Limpe Fuchs is a legend in the experimental music scene. In the late '60s, this percussionist drummed on self-made instruments, together with her then-husband Paul Fuchs, in the Anima ensemble. During that time, Limpe and Paul Fuchs collaborated with the Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda as well as jazz luminaries like Albert Mangelsdorff, and continually attracted the interest of their audiences in new constellations. Limpe Fuchs on Gestrüpp, which was produced and recorded between 2012 and 2014 by Andi Schmid and Hans-Joachim Irmler at Faust Studio: "I am a composer and performer of acoustic and visual events. In the studio I am lacking the visual element. Therefore I like to work with multitracking. As a soloist I listen to my field recordings and integrate them into my new compositions. I do love radio plays and that is how I create a sort of audio theatre with the aid of my very special instruments and noises." Limpe Fuchs's solo performance with "variable wood and stone rows, ringing bronze in the pendulum strings, and a variety of skin and bronze drums" is a rare occasion to witness one of the early avant-gardists of the scene from the old Federal Republic of Germany. She attempts, while playing live, to develop her musical ideas from the "resonance of the location where the performance takes place" and to "make music in the flow of time, with simplicity and emotion." Her main concern is to sensitize the process of hearing: "Every tone is a sensation. Listening instead of shutting one's ears. Establishing silence."
Format: Vinyl 12"
Artist: Limpe Fuchs
Release date: May 2016
Recorded at: Klangbad Studio Scheer in 2012-2014 by Andreas Schmid and Hans-Joachim Irmler
Label: Play Loud
Limpe Fuchs studied classical piano and violin in Munich and percussion with Hans Holzl, citing avant-garde composers such as Murray Schaefer and John Cage as her early musical influences. She prefers to call herself a percussionist in the tradition of sound-scape artists yet it is also clear that the visual aspect of her work has always been given the same attention as the acoustic. Over her forty-year career she has continued experimenting with “no formalism” improvisational sound and visual performance using handmade instruments and sound sculptures. Her engaging performances are meant to be carefully listened to, requiring attention from the audience as she moves freely in space evoking her natural sound-scapes while playing her viola woodhorn, pendulumstring, a four-meter- steel constructed lithophone, sheet metal, pieces of wood and singing in her unique ephemeral bird-like style.
Limpe Fuchs has been accredited as a seminal influence on the “Krautrock” scene of the late ‘60s and ‘70s and later became an inspiration for the experimental psychedelic underground of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (HNAS, Nurse with Wound, etc.) and for generations after. Limpe started her career in the late sixties with Anima Musica along with her then partner, the sculptor Paul Fuchs, and in 1971 they recorded their first album called Stuermischer Himmel. The next release was an unofficial release of the three-day Ossiach Festival recorded live including performances by Weather Report and Tangerine Dream among others. It was here that they met with the organizer, the famed pianist Friedrich Gulda, who soon joined Limpe and Paul to create Anima. Subsequently the albums entitled Anima and Musik Fur Alle were both released in 1972. From 1969 till 1989 the duo continued performing, recording, touring (most notoriously on a tractor travelling at 30km/h which pulled the stage) often adding new members including their son, Zoro. She then started on her solo career and continues to perform live, also collaborating with many musicians and she has even ventured into theater performance. Most recent collaborators include flamingo Creatures, the organ player Matthias Ank, Christoph Reiserer, Julia Scholzel, Christoph Heemann, Timo van Luijk.
