Mondflug mit Schlagwerk – FM Einheit scores COSMIC VOYAGE

KOSMISCHE REISE (KOSMIČESKIJ REJS)

SU 1936, R: Wassili Schurawljow, D: Sergei Komarow, Xenija Moskalenko, Wassili Gaponenko 70′, OmeU, DCP 

COSMIC JOURNEY by Vasily Shuravlyov is the last Soviet silent film and was made at a time when sound film had long since become the norm. The film depicts a fictional Moscow in 1946 as a city of the future: the space programme has advanced to such a technical level that a rocket can be launched into space. Professor Pavel Sedikh, who is to lead an expedition to the Moon, is regarded as too old and mentally unfit for the mission by his rival Professor Karin. Meanwhile, the first rocket tests go awry: the rabbit launched first is killed, and a cat vanishes without a trace. With the help of his assistant, Professor Marina, and the young Andryusha, Sedikh manages a successful launch, flight and landing on the Moon, during which the crew must contend with various problems: weightlessness, a lack of oxygen and insufficient body heat at sub-zero temperatures. Their mission turns into a rescue operation when Sedikh slips during a moonwalk, falls into a crevasse, becomes trapped under a boulder and slowly runs out of oxygen.

One of the film’s aesthetic features is its astonishingly realistic depiction of a journey to the Moon, long before such scenarios actually took place. Aided by the collaboration of the scientist and founder of modern cosmonautics, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the film depicts, with great aesthetic precision and remarkable foresight, the experimental laboratory, the enormous hangar, the spacecraft and its propulsion systems, as well as its interior and lighting, the space suits and the lunar surface. Soviet cosmonauts who saw the film 30 years later were impressed by the sets and the realism of the weightlessness scenes, which were animated using stop-motion techniques.

FM Einheit will be live scoring the film – in terms of avant-garde spirit and skilled craftsmanship, he could not be a better fit for the film. Whether as a drummer with the Hamburg punk bands ‘Abwärts’ and ‘Palais Schaumburg’, or hidden behind all kinds of metal percussion with ‘Einstürzende Neubauten’, whether as a solo artist or in numerous collaborations with Andreas Ammer and Ulrike Haage of the ‘Rainbirds’: this musical jack-of-all-trades has always been – and continues to be – on the lookout for uncharted territory, constantly challenging listeners’ expectations. He is active both in the realms of concert performance, as well as in theatre and the arts, and has long been internationally regarded as one of Germany’s most accomplished and renowned musicians.

The stage set-up consists of digital electronics, long metal springs suspended from the ceiling, sheets of metal, and a table full of bricks and crushed stone. FM Einheit will use this diverse and sometimes archaic apparatus in a physical live performance, belabouring it percussively with his hands, hammers, drills and other tools. He coaxes a range of noises from these industrial materials – from expansive sounds and rhythmic beats to ethereal tones – which, combined with the electronic composition, add a layer to the interstellar, utopian imagery on the screen that is constantly crackling, scratching and humming.

Fri 11 September 2026	UT Connewitz
8 PM	VVK: € 15,50 (AK: € 20)