We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Chop Off The Tops

by The Dogmatics

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €7 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    12'' black vinyl ,140g, 45 rpm, cover inside/out print

    Includes unlimited streaming of Chop Off The Tops via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 8 days

      €15 EUR or more 

     

1.
2.
3.
4.

about

The Dogmatics
Chris Abrahams | piano
Kai Fagaschinski | clarinet

All compositions were hammered and blown by Chris Abrahams (APRA) and Kai Fagaschinski (AKM). The recordings took place at Ausland in Berlin on June 24th and 25th, 2013 and were handled by Chris. They were edited and mixed by the duo during the following year and Werner Dafeldecker took care of the mastering. Rashad Becker did the vinyl cut. The cover drawing and sleeve design were done by Zev Langer. Robert Klonimus provided the lyrics. The photo is a still from a video recorded by Christian Kesten. The production of the album was kindly supported by ske/austro mechana. Many thanks to Zev, Werner, Rashad, Christian, Arthur, Robert, Ausland and SKE.

credits

released October 19, 2018

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was only time that had kept it away
But then the sound was in me
I heard it when I spoke it

I see a group of people moving up the beach
Like a crab in the dark
Torch beams spotlight the sand

Taking one day at a time now
Some sort of morning still comes
At least the winter’s long.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For many years Sydney-based Chris has used his European tours as a springboard for extended stays in Kai's hometown of choice, Berlin. After appreciating each other’s work for quite a while they began collaborating at a friend's piano-armed kitchen back in 2007. Their musical gatherings were a rather private affair for some years until the release of their debut album "The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle", when The Dogmatics turned outwards and toured in Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

While Chris is best known for his distinctive repetitive piano playing as a member of The Necks, Kai has focused more on compositional projects like The International Nothing and The Magic I.D. in recent years. Within their duo Chris and Kai are taking an off-road ride, we might better call it an expedition. Their approach is an open process of delicate sonic exploration where the fusion of abstraction and lyricism never needs negotiation. While their debut release "The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle" displayed a broad spectrum of short, at times absurd stories, the new album "Chop Off The Tops" zooms deeply into the molecules of sound. And those sounds seem otherworldly substances, maybe liquids navigated through and observed by two true alchemists. Time is stretched towards stillness before they reach sinister territory. The instruments of measurement are still a piano and a clarinet. Instead of investigating distinct parameters they interfere subtly and echo in each other. So proceed with caution when following these explorers, suspicions have arisen as to the objectivity of their findings.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Reviews:

The Sound Projector
How the Grim Reaper Works - Second LP Chop Off The Tops (SELF RELEASE, NO NUMBER) by The Dogmatics is another impressive set of mysterious, slow clarinet-and-piano tunes from Chris Abrahams and Kai Fagashinski. Their debut The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle was issued by Monotype Records in 2012 and seemed on the surface to be like a form of jazz of free improvisation done in a subdued and slow-moving manner, issued of course with an LP cover that made it look like a Black Metal album. I’m not so sure about anything now, as it becomes gradually clearer with this Chop item that they are doing something rather private and personal, for reasons of their own, and it might not even have anything to do with music.
I learn now they’ve been collaborating since 2007, which is 12 years ago, and they didn’t do it in a public space but in someone’s kitchen where there happened to be a piano available. I know everyone likes to say they’re undertaking a musical “exploration”, and that theme does indeed surface more than once, but on this occasion the Dogsters have won their stripes by keeping it under wraps and possibly evolving a secret code, a bond between the two which only they can share. I am all in favour of such secret codes. We are always worse off for finding out things like the real names of The Residents or the actual meaning of the letters AMM. Part of the Dogeroos’ cabbalistic mission is, I would hope, locked into these odd track titles such as ‘It Never Yielded Results Which They Had Failed To Discover By Other Means’, a sentence every bit as cryptic as that which you’d find in a recipe book used by alchemists in the 16th century.
As for the cover art – once again in the Black Metal style and once again penned by Zev Langer – there are more hidden clues than on the cover artworks for Led Zeppelin IV, and you could use it as a map to find the Philosopher’s Stone. Musically and sonically, you can expect hermetically-sealed statements whose baffling simplicity makes it impossible to apply the jeweller’s chisel of the mind, yet these phrases are deeply satisfying; the notes of Abrahams shine like small diamonds, while Kai’s clarinet blows mists of ancient time around the room. At all times there’s a poise and precision in the playing that most musicians would give their ribcage to possess. Lastly there’s the title of the LP itself, which as I typed it out just now suddenly revealed itself to be a zany pun on Top Of The Pops, a phrase which is most meaningful to anyone who can remember that lamentable and long-running chart hits show on the telly in the UK, but which evidently carries a resonance across the rest of the world too. It’s all part of their genre-bending plan, issuing an austere instrumental record as though it were an inverted million-selling item.
‘Death Is Now Your Friend’ is the parting shot of The Dogmatics, to which we can only reply with a silent hand gesture of assent. From 19th October 2018.
by Ed Pinsent (UK, 06/2019)

