the durian brothers are a three piece band (sequencer, 2×2 prepared turntables). their music is a vision of a new and radical club music (strictly 90 bpm). A bassdrum is the boss of the rhythm but multiple dense, rhythmic structures generated from turntables played with rubberbands and found objects; muted guitar sequences lead through a jungle of sounds.
The music of the Durian Brothers burns with the crackle humm of an ancient woven sonic fabric, and transcends the familiar and often rigid confines of loop based / sequencer music. Drawing from a pallete of heavy and textural percussive and melodic tones, and masterfully combing sequenced and non-sequenced sources. The music created feels very in the moment, a sonic-rhythmic architecture come to life in full 3D.
Much of the static charge of the Durian Brothers sound comes from a very unique “prepared-turntable” technique, which they have cultivated in there work in the collective Institut fuer Feinmotorik (IFF).
Based in Dusseldorph, The Durian Brothers are:
- Stefan : Sequencer
- Marc : Prepared Turntables (no vinyl used!), Effects + Treatments
- Flo : Prepared Turntables (no vinyl used!), Effects + Treatments
They run and self release music through there own Diskant label.
Also of note is the solo work of Stefan, under the name Harmonious Thelonious, an extension of the polyrhythmic excitment seen here. Also made available through the Diskant label. Fantastic!!!!
With Diskant they have been releasing a steady stream of evolving polyrythmic music, most recently with the CUTS EP in 2010.
The Durian Brothers – “Overexposed Scream Contest” CUTS EP
[audio:Overexposed Scream Contest.mp3]
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I Caught up with Flo from The Durian Brothers to find out more about there unique aproach to rhythmic music, signal path and oversaturation…
THE PROCESS:
BOOMARM: As a fellow improviser and sequencer, I am very intrigued by what a tight cohesive tempo and feel that you guys get in your pieces, while using a variety of sequenced and non-sequenced elements. Would you mind describing how you get such great sync/tempo results with such an organic approach?
Flo:… since stefan is using his sequencer he is more limited on the improvisational side and stronger on the reproductive (here only meaning the ability to reproduce a pattern played before) whilst marc and me using our prepared turntables are stronger on the improvisational and weaker on the reproductive – though both parties definitely have both aspects. marc and me iterate this scheme on micro scale but it gets complex here. this is due to our working material which, as you identified correctly, often are tuned (or sometimes not so tuned) rubber bands beside other stuff like paper and small metal objects. or just the empty turntable – which mostly is the technics mk2 1210 or similar. these turntables have nice flexibility in their speed, but when you want to sync 4 of them to each other and a sequencer without constantly taking care of each (since we need some attention for small-object-management from time to time) you are doing better when using the built in quartz to set the speed. we are using 45rpm which can be pretty fast if there is much stuff on the rotating plate but if there are two beats you have 90bpm. so we set the sequencer to 90bpm and use that as our sync orientation. my awareness however constantly drifts between feeling like its a pretty slow dub and some too fast tribal tune.”
The Durian Brothers - "Method of Operation" As pictured by Florian, during his time in Japan..
BOOMARM: Talk a bit about your compositional process.. How much is improvised?
Flo: as to the compositional process i would say its an improvisation-analysis-improvisation-analysis-improvisation-approach for the recordings (on “cuts” we played around with some sampling afterwards as well) and a more improvisational one for concerts or fun.
BOOMARM: I am curious, is the title “Overexposed Scream Contest” at all a reference to the insane saturation of world music archival re-issues of late? (perhaps im taking it too literally..)
one meaning of ‘exposure’ is ‘illumination’ and there is an old saying in german which goes “wo viel licht, da viel schatten”, which could be translated “where there is much light, there is much shadow”. so i am not afraid of running out of shadows to explore – quite the contrary!