BERNHARD LANG – Paranoia II
WILLIAM BASINSKI – Disintegration Loops

Klang Systematiek

Anna Linardou – voice
Mixmastertodd – voice
Gareth Davis – bass clarinet
John Eckhardt – electric bass
Tomas Järmyr – drum kit
Martin Švec – percussion
Mikuláš Mrva – live electronics
Juraj Mišejka – sound

Paranoia II, commissioned from Bernhard Lang by the Dutch foundation Stichting Mousai, is created for bass clarinet (Gareth Davis), bass guitar (John Eckhardt), drums (Tomas Järmyr), percussion (Martin Švec) and electronics. Vocal parts will be filled by British rapper Mixmastertodd and Greek singer Anna Linardou.
Paranoia II is a continuation of Lang’s exploration of loops and dive into the themes of fear and paranoia. The core of the composition is a set of texts consisting of three parts: “Justifications” –fragments from texts about paranoia collected from the internet, “CIA protocols of political assassination” – texts about with the state coup in Guatemala in 1954, and snippets of texts from the American magazine Paranoia. This collage is accompanied by eight-channel live electronics and a band consisting of Gareth Davis on bass clarinet, John Eckhardt on electric bass, Martin Švec on percussion and Tomas Järmyr on drums.
The second item on the program is a live performance of The Disintegration Loops by American experimental composer William Basinski. The Disintegration Loops is a series of works from 2001-2003, united by the principle of gradual decay.

Starting in the late seventies, Basinski, inspired by the work of Steve Reich and other minimalist
composers, experimented with analogue tape loops, which allowed him to build gradually
developing surfaces from repetitive material of sounds of the surrounding world, radio noise and
recorded fragments of instrumental music. When he digitized these loops at the beginning of
2001, he noticed that the tape was decaying with age, and after longer repeated playback, the
original material gradually sank into noise and crackles. This process served as a basic principle
for a series of long compositions that he finished on the morning of September 11th 2001. When
he sat on the roof terrace of his Brooklyn house with friends, he was an eyewitness to the fall of
the World Trade Center towers. Music that captured gradual decay and destruction suddenly
gained a new powerful and tragic context. The albums The Disintegration Loops I-IV were
released in 2002-2003 and were dedicated to the victims of the September 11th terrorist attack.