nckn.music.

It happens that you randomly browse the web and find nothing but crap. And it happens that you make a discovery: In an interview, I read about Peter Broderick contributing a track to a Belgium label called Slaapwel (“Sleep well”). This label releases only music to fall asleep by. Interesting, I read further. I discovered that the label owner releases music under the moniker Wixel, which lies somewhere between calm Post-Rock and Electronica. Currently he has a project going, what he calls an “Awesome Stupid Project“: he is about to release 12 records in 12 months. One record per month in 2009. Hehe, funny concept. Awesome, because this is a really challenging thought: Can you release that much music in that short time? And stupid: can you keep up with quality? Won’t you lose your artistic integrity?

As far as I can see, Wixel didn’t. (Only heard two albums yet). Give his Slaapliedjes a try. When you need a rest, or while studying or working. He has a very, very nice warm guitar sound.

Now, what I also find interesting is the way he releases music. All of this can be downloaded via Bandcamp, which means people can either give their email-adresses away and get a free download, or they pay as much as they like. Pretty straight forward approach. Additionally, each album is available as a limited edition self-made CDr. This was the first time I saw this combination and I’m clearly excited. I like it so much, I guess I will use it for my next EP.

The internet-evangelists always refer to free-downloads as an economic force. Digital music is no scarce good, it can be copied and distributed without cost, thus price has to approach zero. I mostly agree with them. For me it makes no sense to put price barriers between me and my potential listeners. At least as long as I have no existing reputation. Then, selling hand-crafted self-designed CDrs works as a balance. By doing so, you create a scarce good, that people are willing to pay for. (At least when you manage to make a good package design). Look at Wixels 2009-CDs above. I think they are adorable. Will wait for the September-issue and place an order.

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Kyrie Eleison by petersauces

Once I received a Souncloud message saying:

Seems like every user I check out is making minimal techno. [Your music] was a breath of fresh air. Danke schön!

Of course this is the stuff I like to hear. But this is also what came to my mind stumbling across Pedros music. Just some freshness in that ocean of tracks that all follow the same scheme. When you listen to some of Pedros work, you can hear, that this guy is classicly trained, but practices electronic. For me, it feels good not being the only one between the lines of genres. He has also similar feelings towards his music.

[It's] hard to find a place I “belong” these days…

Could sign this statement. All the established genres have their own rule-sets. How you produce, how you perform. What is most likely to make your track big. They have big word-leaders who are the scenes darlings. What they recommend will be heard.
None of that holds true if you try to go new ways. Of course every position has pros and cons, but this feeling of being a bit lost, although doing great craft, is one of the cons – i guess. Though never met, Pedro from Brazil has won my sympathy. Totally.

This is what says about “Kyrie Eleison“:

Song made in 2004, when I started experimenting with counterpoint composition and electronic music. Very intriguing yet evolving atmosphere that ponders antique music in today’s times.
My own voice recorded many times for each layer. I used counterpoint, that’s a composition technique from the 16th Century. So what I did is I wrote a piece for 5 voices and recorded all of them myself… pretty tiring ater a while…

My friend and former band-mate AK (design student) said something, that holds true with this work also:

Always try to bring ideas from outside into your production. Don’t reference the status-quo of the scene. When you do digital bring in inspiration from analog.

This translates to: Bring in your acoustic understanding, sound and ability into electronic composition. This is what Pedro does. Or: bring your aesthetics from electronic music into acoustic music. This is what Hauschka does. Either way you choose, it is a good way of staying original.

Funny, Pedro manages to undust that image of old men singing church songs in a choir. He has a original way of creating tension within the track and surprises the listener several times. The way I like it.

Don’t miss to check out some of his other works over at Soundcloud. I recommend  Harmo and 7 Onions. He also has a blog, which is in Portugese, unfortunately (for the most us). Google translate could help

Disclaimer:
the idea of this series is to have a conversation. On single pieces of music and through them on musical aspects in general. Imagine the time you were putting up vinyl, drinking red wine, discussing with your friend about things you hear at this very moment. When was the last time you listened to music and did nothing else? Really concentrated?
So if the track above triggers anything, just share it. A picture, a small thought, a general impression you have, please share it in the comments. If not, maybe next time.  It’s an experiment, I know. Thanks again!

