LOW NOISE CHRONICAL

Everybody loves the compact cassette. It has just celebrated its 60th birthday.
In addition to his archive-based sound installations, Hanno Leichtmann has also been creating object-based installations for the past four years, using various vintage hi-fi components such as the iconic Technics SL-10 or the Sony CDP-7F. For his new project, Leichtmann combines both approaches, compiling his sound archive in an unusual way.

Leichtmann had already worked with cassettes for an earlier project and realised how beautiful the design of the old cassettes from the 1960-1980s is. This was the starting point for the actual project: the collection of many used vintage cassettes, selected exclusively according to the design of the »covers«. The sound archive from which the compositional sounds were extracted is made up of the recordings found on the auctioned cassettes. A sound archive that was truly guided by chance. It is mainly pop and rock music from past decades, pop songs, radio plays, classical concerts, new music, schlager, folk music and death metal... Musical genres that he would probably not have chosen for a sound installation.

From the collected source sounds, Leichtmann has created an ambient soundinstallation in 18 »movements«: for two tape decks, two loudspeakers and two master tapes running in parallel.