Quellgeister

"Quellgeister" (roughly translated as ‘source-spirits’) is a long term research project into the unique character of derelict pipe-organs in Transylvania’s abandoned fortress churches, left obsolete by the exodus that followed the fall of Communism in Romania. My aim is to investigate the relations between individual organ-beings and music, the various transformations that human-built ritual machines undergo once left devoid of human presence, as they are slowly changing their interior material composition, developing a spirit and climate beyond nature and culture. I am observing the sonic progress of things / organs being left behind.

“Elegie”, Quellgeister #3 ‘Bussd’

During the years of communist rule in Romania following the Second World War, many ethnic Germans fled Transylvania, leaving countless vilages, churches und church organs abandoned to gradually succumb to nature's decay. Fraunberger's Quellgeister (Source-Ghosts) project sees him travel through the region to record improvisations on these woozy mechanical beasts, like they're rusty spaceships he's guiding through clouds of dissoncance, bendy notes and parps of pipe dust. The project truly came into its own when he recorded the second Quellgeister in a village whose German name Wurmloch translates as Wormhole, eschewing the pomp of sacred music for the fragile drone of an organic death knell. „Quellgeister is about the influence of nature on culture,“ says Fraunberger. Yet the project is also an oblique manifesto for utilising Europe's vacant and disused spaces, places and things. 'Why should i buy a new modular synthesizer if there's lots of unused organs standing around?' he asks. The inhuman vocalisation audible in the project's second volume do indeed resemble nature's very own modular patch, implanted in decaying keybords waiting to be discovered.“ (The Wire)

“Zustandshorizont”, Quellgeister #2 ‘Wurmloch’

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