Artist : Ursula Bogner
Title : Recordings 1969-1988
Genre : Electronic
Year : 2008
Date : 11/2008
Bitrate : VBR kbps
Tracks : 15
Label : Faitiche 01lp
Source : Vinyl
Encoder : Lame 3.97
Length : 34:16 min
Size : 44,7 MB
Tracklist:
----------
01.begleitung fⁿr tuba 02:26
02.inversion 01:59
03.proto 01:34
04.metazoon 03:35
05.momentaufnahmen 01:13
06.2 ton 03:01
07.speichen 01:59
08.modes 01:55
09.atmosphΣre 1 00:52
10.punkte 03:02
11.expansion 02:18
12.fⁿr ulrich 01:49
13.pulsation 01:46
14.testlauf 01:30
15.soloresonanzen 05:17
-------
34:16 min
It seems almost incredible that Ursula BognerÆs musical
talents should have remained undiscovered until now.
Yet in view of her biography, this might have been just
as inevitable.
It was on a flight to Vilnius that I met Sebastian Bogner,
UrsulaÆs son, who told me he was on a business trip for
a pharmaceutical company. The usual small talk soon
led to the topic of his mother Ursula, who also æliked to
play around with synthesizersÆ, albeit purely on an
amateur level and in a dedicated music room fitted
especially for this purpose in the parental home.
Among her acquaintances, it was simply considered one
of her many eccentric hobbies and not paid a great deal
of interest. At a cursory glance, Ursula BognerÆs life
seemed simple and bourgeois to the core: a pharmacist,
wife and mother, firmly ensconced in a detached house.
A setup that made her obsession with electronic music
all the more bizarre, an obsession that drove her to build
her own studio for extensive recording and experimentation.
According to the usual chronological benchmarks, Ursula
BognerÆs biography appears short and conventional: Born
(*1946) and raised in Dortmund, she moved to Berlin at
19 to study pharmacy. Degree in hand, she immediately
went to work for pharmaceutical giant Schering, followed
by marriage, children and a successful yet by no means
sensational scientific career within the multinational
heavyweight.
At the same time, she developed a keen interest in electronic
music. Throughout her early twenties, she followed the
activities of Cologne-based æStudio fⁿr elektronische MusikÆ,
attended seminars by Studio founder Herbert Eimert, exhibited
great enthusiasm for Musique ConcrΦte and, later on, shared
her childrenÆs enthusiasm for British New Wave Pop.
Nevertheless, Ursula Bogner never involved herself in any
scene, never made her music public. Maybe this can be
attributed to her boundless curiosity. Besides composition,
she also tried her hand at painting, printing (the booklet
features reproductions of two of her linocuts) and developed
a strong fascination for Wilhelm ReichÆs æorgonomyÆ, the
sexual researcher and psychoanalystÆs bizarre late work on
his discovery of æorgonenergyÆ. Reich aimed to focus resp.
collect this particular type of solar energy and use it for healingnotes
purposes. To this end, he created an apparatus, a cabin of
wood and metal otherwise known as an æorgon accumulatorÆ.
Inspired by several trips to æOrgononÆ (Maine, USA) û Wilhelm
ReichÆs former workspace and home - Ursula Bogner decided
to construct her own accumulator and stored it in the familyÆs
backyard. At this point, it becomes increasingly hard to shake
the suspicion, later confirmed by Sebastian Bogner, that his
mother was drawn to all things esoteric. Mounds of New Age
literature and fringe science works would litter the Bogner
household. And yet, throughout all this, she remained a Schering
employee and thus firmly rooted in the sciences.
Her compositions, too, betray few signs of esotericism, in fact
they are closer to studies and sketches: humorous and - in
view of her biography - almost silly rather than tied to any
particular school of mysticism or science. Nevertheless, it is
remarkably hard to grasp or classify her work as a whole.
Over the course of 20 years, she dabbled in many different
styles leading to a huge wealth of work and a bewildering
variety of titles.
In the late 1960s, Ursula Bogner started to record her own
music on reel-to-reel tapes. With some of these titles, we
only found individual tracks of pieces recorded on a four-
track-recorder û in these cases, I had to recombine the
separate tracks to recreate the original piece.
Unfortunately, I could not involve Ursula Bogner in the mixing
process as she passed away in 1994. Invoking the originalÆs
authenticity might seem insensitive, yet there was no other
way to release them in their entirety. Ultimately, only three of
the tracks featured on this LP are such æreworkingsÆ.
All other titles were taken straight from the original reels.
Covering a fairly short period of her creative career, they also
convey a peculiar coherence in both form and content. A
coherence that reflects her accessible, rhythmic and
sometimes even æpoppyÆ side. Naturally, my own preference
played a part in the selection process. All my personal
favourites made it on the CD/LP, and whenever I listen to this
collection, I invariably succumb to the titlesÆ light-hearted
nonchalance. This might leave many hours of undiscovered
gems, but a further compilation is already in the works.
My thanks go out to the Bogner family, especially Sebastian
Bogner, who was generous enough to grant me access to
the reels and supply me with invaluable insights into his
motherÆs life. I hope that listeners will enjoy the same
exhilaration I experienced on discovery of Ursula BognerÆs
music.
Jan Jelinek
http://www.faitiche.de