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Austrian drummer and electronic composer Bernhard Fleischmann entered the
agon of post-techno music with
the full-length Pop Loops for Breakfast (Charhizma, 1999) and the
EP Sidonie (1999).
The full-length A Choir of Empty Beds (Fuzzy Box, 2000) coined a personal disorienting combination of glitch music and synth-pop.
The album opens with the droning and cosmic Start, but
the highlights are built around repetition, electronic sabotage and melodic simplicity:
the slow-motion minimalist anthem It's All So and
the subdued melodic crescendo with a mewing synth Buzz.
The mechanical treatment does not diminish the emotion radiating from the touching saxophone ballad Chad F the Tick and Sax Mix.
The border with musique concrete is tested by the twelve-minute fantasia Good Bye.
Tmp (2001) contained only two lengthy pieces: the slowly rising
(and not particularly creative) Part 1
and the 52-minute Part 2, initially a
dense and dark electronic symphony that opens up over a
relaxed lounge beat but then implodes in a magma of cosmic drones.
So far he had delivered relatively naive and youthful works.
By mixing live instrumentation and erratic beats, Fleischmann turned
the double-disc Welcome Tourist (Morr, 2003) into a psychological experiment of bridging chaos and order while at the same time adding a new, more humane dimension to his art.
The piano-driven hypnotic neurosis Pass By sets the tone, and
the fusion of
drum'n'bass, musique concrete and heavy metal in The Blessed
states the mission.
The first disc is a parade of transformations:
Grunt is
his idea of lounge-jazz;
As If is
his idea of pyschedelic shoegazing;
Waiting for You to Come is
his idea of synth-pop;
A Letter From Home is
his idea of blues-rock;
etc.
Its second disc is entirely taken up by the 45-minute Take Your Time, a slow-motion series of variations on a simple six-note piano pattern to which many other instruments are coupled (Werner Dafeldecker on double bass, Martin Siewert on pedal steel guitar, Christof Kurzmann on saxophone and clarinet, Burkhard Stangl on vibraphone, Fleischmann on keyboards), eventually disintegrating in a ticking abstraction and in an emotional ballad. The stellar combo yields a stellar instrumental meditation even without the singing, and the singing completes the experience in an otherworldly manner, a voice from another plane of existence.
After Duo 505's Late (Morr, 2004), Fleischmann returned with
The Humbucking Coil (2006), a much more conventional and trivial
album of dance music (Composure).
Your Gorgeous Self is a group formed with Werner Jordan.
The double-disc For M/Mikro_Kosmos (june 2010) documents
live performances by Bernhard Fleischmann.
Angst Is Not a Weltanschauung! (2008), containing
the surreal novelty Last Time We Met At A T&TT Concert,
the percussive suspense of The Market,
and the 14-minute piano lullaby Even Your Glasses Miss Your Eyes.
I'm Not Ready for the Grave Yet (2012)
and
Stop Making Fans (2018)
were less ambitious.
Music for Shared Rooms (2022) collects and rearranges
music composed for theater and cinema.
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