WENZEL, BETTINA - MUMBAI DIARY (CD)

"Wenzel's abstract voice finds proper structural support in the concrete soundscapes (of urban origin) she created from the field recordings during her artist residency in Mumbai; it bodily spaces the intervals and foldings that house voice as their natural constituent. Mumbai Diary is therefore not an itinerary, it does not provide listeners with any space-time coordinates or information from the life of its author. Rather it is a sound album, a collection of sound-images, thoroughly arranged by the memory as well as by the taste and style preferences of its compiler, composer and adapter in one person. She compiles out of the obsessive need to give a new meaning to the recorded fragments of her memory. She composes because she desires to manifest her relationships with the world and other people through a new meaning that is no longer dependent on the old codes and conventions of art communication and music making. And finally, she adapts the compiled and composed result to her instrument of affection - VOICE. It is the VOICE that brings into the memories of Mumbai, now embodied in the sound-images, the affection from outside - from the body of their originator." (label info)