by Zwischenklang

Volker works for Doctors without Borders. His office has many rooms, and they are all named after dangerous cities where the organization does its good works. Aleppo, Baghdad, Caracas. But there is one room not named after a city. There is a room called “Darkness”. I could say that’s the room where this album was made but it is not true, we were in Studio Brauer. Not the famous “Studio Bauer” where ECM albums are made in Italian Switzerland but we were on Sonnenallee with Jan Brauer of Brandt Brauer Frick. It’s a surprisingly light space, nothing dark about it. Nothing dark about Volker even though he’s spent years evading shapnel and bombs and war zones. Bernhard thinks he’s a dark cynical character but he is not. Hell he wouldn’t even let us call this album “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs.” When we all get together we laugh. We play a mix of ominous and evocative sounds. The percussion is light it speaks of the beautiful diversity of the world. Hanna delves deep into her soul with wonder and grief. David smiles as he is happy to bring everyone together. He turns nature sounds every which way but loose. We all laugh when we are together. We have made some kind of sonic cinematic tone poem that travels through many emotions. Sure, there IS a room called darkness. Yes, we have all been in it. We ran out by the back door.

Volker Lankow is a musician who lives in Berlin, who started in late 70s as percussionist, over the years Volker dedicated his work to Ambient and Drone Music, using mainly electronics and loops and ocasionally percussions, to develop his own vison of experimental sounds and drones. He has worked for many years for Doctors Without Borders, and his percussion playing and ambient music is a direct response to all the violence he has seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Sudan.

David Rothenberg wrote Why Birds Sing, Whale Music, and many other books, published in at least eleven languages. He more than forty recordings out, including One Dark Night I Left My Silent on ECM. He has performed or recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, and Iva Bittová. Nightingales in Berlin is his latest film, and Secret Sounds of Ponds is his latest book. Rothenberg is Distinguished Professor at NJIT

Hanna Mattes‘ practice is one of innate multiplicity. Across her photographic works—and more recently, through her performative intervention, paintings and poetic collaborations—Hanna pieces together multiple points of view, as well as moments of action, to create dramatic multiverses. She has worked with Ernst Reisinger, Eva Mattes, Irmgard Emmelhainz and the Dead Darlings Collective.

Bernhard Wöstheinrich is a sound artist, improviser and painter living in Berlin. Bernhard elicits meaning from abstraction in electronic music and painting. He has studied graphic design and has created an eclectic body of work in both graphics and music, running the Iapetus label and collaborating with a vast array of contemporary musicians in many genres, including Markus Reuter, Tim Bowness, Erik Wøllo, and Ian Boddy.

credits

David Rothenberg: Bass Clarinet and Electronics
Hanna Mattes: Vocals
Bernhard Wöstheinrich: Piano and Electronics
Volker Lankow: Percussions, Vocals on “Are you Chicken?”

Recorded by Jan Brauer at Sonnenallee Studios in May 2025.
Mixed by Bernhard Wöstheinrich
Mastered by Markus Reuter

Photography by Jan Brauer
Artwork by Bernhard Wöstheinrich & David Rothenberg