A double CD released by Edition Wandelweiser Records (August 2017), composed by E.Waeckerlé, performed by Andre O. Moeller, Antoine Beuger, Alissa Cheung, Josten Myburgh, Sandra Schimag, Samuel Vriezen, and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé.
Ode (owed) to O belongs somewhere between experimental music, sound poetry and spoken word. The four works included are the outcome of reading through (CD 1) and reading from (CD 2) Pauline Reage's infamous novel Story of O, using minimal and multiple narrations and musical renditions of texts that blend erotic literature, conceptual writing and verbal scores. One may recognize certain affinities with, among others, Jackson Mac Low and Anne Tardos verbal musical compositions, Cornelius Cardew and John Cage reworking of existing texts, or more recent word pieces by Ryoko Akama and Lo Wie.
Ode (owed) to O is based upon and concludes a sequence of on-the-page works that seeks to liberate O from her rather shocking story, as well as from the complex and little known history of its writing. Both histories were brought together for the first time in Reading (Story of) O (uniformbooks, 2015) in which Emmanuelle reprinted, in parallel, a graphic reworking of the English and French versions of the original story (first published in 1954). That book also includes (Reading) O, a series of instructions for reading alone or with others, which were used for the second track, (looking for).
Ode (owed) to O was launched at Klangraum 2017 (18 - 23 July 2017) in Düsseldorf. Performed by John Eyles, Ryan Dohoney, Alex Mah, Andre O. Moeller (voices) - Assaf Gidron (cello), Antoine Beuger (flute). Some recordings are on SoundCloud.
Three textual scores/pieces from the CD will be performed at Café Oto in London on 22 February 2018 by Antoine Beuger, John Eyles, Sarah Hughes, Petri Huurinainen, Charlotte Keefe, Will Montgomery, Artur Vidal and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, and in Chicago’s Frequency Festival by a.pe.ri.od.ic ensemble, on 22 April 2018.
