tephra

Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg

Release Event⎢ Thurs. April 10, 18 - 21 hr
The release will be celebrated with an exhibition of the poetry art print and a listening session of the album.

einBuch.haus / Florastr.61, 13187 Berlin 

tephra is an interdisciplinary album by poet and pianist Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg. Within ten poems he describes a process of healing, combining languages of love, science, psychology and mysticism. His setting of the poems formally resembles a musical score, treating the space between the lines as a space in which music can emerge - it is the unsaid and the unsayable. Drawing on his experience as a Lied-Pianist and a live improviser, Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg sets his words to music in this album, merging concepts of art song, melodrama, spoken word and improvisation-based composition. His music arises intuitively from the contents and the simultaneous recitation of his own poetry, taking up the ancient tradition of self-accompanied poetic recitation, expanded through electroacoustic extensions by Kaan Bulak.

"While recording “tephra”, it felt like my cerebral hemispheres were connecting: both my musical and poetical selves coupled. Usually, I experienced them as separate: Poetry is written and stays, whereas performing music needs a lot of preparation and disappears the moment it is created. As a classically trained pianist, I am fascinated by the creative power and freedom that lie in improvisation. It enables a more intuitive approach, it allows for feelings to express themselves directly, and since I improvised my music while reciting my poetry, it became a direct and immediate expression of my entire self. When I was writing the text, I set the poems as if they were music, because words feel sometimes like music to me. When listening to the album, I invite you to observe the accompanying art print, read the text simultaneously or follow the forms of the embossing which originated out of the poetic imagery and its musical counterparts like a reversed score.” (Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg)

The release is accompanied by a limited edition poetry art print, designed by Forma. It contains all ten poems in their original formal setting with a manifold embossing, converting the soundscapes of tephra into an audio-visual experience, and comes with a download code for the album. 

Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg

Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg (*1991) is a poet, song pianist, librettist and member of the poetry collective G13. He works on the themes of identity, antisemitism and sexualised violence. Together with Max Czollek, he curated the four-part series »Lieder für das Jetzt« at the International Music Festival Heidelberger Frühling. He teaches poetry at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and is a member of the Coalition for Pluralistic Public Discourse (CPPD). His poetry collection »WIEDERGUTMACHUNGSJUDE« was published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin and staged by Dor Aloni at the Maxim Gorki Theatre.

Feral Note

Feral Note is an audiovisual label and production studio based in Berlin since 2017. The releases are somewhere between historic keyboards and avant-garde art – always expressive. All releases are published digitally for streaming and download, selected releases additionally come with physical products ranging from limited edition vinyls, tapes and CDs to art prints.