Dust Covered Carpet
Akademie der Bildenden Künste, 2010
One by one they drop into the bakery at Karlsplatz Passage and take their late morning coffee. It’s an early February-day, their new record „A Cloud, Pushed & Squeezed“ is due for release the next day and a tour is upcoming. Times are exciting for Dust Covered Carpet, a Vienna-based five-piece band around singer and songwriter Volker Buchgraber. And times are going to get particularly exciting when we spontaneously head towards Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, the university home of two band members. Neither the band nor us informed anybody at the Academy of our plans to record a few songs in the corridors of the building. But then again, there was apparently no need for any more preparation as confidently walking past the doorman is sufficient to get in and record a relaxed and uninterrupted session. Dust Covered Carpet play an impressive rendition of „Pretty Things Happen“ in the Academy’s staircase and quickly attract the first bystander, a student who heard the sound and left his duties for a while. For „Uncover Its Roots“ we move downstairs and occupy a corridor, wondering what the people behind the closed doors might think when – after the quiet intro – not only the sun comes out, but singer Volker raises his voice and his brother Armin sends boisterous drum sounds through the reverberant corridors. With the stripped-down but nevertheless stirring „Balance Blood Licking Tongues“ Dust Covered Carpet finish their short guest performance at the Academy of Fine Arts.
- Camera
- Michael Luger
- Sound Recording
- Matthias Leihs
- Post production
- Michael Luger
- Post production
- Simon Brugner
- Artist
- Dust Covered Carpet
Akademie der Bildenden Künste
„Reclaim your education“ was written on the huge banner just above the entrance of the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna). When students and lecturers occupied the hall on October 20th, 2009, the academy was the actual starting point of an international movement of protests against unpopular education policy in the following months. With its over 300 years of history, the „Bildende“ – as the Viennese tend to call it – is one of the oldest academies of arts in Europe. Founded in 1692, the painter Peter Strudel held lessons in his private residence during the first years. After his death the academy was closed, but then re-established as Imperial Court Academy ten years later. Its current home at Schillerplatz in Vienna’s first district features interior decoration by German artist Anselm Feuerbach. The building was planned by Theophil Hansen in the style of Italian Renaissance and opened by Emperor Franz Josef I in 1877. In 1998, the academy was officially turned into a university, without mentioning it in its name, though.