Sara Persico & hÄK/Danzeisen at Kantine am Berghain / Thursday, 25.5.2023

Sara Persico is a sound artist, composer and performer based in Berlin. Her practice explores modes of storytelling across the expressive possibilities of the human voice and electronic sound. Her compulsive sonic dimension is shaped by the unusual impulsive vocal practice mixed with pulsations and a variety of frequencies.

Sara plays with the concept of transforming the identity of things, changing the nature of noises in order to create an elaborate interior landscape and induce imagination. Her versatile and performative approach has led her in many collaborative projects with artists such as Tomomi Adachi, Evelyn Saylor’s vocal ensemble for Caterina Barbieri’s light-years show, Andy Moor (The Ex), Tony Elieh, Ludwig Wandinger, Dirar Kalash, Recordat, Francesca Grilli among others. Sara’s debut EP „Boundary“ was released on Karlrecords on march 10th 2023.

One must imagine hÄK / Danzeisen as a man-machine apparatus. A collection of cables, resonating bodies and restless limbs that together question all routines. Who overthrow conventional role of instruments and explore the possibilities of a new sound language. Bernd Norbert Würtz alias hÄK operates modular synthesizers, self-soldered circuits and control knobs. Philipp Danzeisen plays a drum kit enhanced with triggers and sensors. These two poles are connected to an interdependent whole in which a constant musical dialogue takes place. The dependencies within this system have been meticulously defined by hÄK /Danzeisen: Drum rolls and sound modulations are interconnected in such a way that there is no contradiction between the strict technological structure and the creative outburst that is possible at any time.

What drives hÄK / Danzeisen is the basic idea that the contrast between acoustic drums and synthetically produced sounds must be overcome in order to create a new experience. Würtz, Danzeisen and their combined instrumentation simultaneously rub up against the same edges,finding a single, piercing voice. Ideal manifestations of this approach are the duo’s live performances: raw energy that oscillates as precisely as it surprises between drones, abstraction and noise attacks, driven by an impudent take on jazz. Constantly oscillating between the registers of „composed“ and „improvised“, each performance by hÄK / Danzeisen ultimately becomes one of a kind.