Natascha Gangl & RDEČA RAKETA

natascha gangl – text, voice
maja osojnik – vocals, live sampling, dj-cd player and other electronic devices
matija schellander – modular synthesizer, laptop

THE SOUNDCOMIC (in german DER KLANGCOMIC)
The electroacoustic duo, RDEČA RAKETA, aka composers Maja Osojnik and Matija Schellander, together with the author Natascha Gangl, have been developing and performing acoustic works of art since 2016 for which they invented the genre “sound comic” (ger. Klangcomic). As in the comic, word and image merge, here it is the spoken word and the sound which blend together. Sound becomes language, language becomes sound, contemporary composition meets literary experimentation. Styles are eclectically combined, madrigal meets children’s book meets techno meets anagram meets hip-hop meets essay – ad infinitum – high culture, pop culture, subculture fused. Anti-heroines were the protagonists of the first two pieces, their surreal to psychedelic journeys leading to dense series of sound images. The “sound comic” presents itself as a ready-to-broadcast radio play, as a sound carrier of unique design, and as an ever-evolving live performance.
http://wendy.klingt.org

WENDY PFERD TOD MEXIKO
“WENDY GOES TO MEXICO”, published by RITTER in autumn 2015, is the book debut of the author Natascha Gangl. RDEČA RAKETA aka the electroacoustic duo Maja Osojnik and Matija Schellander compose a listening experience and sound painting from this text material, field recordings, analog electronics, tapes, acoustic and electronic instruments –

WENDY HORSE DEATH MEXICO LOSS BATTLE SAND TENDERSHIP
DISCIPLINE DREAM WORK MAGIC INTOXICATION END

At least one generation of girls grew up with the dapper and ambitious riding school daughter Wendy. This comic character, the epitome of radiant mediocrity and philistine equivalent, serves as the backdrop for a travel and love story that takes its readers to zones of emotional and social escalation in a mega-metropolis. Just as some houses in Mexico are built from plastic bottles filled with rubbish and clay, Natascha Gangl “upcycles” lyrics from rancheras and advertising slogans and weaves the found objects from the foreign language into a texture of the highest metaphorical density. Archaic as well as Christian-bizarre blood obsessions and phantasms of suffering penetrate through the familiar surfaces of a hybrid culture shaped by commerce, which whirl up the world view of the rider. Their longing to remove the distance to their deceased loved ones opens the floodgates of thoughts to a shimmering in-between world shaped by dream logic and animistic magic. Natascha Gangl’s book debut moves with breathtaking dexterity between wispy exoticism and laconic precision.
Zum Text: Mindestens eine Generation Mädchen ist mit der adretten und ehrgeizigen Reithoftochter Wendy aufgewachsen. Diese Comic-Figur, Inbegriff strahlender Mittelmäßigkeit und philiströser Entsprechung, dient als Folie für eine Reise- und Liebeserzählung, die ihre Leser in Zonen emotionaler wie sozialer Eskalation einer Mega-Metropole führt. So wie in Mexiko manche Häuser aus mit Müll und Lehm befüllten Plastikflaschen gebaut werden, „upcyclet“ Natascha Gangl Liedtextzeilen aus Rancheras und Reklameparolen und webt die Fundstücke des fremden Sprachraums in eine Textur von höchster metaphorischer Dichte ein. Durch vertraute Oberflächen einer vom Kommerz geprägten Hybrid-Kultur dringen archaische wie christlich-bizarre Blut-Obsessionen und Leidens-Phantasmata, welche die Weltsicht der Reiterin durchwirbeln. Deren Sehnsucht, die Distanz zu den verstorbenen Lieben aufzuheben, öffnet Gedankenschleusen zu einer flirrenden, von Traumlogik und animistischer Zauberei geprägten Zwischenwelt. Natascha Gangls Buchdebüt bewegt sich in atemberaubender Gewandtheit zwischen irrlichternder Exotik und lakonischer Präzision.
In the sound comic, language becomes sound, and sound becomes language. Out of the fragmentary, the density is weaved. From the depths of the fragile, the whole is born. Time structures are questioned and assembled through loops. Field recordings from Mexico meet Osojnik’s singing. Spoken language turns into melodies, while noise turns into bittersweet rancheras. Maja Osojnik, Matija Schellander and Natascha Gangl share not only their preferences in form and content, but also their many years of performance experience from theater productions, concerts and readings. The sound comic was improvised, performed, composed and developed in a work-in-progress series.
WENDY PFERD TOD MEXICO has so far celebrated over 25 LIVE performances across Europe, including translations into Spanish and Polish, and was awarded 1st prize at the Berlin Radio Play Festival 2018.
Text: Natascha Gangl Composition: Rdeča Raketa (Maja Osojnik & Matija Schellander)
Direction: Natascha Gangl, Maja Osojnik, Matija Schellander
With Natascha Gangl (voice), RDEČA RAKETA aka Maja Osojnik & Matija Schellander (Voice, Electronics, Modular Synthesizer, Sound Objects, Field Recordings)
Other Voices: Joao Avilla, Barbara Briñon Anton, Eva Hoya, Moíses Iglesias Kühn, Georg Leß, James Parker.
Cut: Maja Osojnik, Matija Schellander Sound: Maja Osojnik, Matija Schellander
Mix & Mastering: Martin Leitner, Singles: Martin Siewert
Kindly supported by ORF Kunstradio, SKE Fonds and BMKOES AustriaBroadcasts: ORF Kunstradio 2018, WDR 2019, Deutschlandfunk 2019.
Translations: Spanisch, Polnisch, Englisch (in Arbeit).

