This is the 2nd CD of Oskar Sala on FAX... if you are into electronic music and you want to understand where all this sounds you love are coming from this CD IS-A-MUST. You should understand that for this man, electronic music started 1930 (sixty-seven years ago !!!) he is part of the very beginning, the source of the source. If Detroit refers to Kraftwerk, well this man's work had been well-known to the Kraftwerk musicians when they started. And that they hardly miss any of his concerts shows the respect they still have. His live performances as a virouso soloist together with diverse Philharmonic orchestras or playing i.e. Caprices of Paganini on the radio (of course not with a violin... with a Trautonium (!!)) and his successful composition and recording of over 300 soundtracks until today gave him just little to notime to take care of his own career as a recording-musician. Until today he has only 8 (!) releases under his name. Three of them are still available on CD. Although he has released a minor quantity of music he was always ahead of his time. Imagine... Oskar Sala built his instrument by himself, the Mixturtrautonium, invented a totally new tonal system that is based on the most natural tonal scale existing AND was never equalled in what he played.
None of us musicians even nowadays are able to play one of his tunes or copy one of the sounds he created... he invented something of infinite beauty and nobody ever was able to reach his standard in the past or in the imaginable future. Sorry to sound theatric... for me this man with his instrument and his work is the GOD OF ELECTRONIC-music. Listening to what he does gives me the feeling of being still in the kindergarden with a lot of musicians that are well-known for their advanced and innovative genius ... building castles of sand while the master, Oskar Sala, has the key in his hand for the castle of music and sound that we musicians of so called innovative electronic music intend to build. The tracks of this CD show for the first time the full range of his musical opus:
The interpretative work with a piece of Hindemith "Langsames Stück und Rondo für Trautonium" The more mo-dest modern electronic composer who interprets his own work on "Six Caprices for Mixtrutrau-tonium Solo." The pure non interpretative experimental composer using all his studiotechnique and editing devices - "Compositions for Mixturtrautonium and Studio Technique." The Soundtrack oriented work show the incredible soundcolour-possibilities of his unique instrument and Oskar Sala's way of creating atmospheres and interpreting environments ..here "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle."
All the music on this CD has been performed on ONE instrument only: The Mixturtrautonium, nothing else... no voice, no sampler or drummachine. If you listen to this record and you are perhaps a musician like me .. you start to think burn your equipment and forget it. There has been a lot of energy put into the idea to rebuild the Mixturtrautonium in a small series to sustain the sound and perhaps one day ... the music of Oskar Sala. To bring this to reality costs more than an arm and a leg and it takes time ... perhaps more than we have. Oskar Sala is 86 years old now and until today he is the one and only master of this sound-universe. He composed, performed and played this CD from his age of 80 to 86. I don't know what we all will do when we get to this age... and Oskar Sala has still the energy of a 20 year old. With deep respect... Peter "Namlook" Kuhlmann 1997
The inventor strikes back and brings the benchmark to infinity ...