The duo of Asja Valcic (cello) and Raphael Preuschl (bass ukulele) focuses on the sound of low strings. The title of their new album, Velvet, is apt: a uniquely warm, gentle acoustic world, where pulsing grooves coexist with wonderfully elegaic melodies, played with equal portions virtuosity and passion. The two veteran musicians spoke with Markus Deisenberger about their unique instrumentation, musical connections, and where their compositions come from.
What brought the two of you together?
Raphael Preuschl: We met for the first time when we recorded together with [Leonhard Skorupa‘s] Sketchbook Orchestra in 2018. We already knew of one another, though, and we had thought about collaborating. The recording was a good opportunity to talk and get to know one another musically, and we decided to try playing together – which we did for the first time in the winter of 2019, when the Sketchbook Orchestra album was released. A year later, we recorded the album.
So, your musical meeting took place just before the first lockdown.
Asja Valcic: Exactly. It was less than ideal, of course, but suddenly we had plenty of time for the project.
Did you experiment at your first meeting?
Raphael Preuschl: Not really – we both had very concrete ideas and had already written for the duo.
Asja Valcic: We had the first ideas for pieces and we worked very quickly; we also knew immediately that we wanted to record a duo CD. Initially, we weren’t sure whether Raphael would play electric bass or bass ukulele, but that also became clear pretty soon.
Filling the musical spectrum
Asja, you also play in a duo with Klaus Paier. How do the two groups differ?
Asja Valcic: They’re completely different because their instrumentation is nothing alike. Raphael and I have fairly limited possibilities compared with a harmony instrument. That was also the interesting challenge when we were composing: how to fill the entire musical spectrum with these two low, relatively limited, non-harmonic instruments.
When you’re composing, how do you manage to fill that spectrum? Is it always present in the back of your head, or does it come naturally?
Asja Valcic: You have it in the back of your head. I can’t constantly play double stops on the cello, so you have to figure out how to get the essence of the harmonies across.
In spite of the limitations, your music gives the impression of being stylistically very open. Some pieces start off sounding like early music, only to transform into jazz or contemporary classical music. Was that part of your concept, to be as open as possible?
Raphael Preuschl: The concept was definitely the two instruments. We had that sound in our ears, and we composed accordingly. I think the musical openness comes from our individual backgrounds – we both move pretty freely between contemporary classical music and jazz. Asja is probably closer to classical than I am; I have more to do with soul and Latin American music, so we end up with various influences that are reflected in the compositions.
“It was Asja’s uncompromising groove”
You mentioned that before you met, you had checked one another out a little bit. What did each of you find interesting about the other?
Raphael Preuschl: For me, it was definitely Asja’s uncompromising groove. Playing with her is completely natural; there was no initial getting-to-know-you phase – we clicked musically right away.
Did you already know that you could work well together?
Asja Valcic: I knew Raphael from videos – where he played with Wolfi (Puschnig) at the [Vienna] Konzerthaus, for instance – and I was impressed by his groove. It seemed like it could be something that connected us. We didn’t need a whole lot of rehearsal; it just worked. We recorded the whole CD in a day.
Really? One day?
Asja Valcic: We had planned on two, but at some point Raphel realized he was double-booked for the second day. So we said: okay, let’s see how far we get – and then the first evening came, and we were already finished.
Raphael Preuschl: [Working that way] does have the advantage that you don’t spend a lot of time choosing takes. It pretty much has to be the first or the second, because that’s all there are. And since the musical aspect had worked so perfectly, there was no need to go back into the studio to try anything else out. The mixing and mastering, were done in half a day as well – thanks to the wonderful Christoph Burgstaller, who has the necessary sensitivity for acoustic instruments.
Asja Valcic: I’ve recorded all my albums with him.
So there’s a lot of trust between you.
Asja Valcic: Absolutely.
Were your compositions already completely finished when you met, or was there some room for improvisation?
Raphael Preuschl: There’s some improvisation there. Sometimes it was themes that we tried out to see how they would work.
Asja Valcic: But there’s room for improvisation in every piece.
Asja, is it fair to say that you came to jazz through the Radio String Quartet?
Asja Valcic: That was my first project with a jazz connotation, yes. Before that, I was basically only a classical musician.
“I’ve loved the cello for a long time”
Raphael, did you have any experience with chamber music before you met Asja?
Raphael Preuschl: I had worked with the Neue Oper Wien and played with string ensembles now and then in the Burgtheater, but it was mostly theater music – it’s about creating atmosphere; the music was much less concrete that the things we’re doing now. I substituted once in a chamber orchester for an evening of music by Schoenberg – I could relate to that much better because it’s more concrete. My father is a double bassist, so I have a lot of pieces in my ear from childhood.
Asja Valcic: You always had a connection to the cello.
