Biography
Ignaz Schick
* 1972 in Tostberg/Bavaria
Turntablist, sound artist, performer & composer.
In his youth he studied the saxophone and performed in free jazz and avant rock bands. At the same time he was getting obsessed with multitrack tape machines, record players and effect boxes and he started experimenting with many different instruments and sound making devices. After college he briefly studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and worked for several years as an assistent for the contemporary composer Josef Anton Riedl.
Since the late 1995 he works and lives in Berlin where he became an active and integral force of the so-called “Berlin Nouvelle Vague” and the blossoming “real time music” scene. From the middle of the nineties onwards his interest and activities almost completely shifted towards live-electronics and after testing various instrumentations (hard- & software samplers, signal processing, contact mics, field recordings, ...) he developed his own and quite unique electro-acoustic set-up which he calls “rotating surfaces”. Various objects and materials (from wood, metal, plastic, paper or violin bows and cymbals) are played directly on the rotating metal plate of the turntable and the vibrations are simply amplified with a small condensator microphone. With this set-up he covers many different styles of contemporary experimental music – ranging from extreme reductionism via ambient, industrial, musique concrete, electronica to harsh noise.
Besides his favorite setting – the direct duo-confrontation with the likes of Chris Abrahams (AUS), Alexei Borisov (RUS), Sebastian Buczek (PL), Phil Durrant (GB), Gunnar Geisse (D), GX Jupitter-Larsen/The Haters (USA), Dawid Szczesny (PL), Martin Tetreault (CAN), Marcel Tuerkowsky (D) or Sabine Vogel (D) – he is member and founder of many different ensembles like Perlonex, Snake Figures Arkestra, Phosphor, Blind Snakes, Decollage, N.I.E., ....
He has collaborated with numerous international artists (most notably Don Cherry & Charlemagne Palestine)and toured and performed clubs & festivals all over Eastern- and Western Europe, the USA, Russia and the Balkans. He released many albums on labels like Zarek, Edition Zangi, edition x, Irrah, Potlatch, Bad Alchemy, Charhizma, Staalplaat, Nexsound, Non Visual Objects, Improvised Music From Japan or Absinth and he was part of radio broadcasts and productions for ORF-Kunstradio, ORF-Zeitton, BR2, DLR, DLF, WDR3, DRS2 or Radio Copernicus (...)
Furthermore he has been curating festivals of experimental music from the early 90s onwards (FAM, Erase & Reset, Tim Shifts, ...) Since 2005 he has realized several sound installations.
AWARDS:
1994 music scholarschip from the City of Munich
2006 sound art scholarship from the City of Berlin
2008 sound art scholarship from Kuenstlerhaeuser Worpswede
RESIDENCIES:
Institut für Neue Medien Frankfurt/Main 1998
ORF-Kunstradio Wien 2001
Theater am Halleschen Ufer 2002
Cankarjev Dom Ljubljana 2004
Radio Copernicus Wroclaw/Poalnd 2005
Szene Salzburg 2006
Küsntlerhaus Tesla Berlin 2007
Q-O2 Bruxelles 2008
Künstlerhäuser Worpswede 2008
SELECTED FESTIVAL APPEARANCES
Bonner Herbst, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Forum Stadtpark (Graz), Echtzeitmusiktage (Berlin), Festival fuer Andere Musik (Berlin), Garage (Stralsund), 2:13 Festival (Athens & Berlin), Jazz & More Festival (Munich), Terza Prattica/Felix Meritis (Amsterdam), IZ(Z)VEN (Maribor/SLO) Rumor 19 (Utrecht), Musique Action (Nancy), Int. Night of Noise (NYC), Aural Anatomy (Pittsburgh), Fruits de Mhres (France), WienBerlin, Verbindingen/Jonctions (Bruxelles), Mesto Zensk (Ljubljana), Kryptonale (Berlin), Hoerkunstfestival (Erlangen), pianOH Stichting Logos (Ghent), Erase & Reset (Berlin), Festival of Experimental Music (Munich), Fotones (Bruxelles), Sound Shift/Big Sur Experimental Music Festival (Big Sur, CA), Space & Place (Berlin), Stare ueber Berlin (Museumsinsel Berlin), perlon.extensions (Podewil Berlin), Nous Sons Barcelona, SKIF (St.Petersburg), ALT F4 (Warsaw), Cobra Berlin, Musica Genera (Sczecyn), Generator Konzerthaus (Wien), Fete de la Musique (Geneva), Staalplaat Turntable Night Neues Museum Weserburg (Bremen), Aux Polen (Berlin/Cologne/Munich), Talking Back to Radio (Wroclaw), Club Transmediale (Berlin), Ljubljana-Berlin Soundbridge (Berlin/Ljubljana), Sound Forrest (Riga, LV), Jeunesse Musicales (Vienna), Open Music (Graz), Fete de la musique (Luxembourg), Bipolar (Berlin & Budapest), Time Shifts (Berlin), Mezinarodni Hudebni Festival Brno, Maerzmusik (Berlin),
Upcoming Festivals in 2008: Angelica Bologna, Blurred Edges Hamburg, Zam Labor Köln, Künstlertage Hermannshof Voelksen, Berlin Sound Convertor, Audible Festival Cesena/Italy, Biegungen Berlin, ...
