SOUNDWAVE : 93 : CHRISTOPH BERG

Today’s guest deejay is Christoph Berg.

Christoph is a composer and musician living and working in Berlin, focusing on chamber music and music for film. Besides releasing music on various imprints, Christoph runs his own record label Monochrome Editions. He also releases electroacoustic music as Field Rotation.

That’s all verbiage I copied and pasted from Discogs. I could use words like minimal, haunted, and mournful to describe it but you really, you need to experience Christoph’s music for yourself.

Christoph Berg

While writing this, I can tell you that I was listening to his Tape Anthology Vol. 1 album over my AirPods. My wife is asleep next to me, and I don’t want to disturb her. I was caught up in the emotions that Christoph was stirring in me when I began to be aware of the sounds of my stomach gurgling. But then it dawned on me that it wasn’t my stomach. It was gentle rumbling sounds within Christoph’s music. I’m sure that wasn’t Christoph’s intent, but for me, it gave an intimate and organic feel to his music. The experience endeared me to Christoph in an unexpected way.

Christoph’s mix, on the other hand, seems to capture the desolate spirit of our pandemic winter of 2022.

Everyone I know seems to have COVID. I have a dry, slight cough. It could be from the booster shot I received last week, a common cold I picked up, or the virus. And so, as part of my now monthly routine, I need to schedule yet another COVID test. But this is the shape of our lives now, so I square my shoulders and get on with it.

Christoph’s mix provides the soundtrack to what feels like it will be a very long winter.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Kazuya Nagaya.

See you then.

Strain of Laws “Ordinary Mystique”

Hildur Guðnadóttir “Gallery”

Murcof “Dropped Soul/Shadow Surfing”

Jasmine Guffond & Erik K Skodvin “The Burrower”

Egisto Macchi “Segni Preistorici”

John Wall “Stat:Unt:Dist”

Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin “Vaccination No. 2”

Black Merlin “Sibi”

PDP III “Walls of Kyoto”

Radiohead “The Jumbled Words of Climbing Up the Walls Read by Little Dan Clements”

Makunouchi Bento “Jubokko”

Meitei / 冥丁 “Jizo”

Twinkle³ with Sidsel Endresen “Debris in L.E.O.”

Mica Levi “Delete Beach (Japanese)

Mikado Koko みかどここ “Ten Little Kuronbo”

Demdike Stare x Il Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza “The Feed-Back Loop (excerpt)”

Robert Millis “Only Here A Short While”

Subscribe to SOUNDWAVE on iTunes, Overcast, Castro and Pocketcasts.

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek