Titel sagt: "Not what it seems to be". Die wiederum von "konkreten" musikalischen Klängen und Mustern ausgehenden Klänge, die Spoerri mit seinem Syntofon aus dem Computer abrief, kamen einem eigentlichen Livevortrag bisweilen irritierend nahe - nicht nur, was den rhythmischen Groove anbelangt, sondern auch die Feinmodulation der nicht "geblasenen", aber "windgesteuerten" Töne, Die Polarität zwischen elektronischer Abstraktion und menschlicher Sinnenhaftigkeit kam da auch in der direkten Kommunikation zwischen dem Spieler und seinem Computerturm zum Ausdruck ...: ein Ereignis ganz eigener Art, für das das Verkehrshaus einen schlechterdings idealen Rahmen lieferte. (Neue Luzerner Zeitung, 29.1.2001)

Finders Keepers Records continue their odyssey (or should that be 'odd'ysey?) for releasing strange and wonderful music with this compilation of Bruno Spoerri's magnificent mad (and sometimes downright funky!) electronic music from the 70s.
Glückskugel is the first ever collection of musical works of Bruno Spoerri, the mythical character who worked with members of legendary Krautrockers CAN, composed music for engineering companies and made motivational music for industrial sites and factories utilising concrete techniques, primitive sampling techniques and contemporary experimental psych-rock and funk musicians.
...Packed with rare and previously unseen photographs and detailed liners by Spoerri, Glückskugel is a unique collection of his vast, and largely unheard until today, body of work. (www.moviegrooves.com)

 "German yet fun, Willy Wonka buys the Mercedes plant, bubble perms and industrial drills." - GRAHAM MASSEY (808 STATE) 

 "I love Bruno's sense of irony which enables him to turn banal electronic sounds into charming and poetic objects trouvés." - IRMIN SCHMIDT (CAN)

The upsurge of interest in library music over the last decade or so has thrown plenty of obscure delights at an unsuspecting public but this latest disc from Finders Keepers is a truly superb compilation of found-behind-the-back-of-the-sofa electronic avant-fromage by one Bruno Spoerri, electronics wizard and former Can collaborator (well, Irmin Schmidt at least).

The music within comprises pieces for exhibitions, TV shows and documentaries as well as industrial and business commissions and ranges from the playful and groovy to more experimental pieces (well, I think you could argue that they’re ALL experimental really) that easily match the space-bound journeys of tape and musique concrete pioneers like Stockhausen. Which is hardly light praise anyway but when you hear electronic fragments of Saturn’s rings welded to factory noises and space rock that Funkadelic would be proud of, you know you are in for one kick ass, mind-melting ride. And, it couldn’t be easier on the ears.

Les Electroniciens for example is a PR disc for the Lansing-Bagnall company (what? Oh, fork lift trucks - keep up at the back please) and is a gargantuan psychedelic slab of funk concrete- fast looping bass, funky drummer, spiralling solo, modular tones and naturally, the aforementioned truck in full operation. Clearly, this in itself was not sufficient for the restless Spoerri so halfway through the unsuspecting listener is dropped onto the Barron’s Forbidden Planet with lonely analogue howl and synth bubble before shooting back into the groove(y) for the coda. God only knows what work must have been like the day this got spun. Or, take Oederlin (The Iron Foundry) which again begins with environmental sounds from the foundry and sharp buried meandering synth warbles before morphing into a kind of analogue cyber hoedown. Other moments though, like Lilith - Singing in the Dark are poignant and adrift, a lost horizon of multi-tracked wordless vocals.

What has emerged from the wealth of music tracked down by dedicated vinyl hunters, what emerges through labels like Finders Keepers and Trunk and bands like Broadcast and the sublime Ghost Box roster (to name but a few) is that the hinterland where un-self consciously innovative musical thinking meets the requirements of commercial composition throw up more radical and evocative music than the drab ‘society-changing’ urges of a lot of rock music from the same period. As the lost becomes found, we can start rewriting a much more colourful history of contemporary music. (indiecult.com)

Finders Keepers is at it again: Foisting rarified library delights on vintage beat freaks everywhere. This time, it will hold particular appeal for fans of analog electronics.

Imagine Stockhausen meets Perrey-Kingsley and you've got an idea of what Bruno Spoerri, a one-time Can collaborator, gets up to on Gluckskugel. It's a zany funhouse compilation featuring tracks originally used on industrial promotional platters, experimental art documentaries and Swiss TV quiz shows.

Spoerri has a genius for combining proto techno rhythm tracks with hooky keyboard textures and found sound. The more you listen, the more you lose yourself in the rogue machinary of his feverish constructions. In the liner notes Spoerri hints that more discoveries may be on the way. Let's keep our fingers crossed. (scorebaby.com)

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