Bauchklang: an Austrian quintet builds a club groove using only human voices

Bauchklang create club music using only one instrument: their vocal cords. The crew are a vocal factory of great groove, taking electronic music far into the future with the oldest known musical instrument, the human voice.

To make it easier to place Austrian quintet Bauchklang within a mainstream musical category, we can agree to call them beatboxers. Developing out of hip-hop in the early eighties, beatboxing imitated synthesisers, drum machines and distinctive DJ scratching using vocal sounds produced with the diaphragm, abdomen and throat. Beatboxing is not rap, but rather a percussive, onomatopoeic combination of rhythmic sounds.

Bauchklang are not a vocal group comparable to anything found in a cappella or even beatboxing. They are not interested in presenting a precise acoustic picture of sound-imitating processes or recreating electronic-music hits. Bauchklang’s music consists of raw, powerful tracks rather than sung songs. Their stomachs and diaphragms are their synthesisers and loopers. Their work is groove in its purest form, articulated through primal vocal sounds. Bauchklang are a living, human rhythm factory.

When Bauchklang formed in St. Polten in 1995, beatboxing was barely known in Austria, while a cappella was generally considered neither funky nor sexy. Meanwhile, techno was becoming a major electronic dance force and splitting into new subgenres. Bauchklang entered boldly, breathing life into Austrian beatboxing and elevating it into a contemporary blend of downbeat, dub, dancehall, techno, electro and electronic funk.

The band create metaphysical worlds where technology usually associated with electro dissolves into pure groove. To get a feel for their work, listen to the sessions with Vivek Rajagopalan and Shilpa Rao on “Live in Mumbai”: wild broken rhythms and beats racing at breakneck speed, suggesting that their style might be called drum'n'bass.

Bauchklang remain true to beatbox culture's beginnings and usually share the stage with other artists at their live concerts, in the collaborative spirit of “open mic”. At a 2011 concert at the Festspielhaus in their home town of St. Polten, they played with singer Marie Daulne (Zap Mama), EsRaP & Enes, and even theremin player Pamelia Kurstin.

Bauchklang began as a live band and remain firmly determined to stay that way. Over the past ten years, their summer schedules have been packed with festival performances, including Sunbeat in Haifa, Israel; The Fusion in Rostock Roskilde, Denmark; The Frequency in Austria; The Montreal Jazz Festival in Canada; The Ladakh Confluence in the Himalayas; The Printemps Musicales in Luxembourg; and The Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck. However, it was only in 2009 that their excellent Blue Frog festival appearance gave them the opportunity to release a live concert recording on CD, finally fulfilling a long-held wish of their many fans.