writing, breathing, living
There is a rhythm to writing non-fiction (such as a dissertation) that is like breathing. I take in a lot of information at once, it’s all over the place, it’s a mess, and I am overwhelmed. Then I breathe and relax. I let go of much of this information and organize what remains. Then I read what I wrote, it is now a text, but still a mess. Then I breathe and relax. I edit. Then I read it again. It is good enough for now. I take an afternoon off. Then I start the next section, and the cycle begins anew. Knowing that this is the rhythm of writing, mess and order, I embrace both. It is like many things in life. There is a burst of inspiration. I give up control to see where it takes me. I go all in. Eventually, I take a step back, slow down, and process. I journal, create art, or take a long walk through the woods—until it starts over again.
Choir Corridor
Back in November 2013 I had the honor to sing with the BOKU-Choir in Seth Weiner’s performance “Choir Corridor” at the Museum of Applied Arts Vienna (MAK). It’s been a great experience and luckily, the MAK published some footage of the show. While, obviously, it doesn’t quite capture the spatial quality of the performance, it still offers some good impressions what the whole fuzz was about.
Beauty in abundance
As you see, I've been very lazy with my blogging and artistic work recently. Actually, "lazy" isn't quite the right word, since I've been and still am insanely occupied with my landscape planning/architecture studies. It's extremely interesting so I dived into it for real. Also my computer and musical gear got stolen while I travelled the states, leaving me in a somewhat unfortunate position. Anyway, enough of the whining. Chances are I'm going to play a set of something (yet to be revealed) in May in an old bunker in Vienna. It will definitely be electronica driven, so I figured I share a piece of music with you. It's one of the first things I wrote in PD, so you'll need to download that first in order to play it back. [PD aka pure data is an open source graphical programming language for multimedia. That is, you're invited to fiddle around with my patch to see what will happen. It's fun, I tell ya. You can get it for free on the pure data website.]Beauty in abundance [download]
“Beauty in abundance” is an infinitive piece written for noise generator and four powerful bandpass filters.The piece challenge the way we look at dirt, chaos or so called noise. Whereas society tend to label all these things as being bad or unwanted, they are nothing different than an exsessive supply of human products. Or in other words, wheares the single component might be positive, in abundance it becomes negative. Examples? A single car carries the driver to its destination, too many of them cause traffic jams and pollution. Overproduction of food ends up on the landfill. A twitter feed might contain valuable information, but becomes useless if the user is confronted with a couple of hundred messages a day. On a planet with a human population of almost 7 billion, finding and reusing these components becomes a technique of survival.In musical terms, a single sine tone at random frequency, duration and volume is rather innocent, MANY of them cause white noise, which only a few would describe as a welcoming sound. In “Beauty in abundance”, I attempt to move the listener’s focus away from the general noise to its core ingredients, which I present in simple yet beautiful 4-note chords.Once started, the patch will play forever (untill someone comes to stop it), blurring the border between a classical composition and a sound installation. Personally, I used to play it in the beginning of concert, while the audience is entering the room to smoothen the transition between the non-concertante time and the performance itself.The duration of one loop (noise - chord - noise) can be set by the operator of the patch, according to the circumstances. Whereas it can be set to quick cycles in order to present a couple of them in a short time, I generally prefer longer times. That way, you become aware of all the levels of grey between the noise and the pure chord, posing the question what defines the one and the other. Especially if played as a permanent installation outside of a concert, 2-3 min per circle don’t seem too long.
solo debut
On Thursday, 27th May, I'll give my debut as an solo artists, performing own songs and compositions as well as a live electronic performance. Besides a fantastic band (Maria Finkelmeier, Venla Hinnemo, Leyli Afsahi, Jonathan Börlin, Johan Petterson, Patrick Anderson, Davod Basri, Vanessa Martinez, Johan Bertilsson), the concert will feature Lindie Boström doing lights and visuals and a dance performance by Tore Alsegård.
Black Box, Piteå, 27th may 10, 9 pm
sonification of a paper plant
Piteå is surrounded by two paper plants, which on same days smells like... hard to explain... I tried to make this unique smell audible... (the smell of) kappa by Johann Strube
new song: bakom brus
Since I moved to Sweden, I engaged in composition a lot. Therefore, I like to share one piece of mine with you. "bakom brus" (swedish, "behind noise") is a piece for noise generator and friends, which I wrote for my composition class with Johan Samskog (Stockholm). Tack för kritiken och synpunkter. Hope you enjoy it. bakom brus by Johann Strube
wegschmeißgesellschaft wegschmeißen
der mensch muss essen. klare sache. klare brühe oder aus der mülltonne. hauptsache gesund. wenn die tonne aber verschlossen ist? scheiß faschisten. sollen die sich doch selbst wegschmeißen. idioten sind nicht gesund.
