According to German electronic musician Jan Jelinek, the homemade recordings of the late Ursula Bogner might never have been heard outside her immediate family had Jelinek not discovered them through a random encounter with Bogner's son. I say "according to" because rumors that Bogner's story is a hoax-- a cover for music Jelinek made himself-- have already circulated. Some cite the recordings' rather clean fidelity, odd for music purported to be this old and inexpensively produced; others claim to hear Jelenik's minimal style in Bogner's simple compositions. Then there's the fact that Recordings 1969-1988 is the first release on Jelinek's label, Faitiche-- a name the label's own website claims is a French/German hybrid meaning "factish," or "a combination of facts and fetishes [that] makes it obvious that the two have a common element of fabrication."
Barring any denials or confirmations from Jelinek, that's probably all we'll ever know. His entertaining liner notes make Bogner's story seem plausible. Born in Germany in 1946, she became a pharmacist, wife, and mother by her early twenties, but still found spare time to study painting, printing, and electronic music. The latter interest led her to record her own synthesizer-based compositions on reel-to-reel tapes in a studio she built herself. Some songs survived intact, while others had to be assembled by Jelinek from individual, unmixed tracks.
The truth of this tale is ultimately a minor concern, because as intriguing as the story is, the songs on Recordings 1969-1988 are much more interesting. Bogner's work fits squarely in the world of early electronic music-- the period from the late 1950s to the early 70s, when synthesizers were so new that using them to craft melodic songs and create abstract sound were both considered "experimental" pursuits. The king of this era was Raymond Scott, whose whimsical jazz was adopted for cartoon soundtracks, and whose electronic inventions resulted in radio commercials, Jim Henson film scores, and unique curios like Soothing Sounds for Baby, a series intended to help parents pacify their infants. Bogner's music bears much of Scott's playful spirit, finding common ground between nursery-rhyme simplicity and the absurd humor of abstract art. Some of these songs are practically direct Scott rip-offs, but you can also hear echoes of Scott contemporaries and descendants: the radio concoctions of Daphne Oram, the comic pop of Perry and Kingsley, the conceptual art of the Residents, even the post-rock repetition of Black Dice.
Most of Recordings 1969-1988 sounds simultaneously like pop and art. Bogner's M.O. is to take a few simple loops-- rumbling bass, water-y plops, chirping squalls, laser-like blasts-- and overlap them, producing songs so sweet they'll make you laugh (the elephant-march opener "Begleitung für Tuba"), so repetitive they'll hypnotize you (the swinging "Inversion"), and so inventive they sound alien (the robotic "2 Ton"). At best, like on the jazzy "Punkte" and the cresting "Expansion", she crafts pulsing, organic melodies that burrow into memory like tree roots gripping the ground.
I've often wondered why the music of Raymond Scott, as catchy as it could be, is frequently relegated to the status of odd curiosity or gear-geek niche. The same will certainly happen with Bogner, whoever she "really" was/is. And sure, the songs on Recordings 1969-1988 (as well as the included shot of her with big glasses and floppy bowl cut) have a tech-y, art-nerd sheen. But give these tunes time, and you may find yourself humming them randomly, much the way a 60s housewife might have unwittingly memorized Scott tunes via the background noise of his sneaky radio jingles.
from Pitchfork
Track Listing
1. Begleitung Für Tuba
2. Inversion
3. Proto
4. Metazoon
5. Momentaufnahme
6. 2 Ton
7. Speichen
8. Modes
9. Atmosphäre 1
10. Punkte
11. Expansion
12. Für Ulrich
13. Pulsation
14. Testlauf
15. Soloresonanzen
"It seems almost incredible that Ursula Bogner’s musical talents should have remained undiscovered until now. Yet in view of her biography, this might have been just as inevitable.
