Benjamin Schweitzer

Hidden Tracks

The title hidden tracks is ambiguous. First of all, the piece is almost throughout imagined as 'multi-track', with layers (in the sense of sound tracks) that partly overlay each other, partly suddenly appear from the background. The composition deals with 'hidden' lines, sounds at the perception threshold, with side effects of the accordion sound which -observed, so to speak, under a compositional 'microscope' - develop a special allure: that is the vertical component. The title has also a horizontal meaning: a 'hidden track' is a piece on a record without a track number that is not mentioned on the cover either. In most cases, a 'hidden track' follows after a longer break after the (presumably) last piece on the record; often this track contains strange sounds, noise or other surprising elements. 'Hidden tracks' are surrounded by a nimbus of the mysterious and subversive. This effect is being used rather often throughout the piece: again and again, it seems to have ended but continues after a pause. The expectation of the listener and the attentiveness also for the tiniest events rises; the performance receives an almost scenic character. hidden tracks was partly composed in August 2008 during a stay at the Künstlerhaus Lukas in Ahrenshoop at the shores of the Baltic Sea. The work was accompanied by many walks on the beach - again and again, I caught a sight on tracks in the sand that became overlaid by other tracks, wiped out by the wind and the waves... Benjamin Schweitzer