Label Profile
Trente Oiseaux
Koblenz, Germany
Profiled by Joe Panzner
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Since 1995, Trente Oiseaux has been a sanctuary for a rare breed of music constructed with the most fragile of sounds and the most durable of ideologies. Strongly rooted in the Cage-founded tradition of “sounds as themselves,” Trente Oiseaux releases tend to be at once deeply mysterious and starkly matter-of-fact in their presentation – distant fields of crackles and oceanic rumbles projected a hair’s breadth above the level of speaker hum, generally offered up with a minimum of extra-musical baggage and yet brimming with internal drama. Though the label’s core artists employ vastly different compositional approaches, from the meditative resonance of Bernhard Gunter to the dry contact mic thump of Steve Roden, a common thread of exploration and an intense devotion to the quiet detail binds their work. On the strength of their efforts, Trente Oiseaux has emerged as a center for the nebulous universe of electronic “microsound” composition.

Following a series of tribulations regarding the release of his debut album, un peu de niege salie – one label believed that its ultra-minimal crackling was the result of defective masters – composer Bernhard Gunter formed Trente Oiseaux at the suggestion of his friend and fellow minimalist Francisco Lopez. After a year of assembling works from like-minded artists such as Ralf Wehowsky (RLW), M. Behrens, and Portland noise artist Daniel Menche, Trente Oiseaux released its first five albums at the end of 1995. A wave of positive reviews and a swell of word-of-mouth publicity introduced Trente Oiseaux to listeners and garnered the label with a circle of devoted supporters – and modestly successful sales. With its new reputation and funding in place, Trente Oiseaux went on to release a slew of new records in 1996, including works from artists such as Francisco Lopez, Roel Meelkop, and John Duncan (whose collaboration with Bernhard Gunter, home, unspeakable , was Jim O’Rourke’s oft-declared “best record of 1996”).

Unfortunately, the period between 1997 and 1998 would become the darkest days in the lives of both Bernhard Gunter and Trente Oiseaux. After the initial spur of creativity, the field of minimalist electronic composition underwent a slump spurred by its increased creative codification. As a result, Gunter released only two records in 1997 – one of which was crop circles , by Los Angeles audio/visual artist and future Trente Oiseaux mainstay Steve Roden. In 1998, Gunter was stricken by a viral illness that placed him in various neurological clinics for the majority of the year and similarly incapacitated his label’s operations. The label’s inactivity, however, failed to stifle its growing reputation; despite the shortage of new releases, Trente Oiseaux’s critical acclaim and popularity among listeners had reached new peaks courtesy of the label’s unique musical perspective and strong back catalog.

Since his recovery in early 1999 to the present day, Gunter has been leading Trente Oiseaux through its most prolific and most intensely creative era. Gunter himself experienced a surge of compositional inspiration in the wake of his life-threatening illness and subsequently composed no less than nine new compositions, all of which have seen release on Trente Oiseaux and its ideological associate Line. Longtime Trente Oiseaux artists Steve Roden and Richard Chartier released their masterworks four possible landscapes and decisive forms , and new artists such as Argentinean noisemakers Reynols and Stilluppsteypa member Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson offered stimulating new interpretations of the label’s digital minutiae aesthetic. The most intriguing development, however, is Trente Oiseaux’s gradual departure from its long-held “composition only” approach. Indeed, the recent release of Au Defaút du Silence , an album of cello and inner piano improvisations by Zeitkratzer members Michael Vorfeld and Reinhold Friedl, hints at exciting new frontiers for the label and perhaps offering a buffer from the sort of dogmatic thinking that mires other strongly conceptual labels.

To this day, Trente Oiseaux continues to thrive on the tension between sound and silence – and between unity and flexibility. More than ever, its artists pursue increasingly diverse and distant paths, yet their pursuits address a common concern for the hidden potential of sound in all its forms – from searing noise to wispy crackles and wavering blips. The combination of their talents and Gunter’s rigid quality control standards assures that the aural documents left behind are consistently engaging, endlessly thought-provoking, and possessing of a unique brand of idiosyncratic beauty. For those willing to face the challenges buried within each release, Trente Oiseaux offers a tiny universe filled with countless detail-rich worlds waiting to be carefully unfolded and thoroughly explored.

Label Roster: Bernhard Günter, Francisco Lopez, M.Behrens, Daniel Menche, John Duncan, Brad Taylor, Steve Roden, Hervé Castellani, Reynols, Matt Shoemaker, Steve Roden, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Richard Chartier, Reinhold Friedl, Michael Vorfeld, Kuwayama.

10 Essential Releases:
Bernhard Günter – brown, blue, brown on blue (for Mark Rothko)
Bernhard Günter – time, dreaming itself
Bernhard Günter / John Duncan – home, unspeakable
Bernhard Günter / Richard Chartier / Steve Roden – (For Morton Feldman)
Francisco Lopez – warszawa restaurant
Reinhold Friedl / Michael Vorfeld – Au Defaút du Silence
Reynols – blank tapes
Steve Roden – four possible landscapes
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson – ship
Richard Chartier – decisive forms

Website: www.trenteoiseaux.com