Jochen Arbeit + Sonja Kosche

The duo of Jochen Arbeit & Sonja Kosche is not just a musical alliance, but also one of two soul partners as well. Their musical collaboration began with the Covid-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in Berlin in February of 2020. The Einstürzende Neubauten tour got canceled that year, but the band wanted to provide their supporters on Patreon additional content besides Alles In Allem. In turn, every Neubauten member was asked to provide approximately 30 min of something each month giving way to content in a the format of a musical subscription edition for said supporters. Guitarist and sound artist Jochen Arbeit started playing guitar with his partner Sonja Kosche around this time. Yet, neither ever had enough time as of previous, so they discussed noise and sound over the course of living together. Sonja declared her love of Swans and other esoteric and difficult listening types of music. Though she had classical guitar lessons in her youth, she felt she could never play formally as a trained guitar player. Over time she lost interest in pursuing guitar. After withdrawing from guitar over the course of her adulthood, it took some effort for her to start it up again. However once the muscular memory of playing kicked in, she was back with a guitar on her lap. She began experimenting with pedals, e-bows and vibrators along with the occasional jam with Jochen. The two began non-verbal, improvisational communication through music. They began recording their sessions in the house to observe their interactions and developments. Over time they proclaimed as a duo was they wanted to observe and document their interactions; to observe if the potential of a project was there. And it was. Together the two also produced home recorded videos for the Neubauten website of this new duo collaboration. Jochen proclaims it was great for him as a musician to work for a purpose during covid and have a project he could devote himself to. Sometime around July 2020, Jochen received a call from a cultural center, ACUD around the corner from where he and Sonja live. They asked him to take part in a program they offered, which involved mentoring two musicians for a month. Jochen checked out the program to see what kind of programs were offered and discovered that inventor Yuri Landman was also offering a workshop there to build instruments in August. Jochen agreed to take part in the program and asked them if he could join Landman’s workshop. With the Neubauten tour canceled, Jochen now found the time for his own pursuits. The Landman workshop included building instruments outside in a yard, deeming it safe covid wise. After his month-long workshop with Yuri, Jochen found himself acquiring instruments and devices that ended up at his house.  Sonja also found herself experimenting with the string instruments and became familiar with emoting and expressing with them. Jochen gravitated towards the percussive devices and continued his experimentation and research of looping. At this point the inclusion of proper microphones and proper amps made their way into the house also. From then on the recordings for what is now known as Zuhaus commenced. The two began their days spontaneously improvising and recording everything they played. In the end Zuhaus was completed through combining the bits they both liked best.

The recordings were done in different rooms with different moods, but everything had to do with Arbeit and Kosche, which is why the two aptly entitled their record Zuhaus which in German simply means “at home”.