Name: klingt.collective
Members: Martin Brandlmayr (drums), Angélica Castelló (recorders, tapes), dieb13 (turntables), Klaus Filip (ppooll), Susanna Gartmayer (bass clarinet),
Noid (cello), Billy Roisz (electronics & bass), Martin Siewert (guitars, electronics), Oliver Stotz (guitars, electronics)
Nationality: Austrian
Current release: klingt.collective's album variable densities is out via Interstellar.
Recommendations for their hometown of Vienna: I personally love to walk/hike through cities to explore them and would recommend to do so in Vienna as well. For example, walking from burgeois Hietzing in the west via the city center to Kagran on the other side of river danube in the east gives you a nice cross section of the city – plus you can always jump on a “U-Bahn” train and take a shortcut, in case you should get bored.

[Read our Billy Roisz interview]
[Read our ANTHROPODS interview, another band featuring Susanna Gartmayer]

If you enjoyed this klingt.collective interview and would like to know more about the band, visit their official homepage. They are also on bandcamp.



Why do you like playing in a band rather than making music on your own?

The klingt.collective is a group of nine people with the mission to explore collaboration in the context of improvised music.

This, of course, works in a group only and it’s a lot of fun to work together – especially since we have known each other since many years.

What, to you, are some of the greatest bands, and what makes them great?

I don’t like “favourites lists”, but I like music of all genres as long as it’s passionate.

I have a weakness for “amateur music” (in the original sense of “music lover”) and for music creators who shift boundaries.

How did the band come together?

We've known each other for many years. Most of us have played together in other projects before. With some, like Oliver Stotz, Billy Roisz and Martin Siewert, I have already played together since the late 1990s.

The klingt.orgestra was a 13 piece big-band, with most of us in it, which started playing composed pieces in 2010. In 2022 we started with a slightly changed line-up and a new name - the klingt.collective - to reflect the fact that we will focus on improvised music more than before.

How do your different characters add up to the band's sound and in which way is the end result – including live performances – different from the sum of its pieces?

I can say that we're a great mixture of more traditional / mechanical / analogue instruments and electronic and digital ones, evenly covering the whole frequency- and sound spectrum.

Coming from different musical backgrounds, this gives us the opportunity to cover a wide dynamic range and many stylistic references and play beyond the well-known free-jazz-improv style.

Tell me about the process behind your album variable densities, please.

variable densities is a cautiosly mixed live recording of our show at the densités festival in Fresnes-en-Woëvre in November 2023.

Martin Siewert, who plays guitar in the band and runs a well-known studio in Vienna did a great job in polishing and highlighting the single instruments and the general flow of this concert.

The result is a concert, split into two record sides, which works perfectly as a listening experience at home and is much more than a documentation of our live activities.

What tend to be the best songs in your opinion – those where you had a lot in common as a band or those where you had more differences? What happens when another musician take you outside of your comfort zone?

I like it, when we “tickle” each other with our music. In my opinion, playing improvised music works best, when you have the opportunity to add your input to the process and there are actions to react to.

I think the klingt.collective has its best moments as a band on stage when we are slightly outside of our comfort zone and have to work hard to keep things together.

Do any of the band's members also have solo projects? If so, how do these feeds into the band's creative process?

Yes, most of us play solos now and then. Since we play in very different musical (and social) contexts, our solo projects and manifold group and ensemble activities build the base of experience for the klingt.collective.

This makes it harder to find spots in the calender for all of us, though.

In a live situation, decisions between band members often work without words. From your experience and the performances of your current tour, what does this process feel like and how does it work?

One thing is, that we know each other quite well and anticipate each other's actions.

The other thing is the beauty and necessity for listening to the outcome while playing. This makes it important to have a good monitoring on stage and trust each other, but creates a great sense of togetherness.

How has the interaction within the group changed over the years? How do you keep things surprising, playful and inspiring?

We regularly experiment with new positions / assemblies on stage and we discuss the outcome and strategies of our concerts. This makes every live show unique and (hopefully) interesting for us and the audience.

Most bands eventually break up. What makes you stay together? What are essentials for a successful band?

I’ll tell you, after we broke up – ok? ;-)

But seriously: I think it helps a lot that we are more than just colleagues and have a great appreciation for each other as persons - often even as friends.