New Year Eve Reggae from Sweden
As a present for the turn of a year, I present you two (outside of Scandinavia) pretty unkown, but fantastic reggae bands from Sweden, where I linger these days.The first crew is called Livelihood. They sing as well in Swedish as in English. They belong not only to the group of Swedish reggae artists, but also to the very raw raggae bands with a female singer. Does anyone know, where their are so few of them? Their style is mixed with dub elements.Here comes one of my favourite songs of them: Öppna uppKultiration is the second band. Their are from Gothenburg and play a very thrilling mixture of reggae, jazz and folk elements. Great stuff.As an extra song, I show you "Det löser sig" by Timbuktu. This guy is more of an rapper than a reggae singer, but he blends plenty of styles, such as reggae, salsa, polca with rap music. The video is fun.I wish you best vibes for the next year. I'm pretty curious. Best wishes from Sweden.
Johann
(picture taken by Beccy Kludig)
talking plane home delay blues
Alright. Here comes the next song of our last recording session. It is called "talking plane home delay blues" and was written on the WOMAD songwriting workshop in Bath by Mike Hembury and me.
As I already noted, it contains some common lines with one of Andy White's new songs.The amazing voice in the beginning belongs to Hikmat Al-Sabty of the fantastic ensemble Ourud Elmahabbe. Thanks to him and all the other musicians involved.
Mike Hembury in front of the "Castle" in Bath, the birthplace of the WOMAD songwriters.
muerte por disparo
I'm happy to present a new song, which we recorded during the last weeks. It is called "muerte por disparo" and performed by the amazing Nicolas Miquea. I hope you like it.
PS: Two other songs of the recording session follow soon.
Deconstructing Obama
Übermorgen spiele ich bei dem diplomkonzert von Lisa Zehner. Neben den üblichen keyboards habe ich die gelegenheit, folgende Obamarede zu dekonstruieren.Also erscheint zahlreich.Ort: Hochschule für Musik und Theater RostockZeit: Freitag, 28. November, 19.30 Uhr
17.11. auflegen nach der Kaleidoskop-Nacht
Am kommenden montag (17.11.) werde ich im anschluss an die Kaleidoskop-Nacht in der HMT Rostock auflegen. Multikulti-Rambazamba vom feinsten. Nicht nur deshalb lohnt sich die Veranstaltung. Auch das eigentlich konzert, in dem sich die hochschule von ihrer internationalen seite zeigt. Insgesamt eine pflichtveranstaltung für alle, für die rostock mehr als fisch, hansa und eine frische brise ist.
Hier ein beispiel meines DJ-repertoires:
Contribution to an Andy White song
Andy White released a mini-album called "troubadour" to sell it on his recent tour and via post order. The CD contains a song, Andy wrote during the WOMAD summer school I joined this summer. The lyrics contains a lot of phrases, which result from our brainstorming session. Every participant of the songwriting workshop scribbled down, whatever come to mind to different topics such as "love" , "biography" or "heaven, religious stuff, beliefs." So I contributed with some words to an Andy White album. Cool.I don't really know the name of the song. Something like "Wanna write a love song like nobody else" I guess. He already performed the song in Bath during the workshop. It is fun. So I'm dying to hear the album version. Hope I can get a copy of the record.I'll tell you as soon the song is published somewhere on the Internet.It was the same brainstorming session, where Mike Hembury's and my song "talking plane home delay blues" originated from. In fact, both songs have some words in common, like the "heart of the worrier." Love and peace to Andy and the WOMAD songwriting crowd ("Andy's hit factory")
picture taken by Melissa Axel
27. Nov: Liebe in Wodka - Konzert zu den Schwedentagen
Am 27. November ab 19.30 werde ich im Beginenhaus (Heiligengeisthof 3, (eingang Faule Grube) 18055 Rostock) zusammen mit der künstlerin Steffi Böttcher ein programm zum thema "Liebe in Wodka" im rahmen der rostocker Schwedentage aufführen. Böttcher wird verschiedene schwedische gedichte über die liebe und ihr begleiterscheinungen diesseits und jenseits des polarkreises lesen, worauf ich dann am klavier improvisatorisch eingehen werde.Das wird bestimmt eine spannende veranstaltung, mal sehen, wohin mich meine liebe zu schweden hintreiben wird. Tyvärr är dikterna inte på svenska.
How do human rights looks like?
Have you ever asked yourself what human rights look like? Not me, at any rate. I know what they are and what they mean, but what is their shape, what do they look like?To answer this question, I found an interesting page on the Internet: the net.art generator. I typed in "human rights," and the site generated the following diverse group of pictures:
Pretty interesting, I think. But is this the real shape of human rights, coincidence, or an artist's/computer's idea of human rights?