BLACK MANUAL – Brigade Commerz, CD, 2013

On “Mordendo” the dynamics of speaker compositions intertwine with concrete Afro-Brazilian sound patterns, with special “toques”, drum beat sequences also found in Samba and Candomblé… Sounds rear up, diffuse, and rhythms dissolve into tones thereby creating a “total music”.

“Black Manual” was formed in 2012 after Jan St. Werner had heard the percussionists Valdir Jovenal, Juninho Quebradeira and Leo Leandro play at a Candomblé ceremony in Berlin Kreuzberg.

Together with his colleague Andi Toma, with whom Jan St. Werner also works as “Mouse on Mars”, he mixed this unholy conglomerate of frigidly staged disorders, digital fragments, samples, broken melodies and the vibrant, tugging sub-bass caprices of the Brazilian “voodoo” rhythms – “a fala dos atabaques” (“speech of the drums”): with violence and passion as if they were trying to force the gates to transcendence open.

A performance between concert and ceremony: When the three percussionists and Jan St. Werner really cut loose, challenging and tempting each other, then worlds collide making the earth tremble! Then the black Gods of Africa are also near as if they were amusing themselves or trying to dance with the Christian hallows… “O tempo é fora do comum!” Or: “The time is out of joint!”

 

https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/hoerspiel-und-medienkunst/artmix-galerie1160.html

https://fiepblatter.bandcamp.com/album/black-manual-mordendo

https://fiepblatter.bandcamp.com/track/black-manual-live-at-ctm-berlin-2014-1

https://fiepblatter.bandcamp.com/track/black-manual-live-at-ctm-berlin-2014-2

https://fiepblatter.bandcamp.com/track/black-manual-live-at-ctm-berlin-2014-3