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Oné Ma Topo

by Michael Brückner

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1.
Oné Ma Topo 04:33
2.
Lucenti 03:09
3.
Little Joys 04:36
4.
Shaku Blues 02:57
5.
Solitude 04:55
6.
The Spaniard 03:30
7.
Tango 03:12
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about

ONÉ MA TOPO (1997):

Even though this little, innocent album is rather not one of the highlights in my “catalogue”, it’s for a couple of reasons quite dear to me…

For example – even if you probably wouldn’t guess from listening to it – it’s a personal milestone in terms of music production: the first album which I recorded using hard disc recording on a computer (a Power Macintosh 7200 with an early version of Cubase VST, for those who want to know such details…).

This fact, together with another factor (see below) directly influenced the music – or kind of music – I decided to write for that special occasion…

As for that other factor: a good friend, Klaus Chmielewski, who also used to be an electronic musician, lent me his Yamaha sampler plus a hughe box of samples around the same time; most of these sounds where multi-layered samples of acoustic instruments, like acoustik guitars, flutes, etc. – which meant that at that point, I was better equipped with “natural” sounding representations of such instruments than earlier in my “career”.

Maybe some of You remember that I started out in 1992 with the intention to record music in the vein of Andreas Vollenweider, Mike Oldfield, Friedemann’s Aquamarin-Orchester and other electro-acoustic instrumental music between new-age, melodic jazz, world music and melodic rock. Which didn’t seem to really work, partily (of course) due to a lack of skills and experience on my part, but also because the sounds I had in the early days were only poor emulations of the real thing…

Eventually, during my “4-track-phase” (my first 17 albums) I quickly moved away from the idea to mimic that kind of music, and had changed to a more electronic, but also partly more experimental and darker sound.

But back to Oné Ma Topo: both to celebrate the occasion of now having a better recording medium at hand AND also because I now had some (slightly) more realistic “natural” sounds, I made a conscious decision to return to the “electro-acoustic new age style” once more, and to produce a friendly, positive and uplifting album.

To some degree I guess I succeeded in doing so (at least, it’s friendly ;-) ). Still, in the long run, I still wasn’t quite convinced, and after another transitional phase that would last for the next handful of albums to come, I returned to a mainly electronic sound.

Still, there is a sweetness and innocence in this album which I still find moving; 1997 also was the year when my wife and me got married, and our daughter would soon be borne, and life seemed good and full of hope then – which perhaps is another (of course strictly personal) reason why I look back to these tracks with some fondness.

The cover illustration is, btw. a painting by my daughter which she made (on my request) especially for this album some years later (I think when she was seven or eight).

P.S. The bonus tracks are vaguely from the same time – one year later maybe – but except for that they have not much in common with the mood of the actual album; I recommend to listen to them in a separate session…

P.P.S. When recording the album, there was *one* track I actually put most of my ambition into - “Prodigal Mother”. It’s my instrumental arrangement of a mantra I used to sing a lot at that time when I still was member of a Yoga meditation community. One of my favorite mantras actually, and I was determinded to deliver a beautiful rendition – but:
somewhat fell short of that aim.

While the basic recordings were OK, the multi-layered arrangement turned out to be too complex on the level of mixing at that time; try what I might, I failed to arrive at the level of clearness, transparency and power that I had envisioned, and the result turned out somewhat muffled.

With the original multi tracks unfortunately lost, there is no chance to correct that, however to this new “edition” I added a remastered version of the track, which fixes some (although not all) issues of the original…


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credits

released January 19, 1997

All music by Michael Brückner, except "Prodigal Mother", which is based on a traditional Indian mantra.

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about

Michael Brückner Mainz, Germany

Born in Heidelberg, Germany, later settled down near Mainz.

Earns a living as a graphical designer.

Ambient and other electronica since 1992.

Accumulated an extended back catalogue (more than 90 albums by end of 2011, number still growing).

Since 2007 offers his music in the internet, via the usual platforms.

Sometimes gets reviews + airplay.

Very rarely plays live.

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