SingleRelease date:
13.08.2021
Gisbert zu Knyphausen, Kai Schumacher
Der Leiermann
»Der Leiermann« (text: Wilhelm Müller) is the last song in Winterreise. The weary traveller meets someone even more jaded than himself: a street musician with no hope of a comeback in life. Where there was still a hint of rebellion in »Gute Nacht« (»Let stray dogs howl!«), the poor hurdy-gurdy player here – the protagonist’s alter ego – must submit to the dogs growling around him. In a sense, the traveller sees himself as he will become: an old man playing his unpretentious instrument with freezingcold fingers. The biggest self-referential moment: »Will you turn your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?« As if a film protagonist were to suddenly turn to the camera, breaking through the fourth wall, and pull us through with her. »Haven’t you seen enough misery already?«
Gisbert zu Knyphausen
Kai Schumacher
Since then, like a musical mad scientist, he has been constantly experimenting and combining seemingly incompatible elements with surprising results. His solo performances are acts of pure musical - and stylistic - alchemy, serving up heady mixes of Dadaism and Dancefloor, Avantgarde and Pop culture – sometimes all at once!
When not engaged in genre-defying pursuits, Kai Schumacher‘s repertoire focuses on American piano music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His debut recording of Frederic Rzewski‘s monumental "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" (2009) was hailed by Fono Forum magazine as a "pianistic sensation" and voted recording of the month.
On his second album, "Transcriptions" (2012), he bravely turned to the musical heroes of his youth - Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Slayer and others – remixing them and transforming the concert grand into a foursquare-meter sound monster, a mechanical sound-effects board, complete with prepared percussion.
His third album "Insomnia" (2015) is the story of a nocturnal odyssey, at once soothing and disturbing. It´s five restless "hymns" to the night feature the works of five American composers written over the past 80 years.
On his current album "Beauty in simplicity" Kai Schumacher is combining original piano compositions with his own arrangements for "enhanced piano" to create a repetitive set between meditation und mania. Including works from three centuries ranging from Erik Satie through Steve Reich to Moderat Minimal Music meets its classical pioneers and descendants in Ambient, Techno and Post-Rock.More releases
