Pink Elephant

Don’t think of the pink elephant! One is aware of this phenomenon, the ‘pink elephant effect’: If one makes an effort not to think of it, he will undoubtedly appear in one’s head. This ‘ban to think’ is doomed to fail. Whenever we play this tune, he immediately pops up in my head. He looks a bit like Dumbo – a surreal, friendly free jazz-elephant, transparent like a soap bubble, happily hooting about, sporting big ears. And he can fly. In a multi-dimensional space a pink elephant is dancing along to Happy Vamping. Unexpectedly finding himself on Earth in the middle of the Ruhr area and in the midst of his Eigene Tat, he would much rather be a cube, sitting in the Berlin Tiergarten and at least enjoying ‘Einweinfrei’. In the former GDR there existed among musicians and comedians the term ‘pink – or indeed green – elephant’, used to outwit governmental censorship. In order to pass as many important innuendos as possible, even more extreme innuendos were used as decoy and worked into the rough version. Nobody will notice a small mouse next to a large elephant. “”Pfrümmff!”” he muttered onomatopoeically, using the term like a mantra to keep him from thinking of the pink elephant. A useless endeavor. Happily he trotted away Jalla Jalla! Go. Faster Nikolaus Neuser processes such images and associations in his music. His ideas are often derived from realms other than that of music, often inspired by philosophy or science. He moves freely between jazz and improvised music, devoid of dogma and any clichés, instead with a sense of curiosity. His play is full of fantasy and of an inquisitive nature. His compositions are manifold; some are like collages that deconstruct and question and are being dissolved. Paradox, twisted stories are being told here; surreal, but seamless. Dekonstrukt yet another construction site. Berlin. Here one builds and tears down, dismantles, moves, tears down, then creates anew from scratch or arranges in a new and different way. Nikolaus has lived in Berlin since the beginning of this century, and for over ten years now we have been working together in various ensembles. In addition, he is a member of both of my Eric Dolphy-ensembles Potsa Lotsa and Potsa Lotsa Plus. In his quintet he unites musicians of the current creative scene in Berlin, who have been making music together for years now in different contexts. I am happy that this album has arrived now and that I am a part of it! hallucinating? A zoo appears he spreads his ears and flies away. Who cares, he’s thinking, that of which one cannot speak should remain unsaid. The air is clear, a trumpet sounds from somewhere in the distance. Where the hell do albino elephants live? One does not need to suffer from hallucinations in order to see a pink elephant. They are not merely a product of our imagination, and it is perfectly possible to encounter them in the wild. As albinos they come in shades of white to pink, and they exist in all areas naturally inhabited by elephants. Silke Eberhard, September 2015