From the first sound of the Chinese Yun Luo gong to the last tap of heels on the Xala III, the flight with Shanghai Patterns lasts over an hour. The artist duo, Ania Losinger and Mats Eser, takes off, curious to learn about this city and its delusions of grandeur, about its sounds and rhythms, its pathless terrain. It is an inspirational and inspired, breathless sound tour through one of the largest urban agglomerations on the planet. The duo traveled to Shanghai in 2010 to perform at the World Exposition. A new Xala was developed for this journey, optimized for air travel, packed in five bags and equipped with enhanced electro-acoustic sound: the Xala III, representing the third generation of this unique instrument which is played by dancing upon it.
The time spent in the megalomanic “City of the Dragon” triggered a storm of impressions and feelings, a flood of images and sounds, an undertow of questions and dreams. Upon their return and as a result of the process of assimilation and translation of their journey to Shanghai, a stage version of Shanghai Patterns was developed. Now there follows a newly composed, purely musical variation which at the same time represents the second part of the 2014 CD trilogy featuring the Xala III.
Shanghai Patterns takes off with the airiness of a still fresh morning; it creates a path of sound through the city and while upon it, tells the tales of the metropolis. Stories of glamour, gigantism, a frenzy of labor, fast-paced change, dirt and poverty, all woven within the never ending pulse of the streets of Shanghai into the melody of life, which flows ever onwards, at times driven by the faceless masses, at others supported by the dignity of an indomitable, individual smile, which flashes even under the tenacious blanket of smog.
At times thickly woven, at others more loosely yet indivisibly, Mats Eser generates magical sounds from his cockpit of marimba and asian gongs, entwining them over and under the Xala. And Ania Losinger plays on precisely two square meters, committing her whole body to her man-high wooden poles, her flamenco shoes and her thirteen sounding boards of wood and metal.
Rhythms and sounds sink, harden, swell and blend. Inscrutable, uncanny, unreal, irresistible. They brighten, tumble, twist and float in the faces and the gestures of the city. It pulls, bursts and tears, it swarms outward, it blends and frisks, it orders, caresses and with its last clear tone, comforts us.
A skillfully dramatic intoxication of sound and rhythm that logically ends abruptly… and goes on in ones head.
Carlos Lügstenmann
Ania Losinger – Xala III (electro-acoustic sounding stage)
Mats Eser – marimba/percussion
