(Bert Noglik, Jazzpodium 3/’84)
"Hirt has committed himself very consciously to the production of sounds that are not expected from a guitar. Hard to believe that he produces this sound-world as a solist; he sometimes sounds lie a whole gamelan orchestra.”
(Ellen Brandt, CODA 23 /’84)
"Hirt is new to me, very spontaneous and yet serious, bridging the gap between improvisation, musique concrète and composers like Klaus Huber and Helmut Lachenmann - excellent." "Hirt ist neu für mich, sehr spontan und durchaus seriös überbrückt er die Spanne zwischen Improvisation, musique concrète und Komponisten wie Klaus Huber und Helmut Lachenmann - exzellent.?
(Ben Watson, Hi-Fi News 3/'95)
"This collection of 18 short improvisations for solo electric guitar and synthesizer provides an ideal introduction to Hirt's unusual soundworld. ... Concise, sometimes embryonic, always bursting with unclassifiable inventiveness."
"Diese Sammlung von 18 kurzen Improvisationen für elektrische Gitarre und Synthesizer lifert eine ideale Einführung in Hirt’s ungewöhnliche Klangwelt. ... Kurz gesagt, manchmal ursprünglich, immer berstend, von unklassifizierbarem Erfindungsreichtum.?
(Chris Blackford, Rubberneck 12/‘94)
"He is one of thje most original and facinating Experimental solo guitarists around at the moment, as this album will attest. it containes 18 pieces which are striking, original and devoided of any of the usual 'experimental' cliches. ... An intriguin album."
"Er ist einer der originellsten und faszinierendsten experimentellen Sologitarristen im Moment, wie dieses Album zeigen/belegen wird. Es enthält 18 Stücke, die ausdrucksvoll/treffend, originell und bar jeglicher üblicher 'experimental' Klischees sind. ... Ein 'ränkevolles' Album."
(Guitar Techniques [GB] 3/'95)
"A bien des égards, Hirt agit en électro-acousticien, variant les paramètres, les angles, jouant volontiers sur la production même du son, sur ses modes de disparition, douce ou violente, sur la distinction des plans et leur superposition."
(P.-L.. Renou, Jazzmagazine/F)
"Hirt verschwendet keinen Ton, folgerichtig erschließt jedes Stück eine eigene teils hermetische Ideenwelt, ein elektrisches Kammerensemble, das sich selbst genügend, alle Rollen auf sechs Saiten unterbringt."
(Joachim Weis, Jazzthetik 4/'95)
"... the clarity and compülexity of this pieces is remarkable ... Hirt plays primarily with his brain. Internal logic of proccessing equipment and the internal-externalisized logic of the musican working closely to create an illusion that he has bypassed the 'hands-on-strings' guitar playing for are a more cerebral method: mind-direct-to-disc."
" ... die Klarheit und Komplexität dieser Stücke ist bemerkenswert ... Hirt spielt in erster Linie mit Verstand. Die interne Logik von Klangprozessoren und die inter-exter-nalisierte Logik des präzise arbeitenden Musikers erzeugt die Vorstellung er habe das 'Hände-auf-den-Saiten' Gitarrespiel zu Gunsten einer cerebraleren Methode umgangen: mind-direct-to-disc.
(Davey Williams, the improviser [USA] 11/96)
"At any rate, Erhard Hirt plays in a very intrinsic way with his knowledge of the tradition and relates his own achievements to this knowledge.?
"In this way Hirt, more than any other musician works in a kind of ‘Bauhütte for guitars’ (workshop/lodge for the medeaval cathedral builders), and more than any other musician Hirt uses this ‘Bauhütte’, as if working in a laboratorium to research into and discover what guitars sound like when he lets them find their own specific sound. Hirt works on a definition of possibilities offered by the guitar, in accordance with the Methode Duchamp proclaimed by Marcel Broodthaers. ... And whereas Duchamp confused beauty with the retinal, Hirt works with the criteria of selection on the temptation of surface acoustic beauty."
"In jedem Falle aber spielt Erhard Hirt in grundlegender Weise mit seinem Wissen um die Tradition und mit dem Verhältnis seiner Errungenschaften zu diesem Wissen.?
"Mehr als jeder andere Spieler arbeitet Hirt (also) in einer "Gitarren-Bauhütte?, und mehr als jeder andere Spieler erforscht Hirt in seiner Bauhütte wie in einem Labora-torium, wie seine Gitarren klingen, wenn er sie ihre spezifischen Klänge finden läßt.
