Ania Losinger – Xala III (elektroacoustic resonant body, played by dancing), Effects
Mats Eser – Fender Rhodes, Percussion, Effects
Field Recording: Porto Sa Ruxi (39°07’47.7″N 9°27’12.3″E)
WATER PIECE Water Piece is about a place.
It is also about a state of being.
Arriving and letting go — within the eternal cycle.
It is a place of childhood and of dying.
A bay in southern Sardinia, encircled by sand dunes, Mediterranean plants, and round, granite boulders washed smooth by the sea.
Longing and fulfilment.
It is winter, it is lonely.
Time to remember. To sink into the North. To Sleep.
Salt in the wind. Endless soughing.
An eternally continuous ebb and flow of water.
The InstrumentsAnia Losinger’s Xala III is a unique instrument and the third version of the invention XALA. Unlike its purely acoustic predecessors, it is electroacoustic. Each sound plate made of wood and metal is equipped with a contact microphone; every sound played is routed to a mixing console and enhanced with effects. In WATER PIECE, Ania Losinger uses field recordings for the first time. Recordings of water are processed into individual sounds, which are woven into the music alongside the other effects.
Mats Eser uses an original Suitcase Fender Rhodes from 1973 for the new production WATER PIECE and complements the electronically processed sounds with acoustic percussion instruments.
Ania Losinger and Mats Eser
“…Losinger and Eser transform rhythm into sound and succeed in a fascinating way in the moment of reduction, of relief. The lightness and poetry with which the polyrhythmically-repetitive structures unfold allow the motoric element to recede into the background. Constantly in motion, symmetrical yet amorphous, this deeply personal and refreshingly unpretentious music carries and touches you from within…”
Ania Losinger, dancer and musician, dances and plays on the world’s first floor xylophone – the Xala. She developed this unique instrument in 1998/99 together with instrument maker Hamper von Niederhäusern. The Xala is a sound object made of wood and metal tones. It is played through dance – with flamenco shoes and human-sized sticks. Today, there are three Xalas that differ in size and timbre. This invention allows for a complete fusion of music and dance.
Mats Eser works as a musician, composer, and producer across a wide stylistic range. He has a special interest in the richness of percussive sounds and the art of staging them musically. As a multi-instrumentalist, he creates ever-new and surprising sound mixtures with marimba, vibraphone, Fender Rhodes, drums, self-developed glass instruments, select cymbals, and Asian gongs. The resulting music has long since transcended all stylistic boundaries and touches the listener directly.
The live performance of WATER PIECE is a dialogue between two instruments and two musicians, where joy meets depth, and compositional complexity meets playful precision. The artists merge into the soundscapes they bring to life on stage, filling the space with them. Ania Losinger doesn’t just play her Xala – she becomes part of it – an archaic and at the same time modern presence of tremendous energetic force.
