henning christiansen: l'essere umano errabando la voca errabando

The third release on The Henning Christiansen archive label features a previously unreleased work from 1991. "The Wandering Human Being - The Wandering Voice", as the title suggest is a piece for voice and features Carlo Quartucci, Carla Tatò, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, and Henning Christiansen. Ursula and Henning met the couple Carlo Quartucci and Carla Tatò through the curator Johannes Gachnang on a visit to Genazzano in Italy 1983 and became close friends, collaborating on a variety of projects, most notably on Carlo and Carla's epic adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist's play Penthesilea. "The Wandering Human Being - The Wandering Voice" came about from a conversation between the four of them whilst on a beach on the island of Møn in the eastern sea in Denmark, looking south. Here they all laughed at the realization that on the other side of Europe in this direction was Sicily where Carlo and Carla lived. The island Sicily, The island Møn. As Henning says: "The human-being was wandering from sea to sea." Henning saw no difference in their way over life "over there" and mused on the means of which we cross over oceans and move around facilitating awareness of the same family of human being. People from islands meet people from islands and they can all look across vast waters and laugh together. Human-basic-technology This conversation and collective realization of the simplicity of it all lead to this work which is one of the finest in Henning's vast catalog. L'essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando is a mantra for four voices, the sound of the ocean, a PVC tube, effects, and wind instrument. The piece moves in an organic hypnotic fashion lulling and rolling, ebbing and flowing over the two sides of the record. Rudimentary phrases in various languages interlope and weave a mystical music, as primitive as it is "contemporary". "The Wind, The Stars" are repeated over in random untrained fashion. The two couples from different countries weave voices, words and language into a common sonic fabric which eradicates identity, the idea of "national," the idea of country, the idea of difference. Unlike anything else in Henning's output, L'essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando is a calm and meditative work which rolls along two sides wrapping the listener in a random melancholic meditative mantra. Only Henning Christiansen could summon such haunting, beautiful, gothic music carved from political hope.