Ganz im Sinne der von Marcel Broothataers proklamierten "Methode Duchamp? arbeitet Hirt an einer Definition der Möglichkeiten der Gitarre. ...Und wo Duchamp Schönheit mit Retinalen verwechselte, arbeitet Hirt mit dem Kriterium der Auswahl an der Versuchung des oberflächlichen akustisch Schönen.?
(CD Text: "Gute und Schlechte Zeiten" / FMP -OWN 90003, Markus Müller)
ERHARD HIRT Acoustics
Erhard Hirt, Gitarre + Elektronik
NUR/NICHT/NUR 196 12 16
"... Seine mit akustischen Gitarren erzeugten Klangebenen basieren auf einem minimal-istischen Arbeitsprinzip, bei dem sein Gitarrensound durch den Einsatz digitalen Sound-processings aufgerüstet wird. Es entsteht ein tiefer Luftzug Freiheit! Keine einengenden Melodien, die Hirt'schen Putzkolonnen räumen auf mit abgehalftertem Musikdreck - Katharsis! Es klirrt, schrammelt, scheppert, summt und wimmert im Soundlabor! Industrial auf Gitarre interpretiert, aber nicht aufgeblasen, sondern nuanciert, organisch und musikästhetisch stringent gemeistert!"
(Thomas Revelation [D] 15/98)
"Electro-Acoustics" wäre wohl der treffendere Titel. Denn was der Münsteraner Gitarrist Erhard Hirt hier vorführt, ist die stufenweise Veränderung des Klangs einer akustischen Gitarre durch Einsatz digitaler Bearbeitungstechniken: vom puren Stahlsaiten - Sound bis zur orchestralen Klangwand hin und zurück. Hirts "trockenes" Vokabular teilt so manches mit dem des Gitarren-Übervaters Derek Bailey, doch mit jeder neuen Schicht digitaler Transformation wird diese Ähnlichkeit geringer - wie auch die Nähe des Gesamtklangs zum Timbre der Gitarre. Im Extremfall hören wir mächtige, fluktuierende digitale Klangwände und -gewebe mit nur noch einer Erinnerung daran, dass es der schlichte Saitenklang ist, der diese akustischen Kolosse gebar. Ein dramaturgisch geschickt gespannter Bogen, wenn auch die Gigantomanie der kleinen Ursache mit großer Wirkung und die charakteristische Sterilität der prozessierten KLänge nicht jedermanns Geschmack sein werden.
(Peter Niklas Wilson / Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 1/99)
Erhard Hirt "25.5.1996" [Mini-CD 2000]
On May 25, 1996, German guitarist Erhard Hirt performed at the LMC Festival in London. Four years later, the experimental music label 'NURNICHTNUR' released a 3" CD containing four excerpts from this concert. Simply titled '25.5.1996', it completes very well Hirt's other 'NURNICHTNUR' title 'Acoustics' (1998). More visceral than the electronically-treated acoustic guitar of its big brother, '25.5.1996' shows Hirt's control of the electric guitar. 'Drone' is made of looped long plaintive notes. On 'Percussion', notes played trigger reactions from a computer in an exercise that is interesting but nevertheless remains... an exercise. 'Staff' comes back to meditative textures, while 'Kermesse' is a carousel of strange sounds one can relate to the guitar but doesn't know exactly why. A strong but too short performance.
Francois Couture at All-Music Guide:
Erhard Hirt "25.5.1996" [Mini-CD 2000]
"The soundart recorded on this single-CD is a performance at the LMC Festival in London on the 25th of May 1996. Erhard Hirt works with guitars and electronics on a non-conventional way and is since the seventies promoter of improvisation and experimental music.
This single-CD contains 4 tracks, each with a different soundscape and colour of music. The first track is called "Drone" and this describes the colour of the music, it is a dark atmosphere created with a wave-background and howling strings. Track 2 "Percussion" sounds as a jam on a bass-guitar and classical guitar, which creates a composition that explores the variety of tunes instruments can make. Track 3 "Staff" brings you in an other atmosphere again, low dark sounds where soon random high tunes starts to play the main role. The last track "Kermesse" sounds completely as a "Kermesse" a big jam of random sounds that goes into your direction.
Erhard Hirt shows us on this CD what the possibilities are with creating several atmospheres in music with a few instruments that are mostly used in a conventional way."
