Christoph Pepe Auer

In the organizer's words:

WHITE NOISE
Album: LAKE (Release 23.05.2025 Session Work Records)

Someone is talking. He needs it and you can hear the emphasis. Christoph Pepe Auer has not been allowed or able to play several times over the past few years. First it was a mountain accident, then an operation that prevented him from picking up his instruments. For a musician, this is a punishment, through no fault of his own and therefore all the more incomprehensible. But it is also a task. After all, a significant break in an artist's biography can also lead to greater clarity: "I worked on the sound. There shouldn't be any bass in my current band. The idea was a form of permeability, like emerging from the water, which clears your head. I also wanted to play double bass clarinet, which means working with a sound that hadn't been used much before."

The result is White Noise in its current form. The quartet is multi-colored, but transparent. On the one hand, pianist Michael Tiefenbacher is Auer's finely balanced chamber music counterpart, harmonically just concrete enough to form a framework that gives the music stability. His additions of sometimes charmingly retro-modern sounding synthesizers are sonic anchors in a pre-digital era. They fit in with the idea of a natural flow of the pieces, which in turn ties in with Clemens Sainitzer's cello. His instrument is a link to chamber music as well as to the experimental. He does not even have to use these sound forms in detail to create a sense of openness when listening. Sainitzer can also integrate improvisation as a soloist, offering a wide range of possibilities to get closer to the music.

White Noise is therefore a band with many perspectives, which Christoph Pepe Auer and his team colleagues examine in detail and with a pinch of humor. And "Lake" is the band's second album since their self-titled debut from 2019, which still featured Gregor Hilbe on drums. It is a clear statement from the Tyrolean multi-instrumentalist, who, in addition to working with other bands including percussionist Manu Delago and the Jazz Big Band Graz, also teaches subjects such as ensemble and aural training at the Mozarteum University Salzburg alongside saxophone. Because music takes listeners by the hand. It tells of freedom in conversation with friends, of emerging from a lake of emotions, of the fun it can be to develop a diverse, colorful and sometimes mischievous program that plays with details from the sparseness of tonal specifications. "Lake" speaks and tells of the optimism of making music from one's own center. (Ralf Dombrowski)

Christoph Pepe Auer - clarinets, saxophone
Michael Tiefenbacher - piano, analog synthesizer
Clemens Sainitzer - cello
Christian Grobauer - drums