LASK -

LASK is the performance moniker of German saxophonist, keyboardist, and composer Ulrich Pütz Lask, who made two avant-garde/art-pop albums: the 1982–84 ECM releases Lask and Sucht + Ordnung.

Members: Ulrich Lask (alto saxophone, synthesizer), Maggie Nicols (vocal), Meinolf Bauschulte (drums), Sigrid Meyer (vocals), Monika Linges (vocals)

Background

Ulrich Pütz Lask was born in 1954 and studied from 1972 to 1975 at the Hochschule für Musik Rheinland. He played reeds, piano, and Mellotron in the Theo Jörgensmann Quartet, which cut the 1978/79 CMP albums Go Ahead Clarinet and Song of BoWaGe.

Lask, in turn, hired the clarinetist for the Urban Music Ensemble, a fifteen-piece that played the 1980 Moers Festival with Scottish vocalist Maggie Nicols, a prior member of John Stevens’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble and co-founder of the Feminist Improvising Group with bassoonist Lindsay Cooper. Concurrently, Lask and Jörgensmann interacted on Grotesk, a 1980 album by guitarist Muck Groh and drummer Wolfgang Teske.

Lask appeared as altoist on the 1981 Trikont album Schweinehundt by singer Uli Hundt & Die Betablocker. He then linked with drummer Meinolf Bauschulte of Phoenix, the Romanian rock group active in West Germany. In November, Lask entered Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg with Nicols and Bauschulte for his first ECM session.

Discography:

Lask (1982)
Lask 2: Sucht + Ordnung (1984)

Sources

Anirahtak–Lask–Sturm biography. Lask’s birth year, studies, and early use of electronics. (Anirahtak–Lask–Sturm)
Go Ahead Clarinet credits and Song of BoWaGe credits. Dates, instruments, and quartet personnel. (Go Ahead Clarinet; Song of BoWaGe)
Michael Rüsenberg’s Lask retrospective and September 1980 DownBeat Moers report. The ensemble’s scale and dates, its music, and Nicols’s participation. The festival report establishes a musical association ahead of the ECM session; it does not identify their first meeting. (JazzCity; DownBeat)
Maggie Nicols interview. Her account of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Feminist Improvising Group. (British Music Collection)
Grotesk account. Groh, Teske, and Lask’s participation. (Babyblaue Seiten)
Schweinehundt credits. Uli Hundt is the singer; Ulrich Lask is the alto saxophonist. (RecordSale)
Phoenix archival recording notes. Bauschulte in the group’s West German lineup. (Bandcamp)
ECM session discography and ECM album entry. November 1981 studio, trio personnel, and release. (Jazzdisco; ECM Records)