Mexico City is difficult to portray because it is very big in every respect. For example: When I first approached the city, riding in a car and entering the city from the north, it took around an hour riding at high speed to arrive at the destination slightly south of the city center. Another thing that is difficult to capture is the atmosphere of the place. When I took a long walk at no point the “citiness” got less extreme, always there is the feeling of endless urbanization. Also, you can ride the metro for 2 hours and you will stil be in the city, as if it would be impossible to escape. There is also something deadly serious and unforgiving about the whole experience, which is more related to the (mostly) psychological warfare that advertises against coming to Mexico these days.

The main impression however, is that this city feels roaringly alive, full of risks, action and adventure, as well as extremes between the ugliest negative and the nicest postive. I wonder how any Mexican who visits European towns doesn’t get bored to death.

Setup testing for live performances

I am now getting stuff together for live solo performance purposes, to be presented around the triangle Germany/Belgium/Netherlands, plus probably up at Iceland if it works out.

The stuff here consists of raw mixes, some of which are not arranged songs but just cuts from playing it into the rig on the spot (for example the “reptile” examples)

I am preparing for a gig together with Calien Eurlings, scheduled on Wednesday 9.11.11 at the cult venue “Wild Rover” in Aachen. Also check this Facebook page .

Now some examples of my work. Rather than talking much about it, it’s better to just listen in (some of the stuff can also found below on the last post).

“Caiman”, live performance recording, dark and deep stuff, only using bass and synth.

“Crocodile”, live recording, bass and synth, some rythmic patterns triggered by bass effects.

“Seaweed”, something crafty and atmospherical

“Mechatron”, Rather dark, making heavy use of graintable lead synth.

“Leman”, produced at the banks of that very lake and including some ethno stuffs.

“Triton”, Funky yet atmospherical sounds.

“Bukanisator”, hell breaks loose in this industrial track.

A home studio is always very handy in case inspiration strikes.

Here a brief summary about all the Musical stuff I have been doing during the last decades until now. It started when I was 5 or so. My family discovered there lives a piano teacher in the flat above us. Soon we made friends and I always had a lot of fun hammering on her piano when we were invited over. Very soon after, it was decided I should learn to play the piano. We got a Wurlitzer piano. Not an organ, a real acoustic upright piano. So then, my musical career started and after consumption of four different teachers (one of them for a year in between, he was a Jazz pianist who taught me some interesting tricks, the other teachers were classical piano teachers whom I learnt the basics from) I stopped taking classes at the age of 17.  During that time of  “formal” piano education I had (among others) a nice repertoire of  Rachmaninov, Chopin, Debussy and  John Cage: the performance of the latter’s piece “Music for Marcel Duchamp” even got me a price  at the “Jugend Musiziert” competition. John Cage’s philosophy of music and sound stuck with me since then. What I liked most about piano playing was improvisation. At some point my desire to only play improvised music so completely took over, that I became unteachable for any piano teacher.

As time passed on, I continued my piano improvisations, but also I got more interested in the less intellectual and more social dimensions of music makery.  I wanted to form or join a band. Since at the age of 17 my taste in music listening was entirely Heavy Metal, and an existing School band didn’t want me to join (because I only played the piano and I wasn’t quite the kind of school kid that qualiefied as “cool”), so i simply founded my own hardcore metal band consisting of myself and the piano. By that time the family, had gotten an electronic piano which had a 2-track midi recorder built in and some basic choice of samples. It was my first music project and In the year of the Lord 1996 the recordings were made using a cassette recorder and plastic microphone. Here is one of those recordings.

(The Moschus-Oxen: Moschus-Oxen and Bambussprossen. Piano and Vocals)

Further-on, on my 19th birthday my family gave me a guitar. A basic nylon string guitar from Czech Republic. At first I was a bit irritated: “But I don’t play the guitar! I play the piano.” But then, anyway, I got interested and started playing the guitar, fumbling with it on a daily basis without taking any lesson. Soon, I could improvise on it quite well. Due to a coincidence soon after I had the chance to play the bass guitar for the first time in some sort of camp for civil service education, where one of the “leisure” activities was music workshops and playing in a Band, I of course instantly signed up for. It was a lot of fun to play the bass, and very quickly I decided I want one. Also, to figure it out properly, I took lessons from Freiburg’s International Music College (formerly known as Jazz&Rock-Schule Freiburg). After a year I was ready to join a rock band, called the “Borderline Cooperation Ltd.”, which was at quite high level. Unfortunately the project got stuck after another year, maybe because we didn’t somehow get out of the rehearsal room.

Next, I founded my first own band “Disadvantage” together with some friends from the University (meanwhile I had started studying Computer Science at Freiburg University).

A CD cover design for Disadvantage showing Lisa, our vocalist. (At the time the CD cover was made we still didn't have any CD of course).

Here are two recordings, ordered chronologically. We first had a male singer, then a female one.

(The infamous “Default Song” we called that because we played it in every rehearsal. Donfelice on the mike.)

