Polwechsel

In the middle and later years of the 1990s, Polwechsel emerged and helped draw together segments of Vienna’s experimental music community, along with parts of the wider European scene, around a post-minimalist focus on uncovering the inner workings of sound. The approach later termed “microsound” or “lowercase-sound” received its initial exploration and presentation from this quartet. Although the ensemble simply participated in an expanding awareness that silence and quietness might point the way forward for avant-garde music, particularly in live settings, its influence proved substantial.

Polwechsel originated in 1993 when Werner Dafeldecker, then performing as an avant-garde jazz bassist, joined forces with concert cellist Michael Moser. The group’s name derives from an AC/DC converter the two musicians encountered in a thrift shop, an object reproduced on the covers of the quartet’s first two albums. Viennese jazz guitarist Burkhard Stangl and Italian free improv trombonist Radu Malfatti rounded out the initial roster. The musicians settled on a practice of structured improvisation that merged compositional ideas drawn from recent contemporary classical developments with the openness and sonic investigation characteristic of free improv, especially the methods introduced by John Stevens and his Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Early on, Polwechsel cultivated a recognizable sonic identity through the hums and buzzes of electric guitars, fresh string textures, and Malfatti’s near-silent valve and mouth techniques, all directed toward textural sonic landscapes that demanded the listener’s complete focus.

The quartet’s debut, self-titled CD appeared on Random Acoustics in 1995 and drew no attention from the music press. Momentum shifted after the group performed at London’s LMC Festival in 1996. When Malfatti departed in 1997, London saxophonist John Butcher joined the lineup. This revised configuration recorded Polwechsel 2 in January 1998; both that session and the preceding album surfaced the following year on hat[now]art and earned strong praise from avant-garde critics. Polwechsel suddenly stood as a representative of a fresh sound and, through carefully chosen appearances across Europe, Canada, and the United States, served as an ambassador for the active Austria-German scene that also included ensembles such as Efzeg, Dachte Musik, and King Übü Orchestrü. A third album was issued in 2001 on Dafeldecker’s Durian label.