The Detroit Sun by sundur

Okay. I’ll start off with no stranger. Actually I already made music with this guy. I don’t know exactly, if Sundur is to be his Artist-name… for now it is. (He is also spinning minimal records. Check his MySpace)

The deal: Considering his level of skill, it’s absolutely inappropriate, that this track is his only audible fragment available anywhere. The first time we met to mess around with Ableton, I was totally surprised both by his sound and his way of working in Ableton. In a very positive way. His approach to Ableton looked like an ever ongoing flow. He constantly builds up his loops, drags sounds around, sends them through effects, adds new ones. All of that in a speed, you won’t recognize this beat was never around before / done on the fly.

“The Detroit Sun” completely represents his sound, as I experienced it. The whole beat feels like a big wheel, that just rolls really slowly on uneven ground. The sometimes odd clicks really add to an overall warm feeling.
He put the phrase Trip-Hop in the genre-tag. In my head, the term TripHop usually triggers really different sounds. But still, this track feels like the succesful translation of Massive Attack-influenced Triphop  into todays’ sound. More Flying Lotus than Kruder&Dorfmeister.

I can’t wait for him to put out more stuff. He should. And (as I remember it correctly), he will.

Disclaimer:
the idea of this series is to have a conversation. On single pieces of music and through them on musical aspects in general. Imagine the time you were putting up vinyl, drinking red wine, discussing with your friend about things you hear at this very moment. When was the last time you listened to music and did nothing else? Really concentrated?
So if the track above triggers anything, just share it. A picture, a small thought, a general impression you have, please share it in the comments. If not, maybe next time.  It’s an experiment, I know. Thanks!

I’m a huge fan of Soundcloud. Always wanted to take some time to write down a kind of Manifesto ala “Reasons why I love Soundcloud” (as opposed to MySpace). Maybe that will follow some time in future. There are several things Soundcloud does really different, thus making it a superior music-service.

I also always wanted to somehow spread the good music I come across now and then. Often stuff by some guys, just like me, doing music for the sake of it. Living in other corners of the world, with no big fanbase or following. Still, they are doing great stuff. One idea was to start doing a podcast. Just collecting the nice tracks and putting them together into mixes. Again, maybe that will follow some time in future.

But until now (as I recollect my energy for Bachelor-thesis finals) – there will be a new series of posts, called “Found in the Cloud”. I will take one track I found on Soundcloud, embed and discuss it. Or maybe just stress one element or idea in it, which I think is remarkable.

Maybe – no promise here – I can contribute to a small moment of focused music-listening, which got somehow lost in today’s music-landscape. But that, again, is another topic to be discussed…

So watch out, there’ll be one post per week. Starting today…

Since my last band split up two years ago, my solo-endeavours were nearly the only musical activity I followed. Looking back on the results of that last period, I must say, that there is not too much output. There is Mixed Sessions, which I now can’t really listen to anymore, since it’s so old and kind of nooby and dilettantish in some regards (excluding These Days)
And there is LifeB, which got signed to Om Records. And then? Some experiments here and there – that’s it.

But why? Why didn’t I manage to put my musical ideas (which I guess are still there and vital) into actual pieces you can listen to?

Last weekend it became clear, that it was form. In the days of playing in bands everything was quite fixed. The band setup consisted of drums, bass, two guitars and vocals. I was one guitarist with some songwriting-responsibilities. Time I spent for the band was either practicing guitar, writing songs or riffs and attending rehearsals. Note: 100% of that time is directly connected to music. 100% of my ideas were direct musical ideas.

Now switching to music done with the computer. Just adding this device into your music makes everything a lot more complicated. You have to question everything that was kind of pre-set in your band. What kind of music do you want to do? What is your sound? How do you perform this music? Adding to that, computer is technology. And technology needs to be adapted to your needs. So you have to learn about programs, underlying principles and interaction-patterns.  These topics are all barriers in your way of developing musical ideas.
And this is the reason I look back on not too much output. I did not find answers that satisfied me. So I looked further. More energy and time was consumed dealing with stuff surrounding music than focussing on actual music.

Hopefully this will change now. I finally found a setup that fits my needs. A first version of a setup, that is Ableton-centered but not screen-centric. Actually I can turn off the screen and put the laptop aside.
It makes use of  all of the MIDI-equipment I have now (M-Audio Keyboard, NanoKontrol, PadKontrol, Nocturn and FCB1010) and is all about looping both external input and sounds I collected. It uses multiple instances of Ableton Looper, a self-hacked Step-Sequencer for the PadKontrol and some instrument racks. One for key-sounds, the other for collected sounds.
I guess I will do some sort of video tutorial round-trip of the setup when time is right.

The most important thing, though: I finally found answers to all conceptual question and solutions to all technical problems. I now know, that I can spend my time again thinking about music, not about technology. And when I have enough pieces done, I can now easily perform them.

So stay tuned…