This album is a byproduct of a basssauna ritual, which happend three times in 2019 in Nuremberg. The songs of this album are stereo mixdowns of recordings of improvisations by Alexandru Șalariu and Marius Denzler performed live on a reclining furniture with six built in bass speakers. People could come and lie down on the wooden structure and feel the music as vibration. Marius played the bass guitar and Alexandru looped, distorted and transferred the bass onto the furniture via the computer, making it move around spatially under the bodies of the recipients. Albeit the recordings are not a perfect representation of the ritual and how it felt they have their own beauty. Be careful of the very loud stereo bass.

A basssauna is a bass resonance ritual. Deep interfering sine waves permeate space, bodies and objects and make them shake. Bass waves are much longer than the waves of higher frequencies, which makes it possible to experience their interference beats as a moving, living sculptures or even as a passable, breathing architecture. The visitor can no longer be seen as separate from the sound sculpture. The bodies of those lying down become part of the sculpture by being penetrated by it, the sound waves. The body of the perceiver is formed, pushed, massaged, becomes fluid, merges with the waves and is spatially expanded. The interweaving of the lying with the bass waves results in a kind of sculptural expansion, in which the boundaries between inside and outside become blurred, which the perceiver experiences as relaxation. A basssauna always needs a carrier that transmits the vibrations to the flesh and bones of the bodies. For this project Alexandru Șalariu built a wooden furniture with six built in bass speakers, the basssaune, to function as the carrier. The perfect object for Marius Denzler to put his gentle, peaceful and minimal bass playing.

Thaw and let had a rough structure for beginning the improvisation while tremble was purely improvised as we played this last track after the first ritual for a person with hearing impairment who initially missed out.

This interdisciplinary project was funded by LEONARDO Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation. Marius studies classical guitar at the HfM Nuremberg and Alexandru studies art at the A.d.B.K. Nuremberg.

A picture of the furniture: pavilion27.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/p27_BASSSAUNA_jaus2_2707x2000_05-1024x757.jpg
The full portfolio: pavilion27.com/salariu

composition, recording, mixdown and mastering: Marius Denzler & Alexandru Șalariu
furniture and cover: Alexandru Șalariu