Based in Zürich, Switzerland, the acclaimed publishing house of Lars Müller is the manifestation of his love for books.
Over the last eighteen years, a plethora of carefully curated and edited publications have been published, zeroing in on specialist areas in the realms of society, design, photography, architecture and art, all of which reflect Müller’s eclectic fields of interest.
The common denominator of its releases could be simmered down to the documentation of cultural and societal relevant phenomena and close collaboration with authors to produce boundary pushing and aesthetically pleasing books.
LISTENING: Music – Movement – Mind is one of the more recent releases and an example par excellence for a cross-disciplinary exercise in examining the interplay of mind and body within the confines of martial arts.
Based on author Nik Bärtsch’s background in both the composition and live performance of music as well as the practising of aikido, the book takes the reader down the rabbit hole of his philosophical insights, shedding light on his take on ritual music backed and contextualised by a myriad of quotes and references.
Bärtsch’s elaborations are both analytical and poetic, meandering formlessly back and forth and thereby create an idiosyncratic voice that navigates the chasm between his very subjective views, ideas and notions derived from Japanese culture and findings that are relevant and applicable to the reader.
The latter becomes specifically relevant when his explications result in the encouragement to tear down self-imposed and societal constraints and preconceptions when it comes to the reception of music.
The fact that the tome is both visually pleasing as well as opulently illustrated does not hurt either.