taz - die tageszeitung
Da sage noch einer, die Echtzeitmusiker mit ihren sparsamen Tönen, wenn es denn überhaupt Töne im engeren Sinn sind, hätten keinen Sinn für Selbststilisierung mit schrägem Humor. Den schönsten Gegenbeweis treten aktuell The Dogmatics an, die schon bei der Namenswahl ein unerschütterliches Gespür für Ironie beweisen.
Doch da hört die Sache noch lange nicht auf. Das Berliner Duo, dessen eine Hälfte überwiegend in Sydney weilt, hat auch in Sachen Bandlogo und Covergestaltung die Nase sehr weit vorn. So erinnert der symmetrische Namenszug mit seiner kaum leserlichen, ausgefransten Typographie an Vertreter des „True Black Metal“, allen voran Darkthrone, deren unheilschwangeren Schriftzug The Dogmatics mehr oder minder direkt zu zitieren scheinen.
Ebenso die Frakturschrift für den Titel. Abgerundet wird das Ganze durch eine morbide Coverillustration, eine Radierung mit totenkopfbewehrten Figuren vor karger Landschaft, Grabkreuze dürfen selbstverständlich auch nicht fehlen.
So weit die Verpackung. Die Musik hingegen, die der Pianist Chris Abrahams, unter anderem beim australischen Trio The Necks an den Keyboards, und der Berliner Klarinettist Kai Fagaschinski, der zudem im gleichfalls sehr schön benannten Klarinettenduo The International Nothing spielt, auf den beiden Plattenseiten – dies ist ein Vinylprodukt – hervorbringen, ist denkbar weit entfernt vom verzerrt-dumpfen Tremologeschrabbel über Doublebass-Getrommel, für das der traditionsbewusste Black Metal aus norwegischer Erzeugung steht.
Chris Abrahams tastet sich still an seinem Instrument voran, spielt kaum mehr als einen Ton zur Zeit, und fast jeder einzelne davon erhält viel Zeit, um sich zu ent­falten. Ähnlich die langgezonen Linien Fagaschinskis, die von hoch überblasenen Kieksern über heiseres Kratzen bis zu fast elegisch-gehauchten Makromelodien reichen. Zart kann man das nennen, ohne dass es kitschig gemeint ist.
Seit 2007 betreiben Abrahams und Fagaschinski ihr Projekt, zunächst eher für sich, 2012 erschien ein erstes Album. „Chop Off the Tops“, ihre zweite Platte, ist, bei aller Albernheit des Äußeren, ein großer epischer Wurf. Ein sehr leiser eben.
by Tim Caspar Boehme (Germany, 11/2018)

