CM von Hausswolff – 800 000 Seconds in Harar

CM von Hausswolff

CD – Touch

When he was twenty-four, Arthur Rimbaud left the world of literature and lounges to wander through Europe before finally landing in Harar in Abyssinia, a city that boasted of possessing 99 minarets. CM von Hausswolff, commissioned to write music for a play about the life of the “damned poet”, has here adopted the guidelines of a well-established style: following the inspiration suggested by many field recordings made on-site and arranging them in impressive drones that contain frequencies resulting from careful work with analog oscillators. In this case a quote from poet Andrea del Sarto seems to resonate: “Less is more”. This phrase was used successfully by the rationalist architect Mies van der Rohe, who believed that with a few minimal elements the structure of a composition can be defined and organized in all its unadorned, beautiful essence. All this is enriched by the reverberations of a perpetual journey, of life, death and art; flashes of a reality that is “hard to snuff out”.