The ensemble, which began as a quartet with Angélica Castelló, Paetzold flute and electronics, Barbara Romen, dulcimer, as well as Gunter Schneider and Burkhard Stangl on the contra-guitars and occasionally electric guitars, came together in 2007. Especially in the initial phase of its existence, ZIMT set itself the task of working on selected forgotten and neglected icons of 20th century music, adapting them anew and understanding and interpreting them differently. So, one of the world's first reinterpretations of Marcel Duchamp's „Erratum musical“ (1913), a work that can be considered the first written random composition ever created, was conceived for Zimt by Gunter Schneider under the name of "Duchamp Default“.
John Cage, another godfather of the group, saw the potential/value in accident, choosing his sounds by chance with the oracle coins of the I Ching - as a possibility of arriving at supra-individual and thus perhaps universally valid solutions. This option, on the other hand, was one of the essential ideas in Duchamp's conception of the „ready-mades“. Its musical counterpart is Cages 4'33: This piece, like his enigmatic composition Ryoanji, inspired by the Japanese rock garden in Kyoto, were always present on the ZIMT repertoire.
Grounded in the ideas, compositions and concepts of music flowing into the open, as presented in all its diversity over the past century, ZIMT increasingly combined the rigour of the compositional shaping into freedom with the rigour of free improvisation into a clarity of fixed musical expression. The own , the „true“, became more and more important for ZIMT. This aspect was additionally strengthened by the fact that the clarinettist Kai Fagaschinski, known for his improvisational art as well as his compositional tenacity, enriched ZIMT with his strikingly distinguished sound art. It took a number of years of rehearsal and concerts before the quintet was released - with music from disparate spheres, a mixture of humour, sharpness, longing and danger.
Enjoy the ride!
ZIMT
For me as a French speaker, Zimt sounds like an onomatopoeia or the sound of a zipper opening and closing. And it lets discover this musical garden inhabited by webs of strings, populated by extensive textures, entangled in an irradiated jumble of resonant frequencies. The weather is good, the sun is not too hot, one feels no threat, even if sometimes the storm rumbles without breaking out. Voices appear in various electroacoustic subterfuges, and survive on tapestries of strings and breaths, in shots where we no longer know who is clinging to whom.
Zimt is an art of pointillist and atmospheric, non-idiomatic and landscape improvisation. Five musicians who know how to listen, who know how to listen to each other and who master their sound gestures like the painter facing their canvas, avoiding any unnecessary chatter or filling.
Jérôme Noetinger
When I listen to the Ensemble Zimt. When I listen to the instruments and electronics about as much as the five who play. I join their play. I join their play. With my ears. No music is playing. Flutes are playing, clarinet, dulcimer, guitars and electronics. Players are played. Those are played who play always, day and night, just as all things and the whole world play day and night. The Zimt ensemble plays like the world.
There are voices to be heard, too. Is it true what they are saying? They seem to zimt. Someone says: His name was Mr - and then a name follows. It's hard to tell what his name is. Hard to tell how he’s called. Edgecar? Edgegar? Is someone trying not to say his name but to play it? Not instrumentalising it, in saying who he is; but de-instrumentalising it and making it a musical instrument that plays itself? Do the instruments of the ensemble Zimt play themselves? Are they no instruments? Do I hear play without instruments? Is it a play without playthings? Does the play play itself? Am I a member of Zimt when I hear day and night play.
Peter Waterhouse
These two sprawling 20-minute electronic pieces offer both crackling, otherworldly textures and moments of surprising beauty. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 15, 2023
Bruce Russell of The Dead C comes to Bandcamp, bringing with him an archive of rare & unreleased material, with more in the coming months. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 22, 2021