SELECTED COLLABORATORS
Thomas Ankersmit, Zoro Babel, Leo Bachmann, Serge Baghdassarian, Boris Baltschun, Burkhard Beins, Mathias Bauer, Claus Van Bebber, Alexei Borisov, Alessandro Bosetti, Marc Boukouya, Tony Buck, Nicholas Bussmann, Lucio Capece, Mathieu Chamagne, Xavier Charles, Don Cherry, Mike Cooper, Anla Courtis, Matt Davis, Rhodri Davies, Yannick Dauby, Jim Denley, Dieb13, Dietmar Diesner, Axel Dörner, Phil Durrant, Andrea Ermke, Jason Forrest, Wolfgang Fuchs Jr., Nathan Fuhr, Andreas Gandela, Steven Garling, Robin Hayward, John Hegre, Peter Hollinger, Philip Jeck, Bernd Jestram, Coti K, Jason Kahn, Zbigniew Karkowski, Annette Krebs, Dominik Kowalczyk, Borut Krzisnik, Christoph Kurzmann, Kalle Laar, Keenan Lawler, Ronald Lippock, Greg Malcolm, Maurice De Martin, Stephan Mathieu, Andrea Neumann, MNortham, Alex Nowitz, Ivan Palacky, Charlemagne Palestine, Anthony Pateras, Jim Pepper, Robert Piotrowicz, MArino Pliakas, Prell, Jon Raskin, Michael Renkel, Gino Robair, Jan Roder, Keith Rowe, Olaf Rupp, Bob Rutman, Doro Schürch, Jacek Staniszewski, Stol, Martin Tetreault, Clayton Thomas, Torben Tilly, Sebi Tramontana, Nikos Veliotis, Ute Voelker, Sabine Vogel, Volz, Michael Vorfeld, Jenny Ward, Mark Wastell, Wu Wei, Marc Weiser, Paul Wirkus, Stevie Wishart, ...
Upcoming collaborations in 2008: Sascha Demand, DJ Elephant Power, Heribert Friedl, Burkhard Friedrich, Boris Hegenbart, Steve Kaspar, Goh Lee Kwang, Christoph Heemann, Valerio Tricoli, Roger Turner, Marion Wörle, Christian Wolfarth, ...
Discography
|Ignaz Schick|Kratzen|LP||1990|Edition Zangi| |Ignaz Schick|Käseplatte|LP|1991|Edition Zangi| |Arurmukha|14*11*90 – ein akustisches psychogramm|LP|1993|Goldrausch| |Donaueschingen 1995 |dito |CD |1996 |col legno| |Ignaz Schick’s DeCollage 3 |Lonely Woman |CD |1997 |David Records| |Ignaz Schick |Tales and Tools against Radio Agents… |MC |1997 |edition x| |Edmundo Rosa |Puppy Love |CD |1998 |Edition Zangi| |Ignaz Schick |Nuts |LP |1998 |Edition Zangi| |Ignaz Schick’s DeCollage 3 |Live Vol.1 & 2 |2CD |1999 |Zarek| |Perlonex |The Bad Alchemy Pieces |7” EP |2000 |Bad Alchemy 35| |Perlonex |Perlon |CD |2000 |Zarek| |Ignaz Schick |Tabit |CD |2000 |Zarek| |Various |Hörstücke II |CD |2001 |Irrah| |Ignaz Schick/Andrea Neumann |petit pale |CD |2001 |Zarek| |Perlonex |peripherique |CD |2001 |Zarek| |Various |Zwischen Bild & Ton |CD |2001 |garage| |Phosphor |Phosphor |CD |2002 |Potlatch| |Various |Labor Sonor |CD |2003 |Charhizma| |Perlonex/JuliJuni |Slpit |LP |2003 |Happy Zloty| |Various |Talking Crosswalks |CD |2004 |Pumkin/Kunstradio| |Various |Yokomono 2 |LP |2005 |Staalplaat| |Various |Musik in Deutschland 1950-2000 |10 CD |2005 |RCA/Sony BMG| |Various |Berlin Special 2006|2CD+Book|2006|Improvised Music From Japan| |Perlonex/Rowe/Palestine|perlonex.tensions|2CD|2006|Nexsoun| |Ignaz Schick/Dawid Szczesny|The View Underneath|CD|2007|Non Visual Objects| |Various |Berlin Electronics|4×3”CDR|2008|Absinth
Upcoming:
Perlonex & Ulrike Flaig|DVD|Zarek
Perlonex & Charlemagne Palestine|2CDR|Cronica
...
