Category: Music

In spring 2003 steinbrüchel received an invitation from the Swiss music festival „Taktlos“ in Berne to contribute a track for their listening room equipped with a surround 5.1 sound system. During the two-day festival in November 2003 steinbrüchel’s track entitled „opaque” was played back in cycle mode (among tracks from various other artists). The listening room focused on the experience of being able to listen to music in a very quiet and large environment – unlikely to most home listening situations. Additionally the possibility of working in surround gave the musicians a chance to create very special audio sculptures in the space.

The track „opaque“ by steinbrüchel and five remixes is being released by the Australian label room40. The remixes were created by the internationally well known artists Oren Ambarchi (AUS), Taylor Deupree (US), Frost (AUS), Toshiya Tsunoda (JP) and Chris Abrahams (NZ). Each of the contributing artists was chosen for his unique working method (Oren for his work with guitar, Taylor for processed sounds, Frost guitar feedback, Toshiya for field recordings and Chris for piano). To make the remixes more varied and special, each artist received only three samples/soundfiles from the original track, but none of the artists have received the same samples or even have heard the original „opaque“ track by steinbrüchel before the release of the CD.

This is the first compilation album from Spekk compiled by the label owner mondii. Each of the artists were asked to compose a track with their interpretations of “small melodies” with Keywords like Warm, tender and calm. It was meant to present diversity of minimal-style music in a peaceful “harmonic” way. And it was a coincidence that both Taylor Deupree & Stephan Mathieu created a track dedicated to their child.

The first half of the album is the more “digital” side and the last half more “analog” side encompassing laptop digital processing to field recording materials (For instance, Naph’s track is only made out of frequencies within the wind/air) to band oriented materials.

Participants delivers these great pieces of music from various continents including USA, Sweden, France, Germany, Australia and Japan showing slight relationships between each other which kind of gives us a warm feeling of unity within this ongoing global minimalist scene. It was also my intention to present that nowadays, there are not much differences between the outputs from more digital background artists and more band oriented musicians due to their methods of composing (technology) and interests and such. Evidently, more and more rock labels will release digital processed music and bands will use digital softwares, electronic artists will become more aware of small sounds and warmth of the nature. I take this positive!

A year or so ago OMM started receiving some unsolicited remixes of Philip Glass works from young producer/musicians. I believe this is because in some circles Philip Glass is known as “the Godfather of Trance”. The remixes I received were exciting interpretations of Philip’s work.

We have wanted to do remixes of some of Philip’s work for many years. We were aware of the Aphex Twin work, so we knew the intricacies involved in connecting with a ‘name’ remixer and the difficulty of getting permission from Sony or Nonesuch to use recordings that had been released by them. It occurred to us that Orange Mountain Music was in an ideal position to do a remix project. We have released and made many fantastic Philip Glass recordings, and there was obvious interest from talented artists to do the remixing. I contacted the remixers and sounded them out on this idea and they sent the word out through their network of remixers around the world.

I received many recordings and from them selected a group of thirteen strong mixes for a CD’s length program. They represent a very diverse program without any one dominant style. The artists are: Androoval from Uruguay, Robert Bell from Australia, Brian Bender from the US, Héctor Castillo from Venezuela, Taylor Deupree from the US, Sebastián Escofet from Argentina, impLOG. from the US, Woody McBride-DJ ESP from the US, Marcos Romero from Uruguay, Kate Simko from the US, Dietrich Schoenemann from the US, Luciano Supervielle from Uruguay and Dave Wesley from the US.

I want to thank all these artists for their exceptional efforts and especially Marcos Romero for making initial contact and helping me sustain the effort to make it happen.

— Don Christensen

Spring 2005

I came in contact with Junji Kubo from noble label through my label, Happy, in Tokyo during the summer of 2004. Happy was the result of my long-time interest in unconventional japanese pop, and was quite a different direction from the minimalist microsounds of my flagship label 12k. Little did I know at the time, but the worlds of Happy and 12k would soon merge.

Upon hearing Eisi’s “Awaawa” CD from Noble I was struck by the beauty, simplicity, and unpretentious experimentalism of their sound. I found their use of traditional instruments and the airy, haunting voice of Mujika Easel to be unique and captivating. Due to my growing interest in acoustic sound sources I approached Kubo-san with a concept of recreating “Awaawa” in its entirety using the band’s original tracks as source material for digital manipulation and building them from the ground up. It was an opportunity for me to explore more pop-based production techniques and to take my own sound in new directions.

“Every Still Day” (a phrase taken from the lyrics of “Soshite Hossuru”) was started in the late summer of 2004 and quickly became one of the most challenging projects I had ever worked on. I had to simultaneously balance the integrity of eisi’s original work with my own fresh interpretation while loosely adhering to the “rules” of pop music. Eisi kindly supplied me not only with every individual track from each song on the original album, but also multiple takes of each track as well as outtakes that never appeared on the album. The source material was daunting, but enormously deep. Added to this was a sense of sadness as I found out that Eisi had recently disbanded, so my work immediately became an elegy of sorts.

My initial concept for “Every Still Day” was to take Eisi’s songs, which are acoustic and freeform in nature, and to stretch them in two opposite directions. On one hand, I wanted to add more structure and a sense of “popness” and on the other blending in my own style of digital experimentalism. Given the immense possibility of source material at hand I often chose to keep much of the main instrumentation intact, keeping a direct reference to the original songs, not getting distracted by too many choices and technological possibilities. To this I would add layers and fragments of digitally processed sounds and build new arrangements. In addition to the original tracks I created 3 interludes sourced from eisi’s live recordings. These short pieces appear on the album as an intro, an interlude, and an outro. I also asked San Francisco guitarist Christopher Willits, a friend, collaborator, and artist on 12k to supply some guitar parts using his signature folded guitar technique. His work appears on “Note 1.”

I want to extend my warmest respects to each of the members of eisi for allowing me complete freedom to manipulate their recordings. As an artist myself I know how difficult it is to let go of work and allow someone to change or recontextualize it. For this opportunity I am deeply grateful. I believe that my work offers a unique interpretation of “Awaawa,” approaching it from my own point of view with my own influences, and in the end it was one of the most exciting and important projects I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on. It was my wish that eisi would equally enjoy hearing their songs in a new light and perhaps discover elements or sonic relationships that they had not noticed before. It appears that they did indeed like my work: upon hearing some of the early demo versions the band decided to get back together.

Despite all of the challenges, excitement and creative energy I experienced during the writing of “Every Still Day” I still believe that my work is merely a peek inside Eisi, from a stranger’s point of view, and that the beauty of their original songs and performances can never be improved upon.

Taylor Deupree + Christopher Willits Live In Japan, 2004 is the first release in 12k’s new Limited Series. Issued in a numbered edition of 500 cds, Live In Japan, 2004
Live In Japan, 2004Audiosphere 8 (Audiosphere/Sub Rosa, 2003), and Mujo (Plop, 2004). However, new directions are taken into pulsing and repetitive frameworks, more intense than either artist is commonly known for. The second track is Christopher Willits’ own performance capturing his signature live, folded guitar work and the third track is a micro/ambient set from Deupree utilizing not only computer-based sounds but live, processed melodica as well as real-time room recording manipulations.