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Founded in 1993 by composers and multi-
instrumentalists Iskandar Hasnawi (France) and Renaud
Tschirner (Austria), joined by keyboard player,
programmer and engineer SĂ©bastien Roland in 1997,
ELEND have gathered around them various musicians in
the course of their existence: violinist David Kempf
(2000-present), the sopranos Eve-Gabrielle Siskind
(1994-1995), Nathalie Barbary (1995-2003), Esteri
RĂ©mond (2003-present) and Laura Angelmayer (2005-
present).
The completion of the "Officium Tenebrarum" (or "Office
des Ténèbres", 1993-1998), ELEND's highly acclaimed,
very ...read more
Founded in 1993 by composers and multi-
instrumentalists Iskandar Hasnawi (France) and Renaud
Tschirner (Austria), joined by keyboard player,
programmer and engineer SĂ©bastien Roland in 1997,
ELEND have gathered around them various musicians in
the course of their existence: violinist David Kempf
(2000-present), the sopranos Eve-Gabrielle Siskind
(1994-1995), Nathalie Barbary (1995-2003), Esteri
RĂ©mond (2003-present) and Laura Angelmayer (2005-
present).
The completion of the "Officium Tenebrarum" (or "Office
des Ténèbres", 1993-1998), ELEND's highly acclaimed,
very dark and violent trilogy, was followed by a hiatus of
several years, where the composers turned to other, non-
public musical projects.
ELEND resurfaced with Winds Devouring Men in 2003,
the first part of a new sequence of albums. This work
saw them take a quieter turn, soft and delicate strings
were organically intertwined with exotic tones and harsh
metallic textures and sounds inspired by French
musique concrète. On their next album, the furious and
dark Sunwar the Dead (2004), the composers combined
their talent for large and dense orchestration with the
most extreme experiments of the musical avant-garde of
the XXth century.
Their latest album A World in Their Screams, which
completes their “Winds Cycle” trilogy, was recorded with
30 instrumentalists and vocalists. The new
compositions follow the long epic prose poem which
also served as the foundation for the previous two parts
of the “Winds Cycle”, combining personal themes with
references to ancient Greek authors. Techniques from
the musical avant-garde are tied together with a massive
use of electronics and experiments with the human
voice; microtonality, sonorism and musique concrète are
fused with the post-Romantic instrumentation that is still
intrinsically linked to ELEND’s musical identity.
Difficulties in producing this unprecedented type of
music led to a deferral of the initially scheduled release
date. The earliest draft of the album, contemporaneous
with Sunwar the Dead, was modified several times: when
the recording sessions had to be postponed the album
was merged with the work in progress for the abstract
and violent ELEND side-project ENSEMBLE ORPHIQUE.
Since techniques had to be invented and developed in
order to master such an uncommon sound, ELEND’s
intensive and unusually long-lasting work on this album
fostered a further radicalisation in composition and
production: the result surpasses even their legendary
album The Umbersun (1998) in terms of oppressive
darkness. A World in Their Screams pushes the limits of
musical density, suffocating atmospheres and raw
violence to a point of no return.
*Taken from official site* « hide |
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