(The “Suffocate” song, with Lisa on vocals. Seems like we made progress getting some sound out of the amps.)

During that time, I also made a lot of experimental recordings partly on my own, partly with support from other guitar players. Here, some examples.

(Somewhat hispanic soundig piano and guitar composition, making use of a wicked 9/8 rythm)

(The lush and tropical atmosphere of Hawaii, as we interpret it with bass and Toby on guitar)

(This song fragment I recorded with a mobile studio on the french coast of Lake Geneva. It also represents the atmosphere: imagine a large lake surrounded by mountains with clear, cold water).

Also during the time with Disadvantage, we formed a little side project called “Saitenreiter”. Two classical guitars and one bongo drummer. Great stuff. The web site seems to be online still, unfortunately there are no recordings (but 2 pictures). It also was a nice way to earn money because in this trio we were often invited to play at exhibitions and local politicians festivities. See http://saitenreiter.de.vu/

In 2004, I joined the rock band “Van Dalton”. Here some flyers we made for live concerts:

Also, some nice recordings were made with this band. With Courtesy to/from Van Dalton here some very nice recordings. The band was definitely more of an on-stage beast, but at last we managed to also make some recordings.

(“Freiheit” – A somewhat dark song with lots of keyboard sounds, and a formidable guitar solo at the end)

(This Song Tells The Truth. The flagship song of Van Dalton.)

(“Maybe Baybe”, for this song we invested some more time in mixing and mastering)

On the side, I also made some experimental recordings, sometimes  just by myself, sometimes with help of Steve the main guitar player of the Daltons:

(“Gamble”, with me on piano and bass, and Steve playing guitar)

(“In control”, with Steve on guitar)

(“Romania”, this is how Romania sounds, in my imagination. With me on guitar.)

(“Mechatron”, a dark and synthetic ballad)
Then, I left Van Dalton, to go to Vienna, where I got a job as assistant at one of the universities there. Of course, after the first excitement with the job subsided, I again wanted to make music. So I joined the group “Lost in Majority” (klick this link for some recordings). Here is a picture from a great concert we had in Vienna’s 16th district:

After 2 years, I decided to move back to Germany, this time to Aachen. There, I first tried my luck with a super hardcore metal band, but probably I lost my bite somewhat, so I decided to do my own stuff of which some examples are listed below. In the meantime I also re-grouped with some nice musicians to work on a couple of songs which will be presented on 3rd of November in Aachen’s Wild Rover Club.

Here some self-made material.

(“Bukanisator”, an excursion into the bleak depths of industrial electronic sounds)

(“Triton”, a funky song fragment with emphasis on bass guitar)

(“The Frayer”, exhibiting textures and pads, forming somewhat of a hypnotic sound).

and the newest:

(“Seaweed”, a song that makes you feel like Sushi if you listen to it very closely).

Das metallene Rad

Ein Mann arbeitete in einer großen Fabrik. Als er seinen Dienst dort angetreten hatte war seine Haut glatt und jung, doch nun, nach nur wenigen Jahren war sie bereits ausgedörrt und zerfurcht, so anstrengend war die Arbeit. Seine Aufgabe bestand darin, mehrere Räder mit einer Kurbel zu drehen. Er wusste nicht, warum oder wozu, er wusste nur, dass er es tat, um seinen Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen.

Eines Tages trat ein Mann mit glatter Haut auf ihn zu, und sagte:

„Ich habe dich beobachtet. Du machst deine Arbeit gut. Ich werde dich für eine Beförderung vorschlagen.“

Der Arbeiter blickte auf, und nickte und lächelte. Dann, nach wenigen Tagen, kam der jüngere Mann mit glatter Haut wieder. „Komm. Du sollst nicht mehr so schwer arbeiten müssen. Du musst ab heute nur noch ein Rad drehen, und dafür bekommst du mehr Lohn.“

Der junge führte den Alten durch lange Korridore an hohen Maschinen mit dröhnendem Klang vorbei, und bei einer Maschine blieben sie stehen. An ihrer Seite schimmerte glänzend ein metallenes Rad.

Der Arbeiter blinzelte, und sah freudig das neue Rad an. Er machte sich sogleich emsig daran, das Rad zu drehen, und schon hatte er den jungen Mann vergessen, so wie er auch vergessen hatte, danke zu sagen. Der junge Mann zuckte die Achseln und ging fort.

Das Rad ließ sich erstaunlich leicht drehen, anders als er es von den bisherigen Rädern gewöhnt war, die sich zunächst nur schwer drehen ließen, und erst später leicht, wenn sich das Öl verteilt hatte.

Er polierte das Rad, und gab ihm vom besten Öl. Und das Rad drehte sich leicht und freudig. Mit der Weile brauchte er das Rad nur noch leicht anzustoßen, und es drehte sich lange zeit von selbst.

Vielleicht, dachte er, schaffe ich es, dass sich das Rad für immer dreht.

So polierte er und ölte das Rad weiter, bis es unglaublich leicht lief, und er sich darin spiegelte.

