Philip Zoubek.
Where piano and synthesizer merge.
Philip Zoubek on Enigma, the character of a sound and the productive friction between acoustic and electronic instruments.
Philip Zoubek
A synthesizer can sound like a prepared piano. A piano tone can give electronic sounds bite and punch. On Enigma, Philip Zoubek is interested in precisely that moment when the instruments change each other and their origins become blurred. With David Helm and Dominik Mahnig, he has developed it into a trio piece lasting more than 40 minutes. In our conversation, he explains how sound research seeps into his playing, how the ensemble sound expands, and what Placebo Domingo and Mirage have left behind in the trio.
Born in Tulln, pianist and composer Philip Zoubek lives and works in Cologne. Prepared piano, analogue synthesizers and the relationship between composition and improvisation are central to his work.
When a sound feels right
In the text accompanying Enigma, you describe a discovery while improvising with piano and synthesizer. What did you suddenly hear that you could not let go of? Can you take us into that moment?
A central aspect of my music is sound research, for example on the prepared piano or with electronics. Sounds that interest me feel “right”; there is a depth to them, and that is exactly what makes me curious. I think I have a good sense of character, temperament and expression.
Most of this happens while improvising and eventually seeps into my playing. It is not a conscious process; it simply develops gradually.
Two hands, two counterparts
At times you play piano with your left hand while operating the synthesizer with your right. How does that change your playing? Is there something you discover precisely because you do not have both hands free at the piano?
Either I play in unison, meaning the instruments colour and alter each other, or I really use the two instruments as antagonists. But something similar is possible on the piano too.
The result is a hybrid sound in which it is often unclear which instrument is in the foreground.
Opening up the ensemble sound
David Helm uses effects on the bass, while Dominik Mahnig plays, among other things, a table xylophone. Which idea from either of them changed your initial vision for a passage in Enigma?
I simply wanted to expand the ensemble sound, just as I do with piano and synth.
The backbone of Enigma
Enigma consists of nine parts that together form one large piece. How did you find that form? What was settled before recording, and what only emerged while playing together or listening back afterwards?
Enigma is fairly thoroughly composed. I have described the process quite well here:
For years I have been exploring sound: synthesizer, prepared piano and, more recently, above all the connection between electronic and acoustic sounds. The idea for Enigma came about almost incidentally.
While the Philip Zoubek Trio’s first record is still relatively conventional in its approach, Enigma places greater emphasis on the sonic qualities of the individual pieces. Improvising with synthesizer and prepared piano in the rehearsal room produced sounds that increasingly occupied my mind and eventually became the foundation of a trio piece lasting more than 40 minutes.
I am interested in how the two instruments change each other. I am also fascinated by making the synthesizer sound acoustic – like a prepared piano. At the same time, it colours, detunes and thickens the piano sound. Conversely, the piano’s tone, particularly its attack, gives the synthesizer sounds bite and punch. The result is a hybrid sound in which it is often unclear which instrument is in the foreground.
These experiments generated sounds, shapes and states that gradually coalesced into groups of sounds and sonic spaces with different temperaments. They form the backbone of the piece, recurring throughout, changing and entering into new relationships with one another.
They include almost naive, detuned melodies, glissandi in all kinds of variations, distorted riffs, percussive and kalimba-like sounds, and simple rhythmic cells that develop over the course of the piece.
This sonic world extends to drums and bass. Both instruments expand and support particular aspects of the piece. The acoustic bass uses distortion, ring modulators and an octaver to hold its own against the synthesizer’s weight. The drums pick up the synthesizer’s kalimba-like sounds with a table xylophone.
Trance and new colours
You also play with David and Dominik as Placebo Domingo, with different instrumentation and its own sound. What do you bring back into the trio from that work? Is there something you first dared to try there that now also shapes Enigma?
Placebo has certainly changed the trio. In Placebo, we are concerned with trance-like states. The music can sound quite massive, and Enigma does too, especially live.
In terms of its sound, Enigma is perhaps equally influenced by the PZ Trio Extended record Mirage. That was the first time we worked with a much wider palette of colours than you would normally expect from jazz-oriented bands.
Philip Zoubek
Interview by email · Editorial and image art direction: SCENE:ID. Degenhardt · Jennifer Rumbach