Phillip Sollmann is readying his Monophonie LP for release on May 15th via Ostgut Ton‘s sub-label A-Ton. The Berlin-based producer and composer also operates under the moniker Efdemin, having released the 2019 LP New Atlantis for Ostgut Ton as well as an extensive back catalog under the project name since 1999.
Across nine minimalist tracks, Monophonie finds the composer exploring various directions of utopian music stemming from the German physicist-polymath Hermann von Helmholtz‘s explorations of just tone laid out in his famous 1863 treatise on the subject, Sensations of Tone. Towards this end, Sollmann incorporates von Helmholtz’s extraordinary musical resonator the Double Siren, as well as instruments created by the US avant-composer Harry Partch and metal sound sculptors by the Italian-born, US furniture designer and artist Harry Bertoia.
Monophonie was composed in 2016 and premiered at Berlin’s Volksbühne theatre in 2017, before going on to be performed at the German music festival Ruhrtriennale and Kampnagel theater in Hamburg. Below you can watch a short film about the piece’s premiere at the Volksbühne in 2017. The composition is performed by the Ensemble Musikfabrik, and it also features Sollmann on von Helmholtz‘s double siren.