It was on a flight to Vilnius that I met Sebastian Bogner, Ursula’s son, who told me he was on a business trip for a pharmaceutical company. The usual small talk soon led to the topic of his mother Ursula, who also ‘liked to play around with synthesizers’, albeit purely on an amateur level and in a dedicated music room fitted especially for this purpose in the parental home. Among her acquaintances, it was simply considered one of her many eccentric hobbies and not paid a great deal of interest. At a cursory glance, Ursula Bogner’s life seemed simple and bourgeois to the core: a pharmacist, wife and mother, firmly ensconced in a detached house. A setup that made her obsession with electronic music all the more bizarre, an obsession that drove her to build her own studio for extensive recording and experimentation.
According to the usual chronological benchmarks, Ursula Bogner’s biography appears short and conventional: Born (*1946) and raised in Dortmund, she moved to Berlin at 19 to study pharmacy. Degree in hand, she immediately went to work for pharmaceutical giant Schering, followed by marriage, children and a successful yet by no means sensational scientific career within the multinational heavyweight. At the same time, she developed a keen interest in electronic music. Throughout her early twenties, she followed the activities of Cologne-based ‘Studio für elektronische Musik’, attended seminars by Studio founder Herbert Eimert, exhibited great enthusiasm for Musique Concrète and, later on, shared her children’s enthusiasm for British New Wave Pop. Nevertheless, Ursula Bogner never involved herself in any scene, never made her music public. Maybe this can be attributed to her boundless curiosity. Besides composition, she also tried her hand at painting, printing (the booklet features reproductions of two of her linocuts) and developed a strong fascination for Wilhelm Reich’s ‘orgonomy’, the sexual researcher and psychoanalyst’s bizarre late work on his discovery of ‘orgonenergy’. Reich aimed to focus resp. collect this particular type of solar energy and use it for healing purposes. To this end, he created an apparatus, a cabin of wood and metal otherwise known as an ‘orgon accumulator’ (see image). Inspired by several trips to ‘Orgonon’ (Maine, USA) – Wilhelm Reich’s former workspace and home - Ursula Bogner decided to construct her own accumulator and stored it in the family’s backyard. At this point, it becomes increasingly hard to shake the suspicion, later confirmed by Sebastian Bogner, that his mother was drawn to all things esoteric. Mounds of New Age literature and fringe science works would litter the Bogner household. And yet, throughout all this, she remained a Schering employee and thus firmly rooted in the sciences. Her compositions, too, betray few signs of esotericism, in fact they are closer to studies and sketches: humorous and - in view of her biography - almost silly rather than tied to any particular school of mysticism or science. Nevertheless, it is remarkably hard to grasp or classify her work as a whole. Over the course of 20 years, she dabbled in many different styles leading to a huge wealth of work and a bewildering variety of titles.
Ursula Bogner, 1966 / Orgonakkumulator (by courtesy of Orgoninstitut, Dr. Trettin, Berlin)
In the late 1960s, Ursula Bogner started to record her own music on reel-to-reel tapes. With some of these titles, we only found individual tracks of pieces recorded on a four-track-recorder – in these cases, I had to recombine the separate tracks to recreate the original piece. Unfortunately, I could not involve Ursula Bogner in the mixing process as she passed away in 1994. Invoking the original’s authenticity might seem insensitive, yet there was no other way to release them in their entirety. Ultimately, only three of the tracks featured on this CD/LP are such ‘reworkings’. All other titles were taken straight from the original reels. Covering a fairly short period of her creative career, they also convey a peculiar coherence in both form and content. A coherence that reflects her accessible, rhythmic and sometimes even ‘poppy’ side. Naturally, my own preference played a part in the selection process. All my personal favourites made it on the CD/LP, and whenever I listen to this collection, I invariably succumb to the titles’ light-hearted nonchalance. This might leave many hours of undiscovered gems, but a further compilation is already in the works.
My thanks go out to the Bogner family, especially Sebastian Bogner, who was generous enough to grant me access to the reels and supply me with invaluable insights into his mother’s life. I hope that listeners will enjoy the same exhilaration I experienced on discovery of Ursula Bogner’s music."
Jan Jelinek
No comments:
Post a Comment