Geert De Decker at Sztuka Fabryka:
ERHARD HIRT "25.5.96" MCD
(NurNichtNur/NRW Vertrieb)
Seine E-Gitarre klingt nach allem anderen – nur nicht nach einem Sechssaiter, und allein das macht ihn schon aus. Hirt, einer der grossen Improvisationsgitarrenkünstler unserer Zeit – ohne Frage in eine Reihe mit Frith, ReichelBailey und Co. zu stellen, zeigt auf vier Live-Tracks sein seltsam-geniales Können. Mit Hilfe von reichlich Elektronik, Effektgeräten und metallenen Schlaggegenständen schafft Hirt schwirrend-fließende, clusterartige und freitonale Atmosphären, die mit ihrem bisweilen hochgradig bedrohlichen Klang ihresgleichen suchen. Der Mann hat Achtung und Respekt verdient. Ein herausforderndes Werk für garantiert nicht jede Gelegenheit, aber für sehr besondere und konzentrierte Momente.
Lounge No. 13, Mai 2001
ERHARD HIRT: Acoustics
NurNichtNur 196 12 16
&
ERHARD HIRT: 25.5.1996
NurNichtNur 100 01 15
It's always slightly humorous to hear someone like Carlos Santana, Al DiMeola, Jimmy Page or the latest metal sensation described as a guitar hero. Good technicians they may be, but most of what they're doing is putting a faster, harder, tougher cast to the sort of sounds that have been around, at very least, since the 1950s.
True guitar heroes should be those who bring something radically different to the guitar. People like Charlie Christian in his day, Sonny Sharrock in his, and for past couple of decades Europeans working in the realm of uncompromising improvisation, like Britain's Derek Bailey or Germany's Erhard Hirt.
Hirt, who has long worked with the cream of EuroImprovisers including bassist Hans Schneider, drummer Paul Lytton, and synth player Thomas Lehn has also been giving improvised solo concerts since 1978. Over the years he has gradually added electronic sounds and treatments to his recitals as sort of an unpaid duo partner. Recorded live in London festival, 25.5.1996 is four-track mini disc that could serve as Hirt's calling card. Tracks entitled "Drone" and "Percussion" are literally descriptive. The first offers up a mesmerizing sound midway between a band saw and a swarm of bees, while the casual listener would swear that the sounds on the later were being produced on a member of the percussion family. Here speedy reverberating tones vie for prominence with what could be the AC from an in-use electric chair, at least until the piece fades into gentle finger picking. Nostalgic for the sound of bells? "Kermesse," which gradually reveals itself to be the product of busy fingers on six strings resembles an entire carillon concert, at least if one was put together played by a very electronically oriented and pretty spacey ProgRocker.
Most of Acoustics is more of the same, but with studio acoustics rather than those of a concert hall. Centrepiece is the 36-minute title track subdivided into eight sections, which could be subtitled eight different ways you can abuse your axe. Throughout, in the appropriate section, Hirt has his instrument looping out tones like a sine wave generator or producing vibrating sonics that sound as if they escaped from the cradle of early minimalism. But wait, as the notes decorate that line, here's a counter melody wrapping itself around the first. Elsewhere he can scrape across the strings in such a way that you'd swear you were hearing an electronic organ, use a bow or sticks to treat the guitar like a stringed drum or weave the whirring hum of the amp into the tune. Later still, his tone is so matter-of-fact and simple that it could pass for that of a folk singer's accompanist at a particularly outside Hootenanny. But the true showcase here is the nearly 15 minutes of "Cuba" recorded during a concert in a club in Holland in 1998. With digital processing, Hirt can sound like a flute one minute, a tropical bird the next or split his personality twice -- sounding like an acoustic guitar quartet. More low key than on other tracks, he appears to put the drones and buzzes to better effect, keeping them wafting in the background as he pulls and prods unique rhythmic throbs from the bones and skeleton of his guitar.
Some may draw away from this heroic display and want something more familiar. Many more will listen carefully to discover how the whole idea of guitar playing is constantly being transformed.
Ken Waxman 2/2001 at http://www.jazzweekly.com/reviews/hirt.htm
ganz kurz:
"Ich finde, er ist ein anregender und phantasievoller Gitarrist.” (Bert Noglik)
"He makes music, good music of unwieldy beauty.” (Ellen Brand)
"...one of the most important of today’s West-German guitarists.”
(Davey Williams, the improviser [USA])
"Kurz gesagt, manchmal ursprünglich, immer berstend mit uneinordbarer Erfindungsgabe." (Chris Blackford, Rubberneck [GB]'95)
"Erhard Hirt does not sound like other guitarists. That is the secret.” (Markus Müller)
"Erhard Hirt connait l'enjeu et le jeu. De l'excelente musique contemporaine." (DNO, Revue et Corrigée [F] 1 /'95)