Leif Inge, Madison, 2004 (Photo: Jeff Hunt)

Leif Inge, Madison, 2004 (Photo: Jeff Hunt)

 

Leif Inge
9 Beet Stretch
2002

Table of the Elements
[Radon] TOE-DVD-86
DVD, wood case

Prepare for a transformative aural experience on an unprecedented scale. With  2002’s 9 Beet Stretch, Norwegian artist Leif Inge has digitally elongated Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 to a duration of 24 hours — with no distortion in pitch. As a result, the all-too-familiar is rendered thoroughly unrecognizable. Strange acoustic truths, remarkable details, and eerie ambient textures emerge; serene atmospherics surrender to rolling thunder; cacophony imperceptibly dissolves into euphoric vistas of transcendent beauty. It's a conceptual tour-de-force and an electro-acoustic masterpiece in which Inge stretches not only music, but music history. Beethoven's 9th: You've never heard anything like it. 

“This is Beethoven more epic than anyone ever imagined … weirdly strange yet eerily familiar at the same time. It is powerfully visceral yet utterly ethereal. It is unbelievably beautiful … a masterpiece of a masterpiece, and maybe the closest we can ever come to experiencing what the deaf Beethoven heard, or experienced in his head. That is the magnetism of 9 Beet Stretch. You think you know what you are hearing, but you don’t, and the desire to find out what comes next and next, and next is extraordinarily powerful. The sensation is of being inside the sounds, inside the harmonies, and hence inside Beethoven’s head. ‘9 Beet Stretch’ is not so much a stopping of time as a getting beyond time. When the symphony becomes so slow that a listener can no longer identify the details but becomes immersed in the harmonies, the consonances and dissonances start to feel cosmic. Science tells us time doesn’t exist, and yet paradoxically we remain its prisoners.”
— Mark Swed, LA Times

Rhys Chatham (France/USA)
w/ “Die Dönnergötter” Guitar Army
+ Jonathan Kane + Ernie Brooks III
+ original artwork and projections by Robert Longo
Arnold Dreyblatt and the Orchestra of Excited Strings (Germany)
Jonathan Kane’s February (USA)
Tony Conrad (USA)
Zeena Parkins (USA)
San Agustin (USA)
Andrew Burnes/David Daniell/Thurston Moore Trio (USA)
Leif Inge (Norway) 9 Beet Stretch: 24-hour performance

Dubnium:
Table of the Elements Festival no. 3
2005

Table of the Elements
[Dubnium] TOE-105
March 15-16
2005

Central Presbyterian Church
8th and Brazos
Austin, Texas
Entry: South by Southwest festival pass
Producers: Jeff Hunt/SxSW