KOLLATERALSCHADEN (colateral damage)
by Michael Rook [2001/2002]

 

Michael's (*1968 in Düsseldorf, † 2022 in Düsseldorf) music is an extreme music. The following press reviews reflect this quite well:

"A brachial inferno that not only moved the ears but above all the diaphragm from  their usual position. The fierceness of this Work's premiere was fully accounted for: Bombs crashing down and hammering flak-salvoes couldn't be more realistic."

 

"Rook's music manifests itself as a violent orgy full of  brutally hammered chordal beatings, full of rampaging screeches."

 

KOLLATERALSCHADEN (Collateral Damage) is a large-scale multiple-movement composition, of which two movements are completed to date

I. Kollaps/Relaps (wormhole) [2001/2002]

 

Michael wrote about his piece:

Astrophysicists developed the concept of a "Black Hole", which swallows up and distorts light, mass, density and time into a "quantum singularity", a state of immense density and extremely small space in which even time is supposed to be running backwards; however, it remains unclear what actually happens inside this singularity. A science fiction theory claims that if two of these black holes are stringed up they would form a so called wormhole which could operate as a kind of gate into a different space-time. It is also interesting that this "sigularity" is in its way an end and that by combining two of these ends into a wormhole they cease to be ends. Thus science fiction [as a continuation of industrial thinking] moves closer to common religions like Christianity or Islam; however, while in religion one is suggested to reach the next world more or less unharmed, the scifi-version [the space-time opening up on the other side of the wormhole] lacks this kind of security. Maybe the first person crossing that borderline will come out unchanged - only with the hand growing from the forehead instead of the wrist. The bottom line is that after the end things may go on. But the afterworld rarely resembles what was left behind, no matter how exact the copying process may be - which applies to music just as well as it does to cloned hamsters.


commissioned by Interzone perceptible

duration: 10'00

[first performed: Bühl/Baden (Germany) within the scope of the festival kopfHörer/experimentelle musik elektrovisuell, july 5th 2002]

 

 

II. Deutsch/Ländler (Würstchen) [2004]

 

commissioned by Interzone perceptible

 

[first performed: nov 11th 2004 Neue Musik Delmenhorst / Germany]

 

 

[translated by Michael Rook]