Bad Alchemy (#100)
Splatter Splatter. Chris Abrahams Landsmann Zev Langer hat nach "The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle" (2012) auch für den zweiten Streich zweier Death-Metaller der ganz anderen Sorte die passende Horroroptik geliefert. Dabei ist die Musik von Abrahams, dessen Pianosound durch The Necks und das Spiel mit Jon Rose und Anthony Pateras (als 176) gerade recht gegenwärtig ist, und von Kai Fagaschinski, dessen Klarinette bei The International Nothing, dem Splitter Orchester und mit The Elks als Waffe der Kritik swingt, vielleicht sogar nekrorealistischer als so manches in Zombieploitation erstarrte Klischee der Zunft. Abrahams repetiert aufsteigenden Klingklang und klopft zwischendurch auf den Sarg oder dongt im Bassregister. Ein Fragen und Horchen, zu sanften Dröhnwellen der Klarinette. Die Unanswered Question in ihrer Urform als Stillleben und Mantra. Die Tonleiter bricht, die Kette der Pianotöne reißt in helle, in helle und in dunkle, in dunkle Tropfen, Fagaschinski dehnt den Hauch der Blasetöne mit Sustain. Sein Summen wirft hellen Schatten, trillernde Wellen. Das ist beklemmend sublim in seiner geisterhaften Spaltung. Abrahams pocht am Korpus Detonationen mit langem Nachhall und macht wallende Geräusche, Fagaschinski presst dazu mit aller Gewalt wimmernde Spucke durch eine verstopfte Öffnung. Die ist zuletzt bei 'Death Is Now Your Friend' wieder frei für dunkles Klanggewölk und ululierende Wellen, Abrahams scharrt dazu an den Saiten, klackt am Holz und pingt fragende, fast tändelnde Figuren. Als wollte er in Schönheit sterben. Der Klarinette entschlüpfen jedoch schrille Laute, schmerzliche Kirrer, eindringlichste, nachdrücklichste Protestnoten, die sich von Abrahams' Arpeggio nicht beschwichtigen lassen. So dass der hinter pingende Noten nur noch einen dunklen Punkt setzt (oder doch das Fragezeichen eines unaufgelösten Akkords?). Sagte ich "sublim"? Sagte ich "eindringlichst"? Dann ist es gut, denn so ist es.
by Rigo Dittmann (Germany, 10/2018)

freiStil
Zum zweiten Mal, nach dem Debüt unter dem hübschen Titel The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle, serviert uns das Duo, dessen Name als Assoziationen Dogmen, experimentellen Film und modische Stiefel bereithält, Improvisation auf Kammermusikbasis im Heavy-Metal-Outfit. Schön wär's, konsumierten die Fans aufgrund der Covergestaltung in der Hoffnung auf Todesmetall und würden dafür mit Klavier-Klarinetten-Minimalismen belohnt – und genössen es dennoch. Auf einem anderen Blatt steht wahrscheinlich geschrieben, dass sich die beiden Protagonisten keineswegs von härteren Gangarten zu distanzieren beabsichtigen. Kompromisslos sind sie immerhin beide, ehrenwerte Genres ebenfalls, nur dass sich halt der auf beiden Seiten vorhandene, in etwa gleich hohe Intensitätspegel in unterschiedlicher Lautstärke bemerkbar macht. Aus aktuellen Gründen – für andere geht das Gedächtnis zunehmend flöten – erinnert diese, jawohl: grandiose Platte an Fagaschinskis Auftritt bei unlimited 32 in Wels, dessen Combo er nachträglich den Namen Baldrian Quartett zueignete. Eigentlich überflüssig, zu sagen, dass auf Chop Off The Tops, dieser LP, die 45 Umdrehungen pro Minute bevorzugt, herzlich wenig und gleichzeitig ungemein viel Herzliches passiert. Hymnen möchte man darauf singen, wäre man dazu in der Lage.
by felix (Austria, 01/2019)

