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On není jako on

by nick gill

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    There are only 72 numbered and initialled copies of the CD, entirely printed letterpress. The handmade slipcase is covered in Conqueror laid paper, printed with wooden and metal type, inked in multiple colours with hand rollers, making each case unique. The inner sleeve is set in Bembo Condensed Italic type, and the CDs themselves are finished with a brush pen.

    Includes unlimited streaming of On není jako on via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 12 nick gill releases available on Bandcamp and save 40%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Plague song (for Médecins Sans Frontières), A breath (for George Floyd), The Shipping Forecast - Rockall, Music Product (year one), The Garden, Blasted, Grey season, On není jako on, and 4 more. , and , .

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1.
On není jako on 01:05:52

about

About the play

"On není jako on" (German: "Er nicht als er") is a play by the German Nobel Prize winning writer Elfriede Jelinek, dedicated to the late 19th century Swiss writer Robert Walser (1878-1956).

In 1929 Walser voluntarily committed himself to a sanatorium for the mentally ill, where he wrote very little until his death. The play itself takes place in a psychiatric clinic, and has no protagonist- though the stage directions state that several people are present, none of them are named or described. It’s hard to pin down a definitive meaning in the script, as it’s a meditation on numerous subjects- fairy tales, myths, loneliness, isolation, the nature of art and writing, and ultimately death itself.


About the music

This album recording was developed from the score written to accompany a 2011 production at MeetFactory, Prague (dir. Katharina Schmitt), in which Ivana Uhlířová shifted between presenting four characters- a psychiatric doctor, Elfriede Jelinek, Robert Walser and the actor herself. The instrumentation of the score reflects this fracturing of personality, using a combination of acoustic, amplified and electronic instruments.

The music makes use of what Schoenberg termed 'klangfarbenmelodie' (‘tone colour melody’): while traditional composition prizes melody and harmony (in essence, an ear-pleasing sequence of changes in pitch), 'klangfarbenmelodie' instead focuses on changes in timbre and quality of the notes: on a guitar, for example, many notes can be played in different positions on the fretboard, with each note having a different quality.

"On neni jako" on uses this principle by way of a simple, four chord structure spread across the instruments, repeating and restating the melody lines in different octaves and rhythmic patterns, using a variety of playing techniques to produce the notes, as well as numerous combinations of the instruments themselves, to create a constantly changing sound within a static harmonic structure.

Just as the idea of character and meaning are buried in the dense writing, so the music is swathed in crackle and hum, along with processed recordings of the rehearsal process, whose volume swells and fades around the instruments. The result is a slowly-developing piece that immerses the listener in the opaque world of the play, and the mind of a writer isolated of his own free will.

credits

released March 31, 2014

piano
'cello
monophonic synthesiser
electric guitar
field recordings

Recorded & printed at Effra Press, London, 2012.
'cello performed by Nicole Robson (www.nicolerobson.com)

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about

nick gill UK

Guitarist, composer & sound designer for theatre, dance, film, video games & live performance.

Guitarist in 8-piece instrumental group 'The Monroe Transfer' (themonroetransfer.bandcamp.com)

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