GUDRUN GUT was recommended to Cold Lips by the multi-media goddess, Danielle De Picciotto, who was very much the inspiration in our first issue …
It is impossible to read any history of contemporary Berlin without Gudrun Gut’s name appearing. She DJed on the Western Berlin radio encouraging East Berliners to understand there was life on the other side of the wall. She was a pioneering member of Einstürzende Neubauten and founder with Mania D, Malaria! and Matador, and has made film music for Mark Reeder’s brilliant B-Movie, and far more. As a starting point, we asked this underground legend to comment on the prompts below:
Lyrics as spoken word…
I did several records with Myra Davies, the spoken word artist – I did the music, she the text. The most recent Myra Davies piece is called Sirens, where I split the music with Beate Bartel. It is released as an instrumental album as well. For my own recordings I do use ‘Sprechgesang’, which is kind of spoken word with a little tone …
Women & legacy…
Yes: here we are fighting for our rights – fighting for equal rights. Still.
Digital sounds in the anthropocene era – how the analogue and binary interpolate…
Yes, wonderful.
What you’re trying to achieve with your current music practice, how your background plays into that.
My current music practice is using more toys – I try to be not so computer fixated. This leaves me more fun and freedom to develop unexpected results. I am always trying to trick myself in being inventive and to get it exciting. Improv is something I denied for a long time, but actually we did pretty free songs already in my first band, Mania D – with Malaria we went more into fixed compositions – and now with Monika Werkstatt I found a new way in playing with other artists without stopping being a solo artist. We have shows were we play solo and free together. This is a lot of fun, and everyone, even me, learns something.
Where one art finishes and another ends…
is the place for the edge.
You can find Gudrun at her home on the web, gudrungut.com. If in the market for something more tangible, you can catch the legend herself performing in London this Sunday (19th November) with La Leif, Barbara Morgenstern, Pilocka Krach, and Sonae at Café OTO as part of her ongoing all-female project collective Monika Werkstatt.
Details n’ tickets here.
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‘Gudrun Gut (ist good)’ is an article published exclusively in Cold Lips II. To read more stories from the issue, you can purchase a full copy in select shops or in our online store.