Doch je mehr er es polierte, desto genauer wurde sein Spiegelbild, und bei jedem Mal, wenn er das Rad antrieb, war er gezwungen zu sehen, wie alt und zerfurcht er doch war. Das machte ihn missmutig, und er wurde ein wenig böse auf das Rad, das die Dreistigkeit besaß, ihm zu zeigen, wie geschwächt er doch war.

So beschloss er, mit seinem Gedanken, das Rad sich für immer drehen zu lassen ernst zu machen, und er trieb es so schnell an wie nie zuvor, und als auch das nichts half, nahm er eine Stange zu hilfe, mit der er einen Besseren Hebel hatte. Als die Stange die metallene Seite des schnell rotierenden Rades berührte, stoben die Funken, und lange Kratzer entstanden auf der liebevoll polierten Oberfläche.

Nach einigen Wochen, in denen er verschiedenes ausprobiert hatte, war das Rad zerbeult und zerkratzt, und hatte an manchen Stellen Rost angesetzt. Es ließ sich trotz Öl nur noch schwer drehen, und mit jedem Tag wurde es schwerer, da das Öl nun auch noch zu verharzen begonnen hatte.

Irgendwann, als das Rad sich fast nicht mehr drehen wollte, schrie er es an, das nunmehr schäbige, verrostete Rad, er wolle es einschmelzen lassen. Dann trat er dagegen, und von da an drehte es sich keinen Millimeter mehr.

Er rief den jungen Mann her, an den er sich nun sehr gut erinnern konnte, und berichtete ihm mit bitterer Stimme von dem widerwilligen Rad. Der junge Mann rieb sich den Bart, und kauerte vor dem Rad nieder. Er sah die vielen Beulen und Kratzer, und nahm das Rad vorsichtig aus seiner Verankerung. Er sah den Arbeiter aus runden Augen an, und sagte: „Wir wollen sehen was sich machen lässt. Aber viel kann ich nicht versprechen“

Der Arbeiter sah sein Rad nie wieder. Er saß nun ohne Rad neben der Maschine und ärgerte sich über den jungen Mann.

Der junge Mann jedoch schabte den Rost ab von dem Rad, reinigte es gründlich, und dann drehte sich das Rad auch wieder, zuerst langsam, und dann schneller, so wie alle anderen Räder. Nur die Beulen blieben.

As you are probably aware, financial cutbacks have been made by the government that affect the health sector significantly. Together with the ministry of health and education renowned specialists have been involved in forming a new strategy to fund the health system in the upcoming legislation period. Much to our positive surprise ways have been cleared to present a new medical treatment that bears a lot of advantages to the patients while being very cost-effective at the same time.

The treatment is the result of  a long-term test study that has been supported by many governments internationally for generations and it has been now decided to install this procedure as public healthcare measure. It is called the cervical sectohancement method.

The advantages of the procedure are as follows:

• It is a procedure that cures any kind of illness or disease.
• It is a procedure that reduces or eliminates the risk of the patient to ever fall sick afterwards.
• The procedure has been approved as functional against epidemic spread of diseases, rendering expensive quarantine procedures unnecessary.
• It helps loosing body weight significantly.
• Local anesthetics make the procedure almost painless.
• Although the procedure is irreversible no patient has ever complained or had any problems.
• The procedure can be carried out only in a matter of minutes and does not require any recovery/wake-up time.

Do yourself a favour and improve your life today! Assist the healthcare system at the same time.
Make an appointment today. We are looking forward to your call. Become the head of a new medical revolution!

I say that the moor is beatiful
colorful spiders
drinking the morning dew
strange flowers everywhere
water spending life

the real moor starts
where man’s land ends
but our spirits are caught
in the webs of colorful spiders
and the mist of the morning

Today i present my first music album. I wonder what I was waiting for, the stuff was just flying around on my harddisk and not getting any fresher. I should mention that the song “Bukanisator” is from 2010 and the others are from 2009. So it is relatively recent material. I also have older things somewhere but  thats worth another album release, or B-side.

I call the Album “Schlaegelbach” because I always wanted to found a band called “Schlaegelbach”, but everybody always disagreed because the name sucked. Well, see, I like the name and goddammit I am USING it now and NOBODY can stop me. I find that rather satisfying.

Ok. Ah by the way if someone has a nice idea for an Album cover, please send me a 12x12cm 300 dpi image file, which can be in any data format.

The music is kind of raw mixes done on an Aldi computer made from plastic, so don’t expect miracles. If you don’t like it I recommend earplugs while listening. The music style is something I really couldn’t care less about either. Oh sorry, you insist on me naming a music style? OK then.. it is called.. uh.. FNORK. The music is distributed under Creative Commons license 5 (or more), which means if you steal it you go to hell. PS: Give me all your money.

OK enough chewing,  now the album:

Schlaegelbach

1. The Frayer
2. Raita
3. Bukanisator
4. Frukov
5. Pacific