Christina Kubisch & Fabrizio Plessi - Two and Two (1976)

During her 25 year career, Berlin based sound artist Christina Kubisch has pioneered the creation of site-specific sound and light environments, sound sculptures and sound installations. The roots of her abstract sound realities began in the intense collaboration with Italian visual artist Fabrizio Plessi in 1973 and are presented here, in the first of two planned archival releases, with the performance piece Two And Two. Performed in Europe and the United States in the '70s, Two And Two was a live performance for two performers (Kubisch and Plessi), two video cameramen, a wall of monitors and uncommon objects and instruments. Throughout the performances, people were invited to walk around and observe the live action in real time as close up images of the performance were projected on video screens and unusual objects as sound sources -- a vibrator, water, swanee whistle, voice, contact microphone on ventilator, prepared alto flute, electronic metronome, waterjet on steeldrum -- were sonically 'blown up' through self invented systems of amplification. The resulting four pieces on this 1977 recording alternate between heavenly, rhythmically shifting drones to gamelan tinged blistering electronics that sound like distant, corrupted morse code dispatches. The entire album is an organic revelation of the discreet acoustic nature of everyday objects, intensely mechanical, startling and elemental. (waysidemusic)