Raphael Preuschl: Yes, I’ve loved the cello for a long time. I studied double bass, but I always wanted to expand into the tenor range, to give myself more sound options. That’s why I play a 5-string bass, with the fifth string higher instead of lower. So it was natural that, at some point, I tried the cello out. My aunt lent me one and I practiced several hours a day almost every day for two years, more or less just for myself, and I tried integrating it into different projects. I had a project with David Helbock for an experimental jazz series curated by mica – music austria, with two cellos. But my strength definitely wasn’t my great bowing technique, it was beats. It was interesting to get into that world, and I got a lot of new ideas out of it.
That must have been advantageous for this project.
Raphael Preuschl: It does help – when I compose, of course I consider whether it’s playable for Asja. But then I always think: she can handle it.
What inspired the compositions on the album?
Asja Valcic: Composition for me is an intuitive, spontaneous thing. I have no concept whatsoever when I sit down to write; I just start with a momentary emotion and follow to see where it leads. I get to know the piece as it unfolds. Of course, the point arrives sooner or later when you can direct it one way or the other, but I stay mostly with emotions and impressions. That’s also how we titled the pieces – according to the impressions we have inside of us.
“The idea of warmth”
“Strength”, “Enjoyment”…
Asja Valcic: [laughs]…and “Madness”.
Why the title Velvet?
Asja Valcic: Because of the instrumental sound, the lower range. A gentle sound, with nothing hard about it – it’s soft and comfortable.
Raphael Preuschl: The whole cover concept, with the roughed-up surface and the title, was Vincent Pongracz‘s idea – he did the graphic design, but he’s also a clarinetist, a great musician. It establishes the idea of warmth that we connect with the music.
There’s also a sophisticated play with dynamics, with silence. Is that intentional, to keep the music from getting too one-dimensional?
Asja Valcic: Of course.
Raphael Preuschl: Definitely. Dynamics are incredibly important in music, and they often get shortchanged.
Something else I noticed: the cello isn’t always the lead instrument, with the bass ukulele the accompanist, as you might expect; it also works beautifully the other way around. Was that the plan from the beginning?
Asja Valcic: Of course, the obvious roles were for the bass or bass ukulele to accompany the cello, but after a while that got boring. It was important to me that the bass have solo moments and take over the melodic role – that was something new that we had to figure out.
What can we expect live? I’m guessing you won’t be playing the songs exactly the way they are on the album.
Raphael Preuschl: The pieces remain substantially the same, though we vary the tempos a bit. But the improvisations we leave completely open; they vary from day to day. Depending on what happens in the interaction, it can go in a completely new direction. On an album, you naturally try to get to the point relatively quickly. Live, we take more time.
You were just on the road with Austrian Syndicate…
Raphael Preuschl: I still am. Today is a day off.
Is the transition from one project to another difficult?
Raphael Preuschl: Not at all. I take time to get into it, play the pieces through, listen to the music. Sure, if it changed every day it would be something else – it does require a certain amount of familiarization, but over the course of a career, you get better at it.
Asja, you’re a classic case of someone who came to Vienna and “stuck”?
Asja Valcic: I was already over thirty when I came here; before that I had studied in Germany, Russia, and Croatia. I came to Austria because of my mother; she had come in the late 1980s. When I arrived, I tried to connect to people musically. My first engagements were with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Classic.
“I felt like an outsider”
Today, you move in very different scenes, with people like [Jan] Lundgren and [Rolf and Joachim] Kühn. How were your experiences in those scenes compared to your other international engagements?
Asja Valcic: For a long time, Klaus Paier was my only collaboration here. That changed a little bit with the Sketchbook Orchestra, which is great because I don’t have to travel for every project now. At the beginning no one knew who I was. To be honest, I felt like an outsider for a long time.
You studied in Russia and you surely follow the recent political upheaval there…do you still have connections to the Russian cultural scene?
Asja Valcic: I was there in the 80s, during the Gorbachev era. That Russia no longer exists. This is a completely different time, with different circumstances.
When you compare that time – with change in the air and the prospect of a new, pan-European future – with today, you could almost get a little nostalgic. What do you think?
Asja Valcic: It’s unrecognizable. I lived there in a time where there were no cafés, no restaurants, no private property. Fifteen years later, on my way from the airport into the city, I pass a Metro [supermarket], an IKEA, and all sorts of things. Back then, I had to spend most of my time figuring out what I was going to eat. I brought hygiene articles, sanitary towels and toilet paper for 6 months with me. There was nothing back then. Nothing.
Thank you for your time.
- Preuschl / Valcic will perform at Kick Jazz on Tuesday, December 5 at Porgy & Bess.
Markus Deisenberger, translated from the German original and edited by Philip Yaeger.