Peter Margasak's Nowhere Street blog
Australian pianist Chris Abrahams, best-known as part of the long-running trio the Necks, has mastered an approach to improvising the builds upon the smallest gestures or melodic kernels, slowly drawing out variations through every single iteration until listeners suddenly finds themselves transported to a new place. Naturally, Morton Feldman frequently wrote pieces that embraced that idea, although his transformations unfolded much more slowly. In the Necks those shifts come amid the patient churn of bassist Lloyd Swanton and the peripatetic drumming of Tony Buck, so the micro motion of the pianist is often obscured a bit.
That’s not the case in the Dogmatics, the duo Abrahams has with the wonderful German clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski (the International Nothing). A couple of weeks back they released their second album, Chop Off the Tops and it refines their singular purpose to a razor-sharp edge. The four pieces proceed with exquisite restraint, mostly framed by brittle, jagged piano patterns that hang ominously in the air. While they often seem to repeat, Abrahams is constantly reconfiguring his lines, occasionally punctuating them with a left-hand interjection. The clarinetist blows astringent, quavering long tones atop the pianist’s fractured symmetries, steadily altering his articulation with split tones, subtle overblowing, haunting, over spilled breaths. The music is all improvised, but the duo’s focus is so precise, making the most of its minimal materials, that it unfolds as if by careful design.
Compared with the opening track “It Never Yielded Results Which They Had Failed to Discover by Other Means,” which you can hear below, the second piece “I Am Now Wearing Surgical Gloves” feels absolutely Spartan in it’s glacial pace and generous use of silence, as Abrahams more often than not strikes a single note that we observe decay until he finds another note to fill the gap. Fagaschinski’s extended technique truly sparkles here, as he shapes a serene presence with the softest attack only to watch harmonic effects quickly abrade his tone. On “Nobody Knew Their Reasons” Abrahams exploits his sustain pedals to turn thwacks upon the piano’s body into portentous thuds while Fagaschinski applies an impossibly tart pucker, unleashing spittle-flecked squeaks. It’s only on the fourth piece, “Death Is Now Your Friend,” that during the final moments the duo pushes into more extreme territory—which they did a bit more often on the 2012 debut album The Sacrifice for the Music Became Our Lifestyle, a brilliantly deadpan title if there ever was one—where the clarinetist burrows deep into his instrument’s ear-splitting upper-register, incontrovertibly, summarily dispatching the more measured tone of the preceding 35 minutes, while the pianist carries on with a carpet of quietude.
by Peter Margasak (USA, 10/2018)

Just Outside blog
An LP release with four entrancing pieces, all improvisations, from the duo of Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet) and Chris Abrahams (piano), recorded in 2013. It opens with the contemplative (deep breath), 'It Never Yielded Results Which They Had Failed to Discover by Other Means', Abrahams casting slow, tonal arpeggios, accented by occasional deep, soft, single notes, Fagaschinski blowing airily, softly atop and through, with the odd subtly sour overtone creeping in. 'I Am Now Wearing Surgical Gloves' (the titles are nothing if not entertaining) is darker, hollower, the piano tones suspended and uncertain, the clarinet quavering and searching, though both remain quiet--a sense of feeling one's way in the dark. The third track, 'Nobody Knew Their Reasons' is darker still, with heavy strikes at the body of the piano and balloon-like squeals and sputter from Fagaschinski. Finally, the lengthiest cut, 'Death Is Now Your Friend', which is also the most extreme musically. Abrahams restlessly probes the piano strings, banging into adjacent points unconcernedly before retreating to the keyboard, constructing a gorgeous series of hanging notes, mid-range--Feldmanesque, yes, but with a unique sense of wonder. Fagaschinski, meanwhile, has been rasping, then subtly gurgling, just tingeing the atmosphere. About midway through, he begins yelping plaintively, very high-pitched and with a painful aspect. Disquieting and impressive, as is the whole album.
by Brain Olewnick (USA, 11/2018)

