Almost Nowhere Marco Momi, Ensemble Nikel

• Marco Momi (b. !978):
• 1 Ludica II 10:10
• 2 Cinque Nudi - Tre Nudi - Quattro Nudi - Sei Nudi 37:10
• 3 Almost Nowhere (Version for Saxophone, Percussion, Piano & Electric Guitar) 25:23
• Total Runtime 01:12:43

Info for Almost Nowhere

Almost Nowhere is part of a series (Almost) started in 2010 in which I am questioning my identity through a research on the proxemics of composing. The relationship with sound (grown in the Iconica series) remains as fingerprint and become a familiar and elective haven from which to start afresh. Following a line on the horizon that is far from the habits, trying to reach what is pure, quiver, vanishing, or to the recollects before the dying (Almost Requiem). In Almost Nowhere there is the love for the storytelling, as organic emersion of essence with narrative properties, as the trajectory of a gaze throughout a landscape almost lacking of temporal definition, as a need of lines instead of rhymes. Almost Nowhere is a fairy tale, in which the wish of a placement is continuously tested trough solved/unsolved movements. The fence of the trip delimits a land that insist to be purely musical and the need of exactitude (of shaping the evolution of characters) claims his living in what remains from the disorientation.

Almost Nowhere is dedicated to Yaron Deutsch and to the Ensemble Nikel.

Nikel:

Patrick Stadler, saxophone
Yaron Deutsch, electric guitar
Brian Archinal, percussion
Antoine Françoise, piano

Nikel
Founded in 2006, the ensemble is a frequent guest at many of the community’s most well-known festivals of contemporary music: Donaueschinger Musiktage, International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, Wien Modern, Warsaw Autumn, Manifeste Paris, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Gaudeamus Utrecht & Impuls Graz to name a few. In recent years, they have increased their international presence with appearances in North America, South America and New Zealand, as well as continued appearances at major festivals throughout Europe.

Given its unique formation, the group’s repertoire is entirely based on music written for the quartet by composers such as: Mark Barden, Ann Cleare, Chaya Czernowin, Clemens Gadenstaetter, Philippe Hurel, Clara Iannotta, Klaus Lang, Simon Loeffler, Enno Poppe, Stefan Prins & Alexander Schubert among others. Much of these works saw light in Nikel’s 2017 release: A DECADE – 10 Year retrospective recordings, consisting of 4 CDs of their repertoire combined with a DVD Documentation.

Nikel is a quartet consisting of saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and piano. A mix of traditional and contemporary, these instruments combine to form an alternative chamber music output where electric and acoustic sounds are fused into a unified sonic organism built on a wide, yet discerning musical vocabulary. The continual search for new musical ideas is not based on aesthetic prejudice or dichotomies of musical genres, but on passion and devotion to making and performing great music.

Booklet for Almost Nowhere