Reviews
Schick blends analog and digital sources to create strange textures that come like a cross between Thomas Lehn and Christof Kurzmann.
Francois Couture, All Music Guide
Ignaz Schick is a busy man. Along with running the Zarek label, he’s a vanguard of European improvisation. (...) Schick plays vaguely enough “electronics”, which take to mean feedback inducers, samplers, buzzers, hissers, and miscealleneous noisemakers.
Ignaz Schick does an admirable job of contributing to the slew of mind-expanding music coming out of Europe. Zarek is a label to watch, and (...) essential for fans of creative new music.
Nirav Soni, Ink 19
Arid, abstract, cerebral. These are the three adjectives that will probably pop in your head if you ever listen to Ignaz schick and Andrea Neumann’s CD ‘Petit Pale’.
Francois Couture, All Music Guide
Un minimum d’effet pour un maximum de résultat. Voilà une dévise qui dévoile subtilement le fond du travail de ce duo. Quelque part entre le sonar ménagé d’un Jocelyn Robert et les attentes du consortium Trente Oiseaux (chantres de la musique minimale), Ignaz Schick et Andrea Neumann évolouent dans ce couloir étroit, où les estampes de la musique abstraite, de l’électro-acoustique minimal et de l’improvisation électronique couvrent les murs.
JJ, Jade (France)
Ignaz Schick has surprised me with every release of late, becoming increasingly prolific in the areas of new improvisation and electro-acoustic music.
Richard di Santo, Incursion Music Review, Canada
Three interesting improv albums. All are based on working within subtle and dynamic sound-scapes, intense and exciting, and very rewarding.
Ampersand Etcetera, Australia
The Berlin scene has fascinatingly burgeoned in recent times, and much of the city’s developing electro-acoustic improv activity centres around or to some extent visibly involves Ignaz Schick. His electronics have featured on a series of releases which all document an intriguing probing of the improvisational interface between acoustic instruments and electronically- and computer-generated sounds
Nick Cain, Opprobrium (UK)
So wie einst Picasso aus einem Sammelsurium alter Gebrauchsgegenstände und einfachem Schrott seine wunderbaren Skulpturen, man denke nur an den Affen oder die Ziege, schuf, so sucht und experimentiert der Multikünstler Ignaz Schick mit seinem “Fundmaterial” — Eisenplatten, -kugeln, Gullisiffons oder Blechwannen, die er in Instrumente oder Maschinen umwandelt und ihnen in Form von Klangskulpturen neues Leben einhaucht. (...) er experimentiert an einem pulsierenden Klanggewebe aus manipulierten elektronischen und realen Geräuschen.
Der Tagesspiegel
Seine eigenwillige Ornette Coleman-Hommage brachte dem Saxophonisten Ignaz Schick Jubel und Kritik gleichermaßen ein. Aber sein Interesse gilt mittlerweile nicht nur dem Saxophon, sondern eigentlich allem, was ein Geräusch machen kann, wenn man’s richtig angeht. Seine Aktivitäten haben mittlerweile einen derartigen Output erreicht, daß er dafür ein eigenes Festival ins Leben rufen mußte.
Zitty
Kostproben einer anarchischen Kreativität, die offensichtlich von Dadaismus und Strömungen der Neuen Musik seit den Fünfziger Jahren inspiriert ist, (...) gaben Schick, Zoro Babel und Der Volz.Schick bearbeitete ein “Klavierinnenleben”, das er zur Überraschung in seiner Klangwerkstatt vorfand, indem er mit Metallstäben und Schrauben an Saiten und Außenkörper herumstrich und rieb. Verstärkt durch Kontaktmikrophone ergaben sich faszinierend skurrile und eindringliche Klangwolken und Mikrointervallstrukturen. Dabei wirkte Schick zuweilen wie ein Kind, das völlig neue Saiten/Seiten an einem alten Spielzeug entdeckt hat.
Matthias Büdinger, Süddeutsche Zeitung