Improvised Elektronik Output II

In Part II of the Elektronik project the two artists pick things up where they left off in the original Elektronik, this time divding things into two distinct movements in Cartesian & Planular. The former takes ideas from the famed French mathematician René Descartes's work whilst the latter reverses those ideas to describe time and space in a linear fashion. Recorded live in two takes in Material Object's Berlin studio in 21st April 2012.

I got a phone call from Peter one day in October 2011. He was in Berlin for business and suggested we meet for lunch so I invited him to my apartment that afternoon. We chatted about various things and I was showing him around my place into my modest studio when he suggested that we record something together.. right then and there. I was quite surprised by this offer as I had long imagined working on some musical project with the famed Pete Namlook but at that point in my musical life, I was unable to spontaneously improvise anything on such short notice. I suggested he return the next day, thus giving me a few hours to prepare something in the meantime. Tomorrow came and Peter returned then we sat in the studio and I began by taking him through the few musical ideas and sounds that I had prepared. He stopped me right away and said, “Don’t tell me anything, just hit record and let’s play” So… I did exactly that.

For the next hour and 20 minutes we simply played together, without exchanging a single word, until I hit the Stop button. I think we both surprised each other with how well the recording turned out. I was not expecting we could complete what would turn out to be a complete album, in one day, from one long Improvised session as my entire experience with electronic music up to that point had been one of studios and linear arrangements. Pete on the other hand, had an entire ethos based around ‘capturing the moment’ or words to that effect, regarding improvised live recordings and i was extremely glad to have been invited into that process with him and to arrive at such a good result.

The story of Elektronik II is almost Identical but this time Pete gave me a few days notice that he would be in Berlin so i had more material prepared when he arrived. This time we ended up recording just over 2 hours of work, in 2 sessions, each roughly an hour long which I later edited down in length to fit into the album format on a Compact Disc.

After these 2 releases I began work on some new Ideas that I wanted to do in a third ‘Elektronik’ release and was hoping to visit Pete at his studio in Traben-Trarbach to record this but sadly he passed away before that could happen, so shortly after his death I recorded these Ideas myself and released them as ‘Draft III’ via my Bandcamp page.

Material Object
March 2022