M!NDF*KC

Experimental Improvisation Ensemble

Live at BMCA Vienna, 2 Oct 2024
Photo © Georg Herder

M!INDF*KC is an experimental improvisation ensemble that began working together in November 2023. In contrast to bands with elaborate aesthetics, we create an unstable network that emphasizes fragility and unstable connections. In our free improvised performances we form a non-linear oscillation system based on feedback processes that are constantly reconfiguring themselves. By responding to each other and to the acoustic environment of the performance space, we explore new ways of playing and producing sound that go beyond the clichés of free improvisation. Although we play very different instruments (bass, piano, electronics), we try to merge our individual sonic worlds into a new common sound, where the boundaries between our personalities become blurred. A mind-blowing experience!

Herbert Lacina: 12-string bass

Edward Reardon: piano

Karlheinz Essl: electronics

Herbert Lacina (* 1954, Vienna): 12-string bass
Works in the field of jazz and improvisation and plays acoustic and 12-string bass. The artist, whose credo is "For me, music is a stream of energy, free of forms and boundaries", is a member and curator of SFIEMA - Society for Sound Art, Free Improvisation and Experimental Music Austria, a member of Kunstraum Ewigkeitsgasse with its own concert series and curator of the Beethoven event series 2019-2020 in Mödling and a member of IG Bildende Kunst and the Austrian Composers Association. He frequently plays concerts at Celeste, Wiener Künstlerhaus, Porgy & Bess, Forum Stadtpark Graz, Alte Schmiede and many other venues in Vienna and internationally.
Website...

Photo: Birgitta Heiskel

Edward Reardon (* 1969, USA): piano
Edward Reardon is an eclectic composer, improviser and producer. He is a versatile multi-instrumentalist and performer. In addition to being a pianist and guitarist, he has performed extensively with analogue synthesizers, especially the Moog Polymoog, as well as other vintage electric keyboards. Throughout the years, he has performed in many ensembles in a wide variety of situations and styles ranging from Jazz, Free Jazz and avant garde, as well as rock oriented musics. Selected ensembles include Raum-Espacio Ensemble (with Andres Marchetti), 1234, the Richard Nickel transaction Ensemble, and Black Dot. He is also a prolific composer for theater, having contributed primarily in his native Chicago. Playwrights he has worked with have included Beau O’Reilly, Rebecca Gilman and Brett Nevue, as well as many classic playwrights including Shakespeare, Brecht, and Sam Shepard. He currently lives in Vienna.
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Photo: Georg Cizek Graf

Karlheinz Essl (* 1960, Vienna): modular synth
Composer/performer, electronic musician, improviser and media artist. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna. Composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, IRCAM in Paris and the Salzburg Festival. Since 2007 Professor for Electroacoustic Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In addition to instrumental and live electronic works, he develops generative composition software and sound installations. He has collaborated with artists such as Harald Naegeli ("Sprayer of Zurich") and Jonathan Meese, writers Andreas Okopenko and Erwin Uhrmann, and choreographer Andrea Nagl. Intensive work with immersive 3D soundscapes (book project K.O.P.F., Limbus 2021) and modular synthesizers (Coastlines, 2022 ff). His compositions are performed worldwide by ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, etc.
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Photo: Martin Leitner

Videos

m!ndf*kc live
YouTube playlist

Review

The catering is prepared, the wine chilled. The three artists prepare their instruments for the performance. Slowly, the guests start to arrive. Finally, the room is well filled and after the welcoming speech of Alexandra Grimmer, the performance begins. It is interesting to hear how the three different instruments react to each other. The piano with the keys, the bass with the strings and the synthesizer with its cables and buttons. And yet – despite the different haptics and sounds of the instruments, they complement each other in a wondrous way and take us on a journey of sound. By modulating the different instruments with effect devices or analogue interference and friction, I am suddenly no longer sure whether it was the piano, the bass or the synthesizer that I had just heard. And suddenly one hears how the individual instruments disperse, each going its own way, playing a solo. Only to cross their paths again and getting entangled into a mass of sound. A mass which goes from harmonic to strong dissonance between the tones. The body of sound in the room is made to vibrate, do Georgieva's works vibrate with it? Do the wooden works and canvases in turn influence the vibration in the room? The performance allows to see the works of Georgieva in a different perspective, and the visitors can wander through associative trains of thought provided by the experimental and unpredictable sounds. M!NDF*CK allows us into a new micro-cosmos of possibilities, the variety of sounds seems inexhaustible.

Neve Regli about the concert at BMCA Vienna on Oct 2nd, 2024

Updated: 9 Sep 2025