freejazzblog
The Dogmatics is the secretive duo of Australian, Sydney-based pianist Chris Abrahams, a founding member of the legendary trio The Necks, and German, Berlin-based clarinet player Kai Fagaschinski, known from the clarinet duo The International Nothing and the group The Magic I.D. The two met when Abrahams stayed in Berlin in and between tours, where he and Fagaschinski began playing together at a friend's piano-armed kitchen back in 2007. This collaboration was a rather private affair for some years until the release of their debut album The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle (Monotype, 2012), followed by a European tour.
Chop Off The Tops was “hammered and blown” by The Dogmatics already on June 2013, mixed by the duo, and mastered by Werner Dafeldecker the year after, before the duo opted for an off-road hibernation. The cover artwork, with the death-metal lettering and gory, religious image, was done by Zev Langer, the guitarist-vocalist of the Australian death-metal group Conatanimated. The titles of the album and the four pieces reflect the sarcastic-cerebral approach of The International Nothing.
Chop Off The Tops, unlike the absurdist, short stories of The Sacrifice For The Music Became Our Lifestyle, suggests a deep dive into abstract and lyrical textures that bridge the distinct, repetitive piano clusters of Abrahams and the ethereal statis that Fagaschinski creates with his clarinet. The minimalist and delicate pieces of side A - “It Never Yielded Results Which They Had Failed to Discover by Other Means” and “I Am Now Wearing Surgical Gloves” - can be experienced as The Dogmatics’ highly disciplined exploration mission into the molecules of sound. Both Dogmatics are fascinated by the otherworldly, fluid sonic substances and the subtle, alchemist process of shaping and shifting these transparent, crystalline sounds, where the sense time also becomes a kind of liquid entity that loses its linear characteristics.
Side B offers a different side of The Dogmatics. It begins with “Nobody Knew Their Reasons”, a short and playful peace, in the most absurdist and sinister manner, where Abrahams employs the wooden body of piano as a resonance box and Fagaschinski offers white noises with his extended breathing techniques. The Dogmatics resume their former minimalist-abstract mode on the last, extended “Death Is Now Your Friend”, but in a more open and tense manner. This time both do not just mirror each other sonic explorations but teasing and somehow “chop off” the other’s sounds.
The Dogmatics advise to “proceed with caution” to their sonic excavations, as “suspicions have arisen as to the objectivity of their findings”. I would like to know more about their too long, off-road expedition.
by Eyal Hareuveni (11/2018)

Vital Weekly
Picture this: some sort of metal gothic font with the band name and skulls and crosses as a drawing; track titles that ‘I Am Now Wearing Surgical Gloves’ and ‘Death Is Now Your Friend’. Pretty grim, ain’t it? Never trust a record by its cover and band by its titles, as The Dogmatics is a duo of Chris Abrahams on piano and Kai Fagschinski on clarinet. Actually we knew this from before, when Monotype Records released their debut (vital Weekly 850). “File under: experimental music/Echtzeitmusik/improvisation” and in this case you can trust a press release. Abrahams stays with Fagaschinski when he’s in Europe and since 2007 they started playing together in Fagaschinski’s kitchen in 2007 and since then toured in England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland and now have their second LP out. Like before this is all very quiet music, nothing even remotely close to the world of metal music I’d say. This is much more a Zen like experience, with much space between the notes. Abrahams’ piano has a light tone, throughout, pensive and spacious, both in a sense of space between notes as well as floating in space, whereas the clarinet has the role of melody maker and drone machine. Sometimes
Fagaschinki plays a few notes, sometimes one sustaining tone, like a drone, like a sine wave and very now and then it all becomes a bit nastier from him, angular, and in ‘Death Is Not Your Friend’ it almost becomes a bit of noise towards the end. Abrahams only uses the body of the piano as a percussion instrument in ‘Nobody Knew Their Reasons’ and this is the both the shortest as well as the most experimental piece on this record.
by Frans de Waard (Netherlands, 10/2018)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

The Dogmatics Berlin, Germany

Chris Abrahams (Sydney) and Kai Fagaschinski (Berlin) started working together in 2007. It has been a rather private affair for some years until the release of their debut album THE SACRIFICE BECAME THEIR LIFESTYLE, when the duo turned outwards and toured in Europe.
Their 2nd album CHOP OFF THE TOPS came out in October 2018 and another European tour is in the works for June 2019.
... more

contact / help

Contact The Dogmatics

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

The Dogmatics recommends:

If you like The Dogmatics, you may also like: