groupshow: live at skymall

Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler have formed a trio that can truly be called a supergroup. As solo artists, all three members are among the most renowned of Berlin's electronic musicians. When playing together as Groupshow, the three instrumentalists -- themselves largely informed by minimalist sensibilities -- engage with the idiom of free-form collective improvisation, which has a long tradition in Germany dating back to the days of Fluxus and Krautrock. Consequentially, the individual members' roles are not entirely fixed. Jelinek uses a sampler, effects and a mixer. Leichtmann plays drums, cymbals and synthetic drum pads. Pekler manipulates a tabletop guitar, synthesizer and effects pedals. The results are at once radical, otherworldly and intensely hypnotic. Groupshow performances do not recreate previously rehearsed or recorded music; instead, they attempt to make an open-ended aesthetic process both audible and tangible. Wherever possible, Groupshow position themselves and their equipment in the middle of the performance space, avoiding the use of a stage, risers or any kind of spatial separation between performer and audience. The lighting remains static and clinical throughout the performance while real-time video, filming from directly above the musicians and projected onto a wall or screen, shows the three members playing and manipulating their tangled pile of equipment. Whenever possible, Groupshow begin playing before any audience members enter, thus deliberately avoiding the dramaturgical imperative of an opening from which the rest of the musical narrative is expected to unfold. As the intensity of the music and degree of the audience's attention are both subject to flux, Groupshow set no time limit to their performances and members of the audience are free to come and go, engage and disengage with the music as they please. Live At Skymall was recorded live in Berlin and Lisbon in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

groupshow - live at skymall