QUEHENBERGER & KERN

PHILIPP QUEHENBERGER & DIDI KERN 

Philipp Quehenberger: Keyboards, Didi Kern: Drums

The passionate, energetic and brute duo from Vienna is one of those particularly intense live acts that cannot be easily categorized into genres and that is exactly what makes them so interesting for what is sure to be an unforgettable live performance in the MPS studio. We have spared no effort to lure the two gentlemen from Vienna to the Black Forest. It will be a live recording session with an audience!

Excerpts from the interview with Mica magazine (full interview Link)

The keyboardist PHILIPP QUEHENBERGER and the drummer DIDI KERN have been active as a duo for almost two decades. Known for their ecstatic live shows, they provide the best proof that free improvisation does not have to be limited to one genre, but rather offers the possibility of merging the most diverse musical languages. In the case of KERN/QUEHENBERGER the spectrum ranges from punk to free jazz, from techno to krautrock, from grindcore to avant-pop. They thrash, shred and work until the shreds fly. The energy that is released here translates across all scenes. Consequently, from art galleries to squats, there is hardly a place that the duo has not played. Quehenberger has already recorded for the renowned Edition Lego label.

Musically for the first time the 2 Viennese by choice are in the legendary CBGBs met in New York. Both were socialized with hardcore and punk. Quehenberger studied classical piano.

Philipp Quehenberger:  I studied classical piano at the conservatory. But I didn't go to the conservatory until I was 15 and couldn't read music. That gave me a different approach. After that, I studied jazz to satisfy my parents, or rather that was the only school that accepted me. I had no choice at all. I was already playing in punk bands back then and rebelled against everything academic for a long time. In the end, I ended up dropping out.

One of the duo's patrons was the famous Austrian artist Franz West who introduced the two uncompromising and expressive young men to the art world.

Didi Kern: At Franz's, we sometimes played music for four hours straight, that is, until the art society was sitting down to dinner.

Philipp Quehenberger: Sometimes we played really hard and put up a wall. A lot of people couldn't stand it, but we made sure that Franz could be among his people or that only the cool people remained. [all laugh]

Didi Kern:  For my part, I was never a jazzer. Not a free jazz player either, more of a farmer jazz player. I come from a brass band background and later got totally into punk and hardcore. Then techno came along in the 1990s. So if someone says free jazz, all well and good, but it's actually improvisation.

Philipp Quehenberger: I play what I hear. But yes, the fact that you can't see through it or say why you think it's somehow good . . . The free jazz thing has accompanied me from an early age. Cecil Taylor certainly influenced me. When I was a child, he also lived with us for a short time. For me it was the the ‘normal‘ music.

Born in Tyrol Philipp Quehenberger (*1978) grew up between Austria, Seattle (USA) and Newcastle (UK) in a family of musicians. He studied classical piano at the Innsbruck Conservatory and is also a vagabond between the genres of hardcore, metal, free jazz and techno. Quehenberger experimented early on with various devices used by his father to produce sound and, from 1994 onwards, performed in costume with toy instruments. Improvisation is one of his central techniques.

Quehenberger has lived in Vienna since the end of the 90s. He found many like-minded musicians in the environment of Cheap Records and Edition Mego. Together with Gerhard Potuznik, the comic artist Tex Rubinowitz and Didi Kern, with whom he has worked ever since, he founded the project ”Die Mäuse”. Kern and Quehenberger later continued to work together as a duo for 20 years. He is involved in projects with Patrick Pulsinger, Ilpo Väisänen, Mark Stewart, Mayo Thompson and others.

Didi Kern is known as an accomplished drummer in bands such as Bulbul, Fuckhead, broken.heart.collector and Glutamat. But he has also made a name for himself in improvisation, immersing himself time and again in the great world of avant-garde jazz with international artists such as Peter Brötzmann, Weasel Walter, Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark. He has also worked on a musical project with the artist Peter Weibel.

He is also a DJ (Rokko) and, as Dieb13, integrates sounds from records into the music of live bands in real time. Today, he is considered one of the most sought-after turntablists in free music internationally, including Swedish Azz and Fire! Orchestra. Kern is also the founder and host of klingt.org, one of the most important digital playgrounds for experimental music in Austria.

As Kern/Quehenberger or also Quehenberger/Kern you can expect improv thunderstorms without pauses in front of an audience that is literally put into a trance. Early on, they inspired the internationally renowned artist Franz West, for whom they played in the early 00s and who promoted them. Their ecstatic live shows prove that free improvisation does not have to be limited to one genre, but rather offers the opportunity to merge a wide variety of musical languages. The spectrum ranges from punk to free jazz, techno, krautrock, grindcore and avant-pop. The energy that is released in their playing translates across all scenes. 

Members: 20 Euro

Regular: 22 Euro

MPS-STUDIO

Admission 19:00
Start: 20:00