http://gangl.klingt.org
https://maja.klingt.org
http://matija.klingt.org
https://rdecaraketa.klingt.org/

NATASCHA GANGL
Natascha Gangl writes prose, essays, texts for theater, creates radio plays and theatrical installations. She was born 1986 in Bad Radkersburg in southern Styria (Austria), where she grew up, lives and works since 2006 “between” Austria, Germany, Mexico and Spain. She completed studies in Philosophy at the University of Vienna and Scenic Writing at DRAMA FORUM. She assisted and edited texts for Christoph Schlingensief. In the season 2013/2014 she was a house author at the Staatstheater Mainz. She mainly writes theatertexts, experimental prose and essays, researching language in all aggregate states: written, drawn, spoken, performed – on theater stages, in concert and exhibition spaces, in radio formats, in books, on disc. She deals with the tonal quality of language, understandable and tangible meaning, trash and tragedy, using techniques such as montage, overwriting and anagram. Her works, some of which are multilingual, have been awarded numerous prizes and grants (including the Heimrad-Bäcker-Förderpreis, the Heidelberg Play Market Prize, the City of Graz Literature Promotion Prize). Freely adapted from Unica Zürn, starfruit publications, 2020.

RDEČA RAKETA (Maja Osojnik & Matija Schellander)
RDEČA RAKETA is the duo of Maja Osojnik and Matija Schellander, both Vienna-based internationally active musicians and composers, experienced in abstract electro-acoustic improvisation, contemporary compositions and various other musical styles. Rdeča Raketa are sound scientists and electro-acoustic researchers who don’t indulge in abstractions, and instead sound refreshingly alive. The result is acoustic poetry that sometimes breaks from musicality in order to create sound paintings that turn listening habits and contemporary cultural codes upside down—in cinemas and concert halls, theaters and installations. Rdeča Raketa combines abstract electronic sounds with heavy beats, inspired by acousmatic music, industrial and hip-hop. The artistic interweaving of spoken and sung language (based on Osojnik’s texts) merges with the collaged sound material. Modular synthesizers and cut-up samples mix with manipulated CD players and recordings of acoustic instruments and field recordings, together with elaborate sound processing, an excitingly heterogeneous mixture emerges. Rdeča Raketa’s recordings: Old Girl, Old Boy (Mosz Rec, 2010), We Will (God Rec, 2013) and ..and cannot reach the silence, (Ventil Rec & Mamka Rec 2021)