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Stainless (A Live Rehearsal Diary)

by Michael Brückner

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about

A recommendation how to best enjoy STAINLESS:
the music contained in this release is not an „album“ that is meant to be listened to in it’s entirety, but rather a collection of recordings each of which stands for itself.
Instead of attempting to listen to all this music in one go (which would be a bit challenging, I guess...) I recommend to enjoy only a few tracks at a time, and the next few tracks on another day…

As the title says, most of these tracks are recordings of various rehearsal sessions that took place during my preparations for my concert at November 23rd, 2019, at the gallery “Pest Projekt” in Solingen, Germany – opening for Sequentia Legenda (French synthesist Laurent Schieber and drummer Tommy Betzler) who had invited me to join in at that particular date of their little tour in 2019.

The recordings are (almost) in chronological order (except for the first track) and were all improvised in my home studio (except – again – for the first track, which is the only prepared backing I used in the concert and which is a multitrack recording, although the bigger part of it also was improvised live using a ring modulator AND of course the last track, which is an audience recording of the actual concert in Solingen).

Some further background info about the whole thing:

In mid September 2019 Tommy Betzler asked me if I’d like to join in at Sequentia Legenda’s gig at Peter Amman’s gallery at the Güterhallen in Solingen (a German city which is famous for production of stainless steel…).
At the moment I got the call, I first hesitated: 2019 had been another year in which it turned out to be difficult to find a lot of time for musical projects due to job obligations and family matters.
It seemed difficult to prepare for yet another concert: I had performed one earlier that summer with Detlev Everling which I had been occupied with for several months, and had just accepted another invitation to do a gig with Hans-Dieter Schmidt as “Bridge To Imla” in late October – then there were also several album projects in the pipeline that had to be taken care of.

In addition to that, I suffered from health troubles concerning my stomach, due to which I even had spent a few days in hospital in early September. Therefore, I wasn’t sure at all if it would be a good idea to burden my schedule with yet another project…

Obviously, I still accepted (in the end I just couldn’t resist) but decided I would do an improvised concert only, building mostly on older sound-sets which I’m familiar with, to keep preparations to a minimum. Also, it was clear from beginning that I would travel by train only, which meant I also could only use as much of my equipment at the concert as I could carry with me.

The issue of having to restrict myself to only part of my gear inspired me to different plans to modify my setup to be able to make more sound with a smaller number of instruments without having to use backing tapes, for example I planned to make a lot of use of my looping pedal.
It turned out later though that, while I indeed went by train, Tommy Betzler and his wife Anke still could transport a part of my equipment in their car, so in the end I could bring more gear with me than originally anticipated…

I couldn’t find time to start to rehearse for serious before early November. Since I would do an improvised set, “rehearsing” didn’t mean learning to play pre-existing compositions, but rather inventing new ones, based on different sets of sounds that would serve as a starting point.
Due to the shortness of time, the bigger part of those sound-sets were variations of older ones which I have created between 2009 and 2017 and already used on earlier occasions – which means even though the resulting tracks are new, the sounds, tempos and moods may sound familiar (but after all, in a concert I guess I’m entitled to play my “greatest hits”, I guess… ;-) ).

So, rehearsing to me is more about getting familiar (again) with the particular characteristics, qualities and potentials of a given set of sounds and to learn to use it spontaneously to tell a musical story. Also, while using those sets, I get new ideas and adjust, add or modify elements as I go – which means there’s an evolution of sound taking place.
In addition to that, I also made up a map of basic keys, tempos and moods for each improvisation and an overall dramaturgy for the hour of music I would perform, including how I would get from one sound-set to the next while maintaining a continuous flow of music.
In other words, although the tracks as such would be improvised, I still made up a framework of pre-determined musical parameters which the improvisations would be embedded in.

It’s my habit to record most of my improvisations during the preparation of a given concert, in order to get a better idea about my own performance – as a “by-product” of that, I end up with a lot of tracks which provide (I think) a nice listen in their own right.

Originally, the plan was to present the recording of the concert (which turned out to be a very nice event with a happy audience and happy musicians) as the main thing of this release, and add the rehearsals as a big “bonus”.
Unfortunately though – and in spite of the fact that my playing on this evening was inspired and the performance really the culmination of all the preparations preceding it – the resulting recording was poor in terms of sound, due to some issues with both the recorder and the mixer we used.
Some shortcomings could be slightly bettered up with post-production, however the sound still remains of “bootleg” quality, partly flawed by distortion and imbalances.
For this reason, I turned the idea around: now the rehearsals are the “main attraction” and the concert is the “bonus” – for those who are curious how it all turned out (or who attended the concert and are happy about this little reminder…).


(Michael Brückner, December 2019)

credits

released December 6, 2019

All music conceived and performed by Michael Brückner.

Michael Brückner plays:
Waldorf Blofeld (desktop), Behringer Model D, Korg Z1 and Korg 05R/W hardware synthesizers plus additional software synthesizers & samplers

Cover photography by Uwe Saße

The download contains more photos by Uwe, plus additional photos by Enrico Corsano, Hagen von Bergen and Anke Betzler.

I'd like to wholeheartedly thank all the nice people who helped to make the event in Solingen such a memorable and joyful evening:
Tommy Betzler, Laurent Schieber and Peter Amman most obviously, and also Anke Betzler, Ellen Ern and everyone from the Güterhallen community who lent a hand, to Samuel Cadhima, Enrico Corsano, Uwe Saße for their kind support, and everyone in our audience for their attention, appreciation and sharing this space, time and experience!

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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.

More is to come...
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