21.11.2025

Martin Brandlmayr: Interstitial Spaces

 

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artist: Martin Brandlmayr
title: Interstitial Spaces
cat#: faitiche 40
format: LP/DL (limited vinyl edition of 200)
release date: Nov 21st 2025
distributor: Morr Music GmbH
barcode: LP 80809182766700
 

Interstitial Spaces is Martin Brandlmayr’s debut release on Faitiche. In this award-winning radio collage, the well-known drummer and composer (Radian, Polwechsel) explores the quiet moments in music and film recordings.
 

The last notes of a piece of music fade out in the space. The pianist and the violinist remain frozen in place, holding their breath. The sound engineer sits silently at the desk. Once he has switched off his tape machine, the dull drone of a ship’s horn is heard in the distance. Otherwise, not a sound. Or was there something else hidden in the white noise?

Interstitial Spaces is based on short excerpts from music recordings, films, TV adverts and field recordings. Brandlmayr takes these quiet scenes, intervals in which nothing seems to happen, and brings them into the foreground, subjecting them to a microscopic spotlight. Moments in which one hears only the space itself, or the subtle presence of someone in the space: faint breathing, footsteps and the soft creak of a chair. We also hear preparations for an orchestra rehearsal: the musicians are all busy tuning their instruments, talking to each other, the concert has not yet begun.

This leads to a shift in perception: incidental details hidden in the hubbub of voices or in the silence suddenly take on a leading role. In the empty spaces, we discover various shades of noise, sharpening our awareness of sonic peculiarities. In a gentle rhythm, Brandlmayr’s radio collage offers a sequence of strange, not immediately identifiable sounds that are woven in the second part into a dense structure. At the end, the carefully captured sounds are released back into the empty space. Interstitial Spaces is a bold spectacle that celebrates the eventful uneventfulness.
 

Martin Brandlmayr: Interstitial Spaces (faitiche 40), front & back cover

Composed and realised by Martin Brandlmayr
Executive producer: Frank Halbig
Mastered by Martin Siewert
Cover design by Dmytro Nikolaienko
Photos by Nika Valeo and Peter Brandlmayr
Produced by Südwestrundfunk (2023)
Many thanks to Frank Halbig/SWR, Jan Jelinek, Dmytro Nikolaienko, Peter Brandlmayr, Nika Valeo, Team of the Karl Sczuka Prize