Cyclical Magazine #2

CYCLICAL Magazine INTERVIEW: MATHIAS GRASSOW GEAR: ALBUM REVIEW: TOP 12 RELEASES: - ELEKTRON ENTROPY BY COSMIC MODEL SAMPLES GROUND AUGUST 2023 - KRISCHER ANALOG SYNTHE- SIZER AUGUST 2023

GEAR: and the lack of an internal usb ba- ELEKTRON ttery has also been an unfortunate MODEL omission, this being a supplement SAMPLES that is sold separately and is not always available in all markets. Is the economic solution of the The storage is a generous 1.5 gi- Swedish company Elektron to gabyte that can be operated very approach other costumers, it is a intuitively from the Transfer app. sampler player with an interesting MIDI goes through TSR and has the and complete sequencer integrated option to be configured for both in the elektron style. It is organized type A/B and features MIDI thru. in 6 tracks with loading of a sample An efficient MIDI filter allows you x track. Each track has its own LFO, to restrict incoming messages. loop, reverb & delay send, filter (HP The sound is of excellent quality, al- - LP), swing specific options, and va- though the samples must be 16-bit rious note hit probability functions. mono. The unit is stereo and the ri- Envelopes are limited to decay ha- des can be configured for each track ving no attack time, but with a little as well as modulated by the LFO. ingenuity this can be done with the In conclusion, it is an apparently sim- LFO applied to the sample level. The ple machine but with powerful pos- sequencer is classic from elektron, sibilities and flexibility, also highligh- with polymetry possibilities, assig- ting its complete panel of knobs and ning up to 64 steps independently less editing via menu typical of its to each track. At first glance we only bigger sisters Digitakt, Syntakt, etc. have 6 tracks with 6 samples, but this is expanded thanks to the “sample Ulises Labaronnie lock” function that allows adding 20 more samples to the sequences, be- ing located specifically in each step. The samples can be organi- zed in folders and subfolders, so its easy to find the desire item. The construction is good plastic but the sensitivity of the pads does not allow for effective fingerdrumming, 2 AUGUST 2023

GEAR: nerator, LFO... to create their own KRISCHER synthesizer and their own sound! ANALOG Since 2023, he have started to de- SYNTHESIZER velop a more “complete” range of synthesizers (available soon), John Krischer is an analog synthe- but always with a simple hand- sizer designer in Paris, France. ling and use! With this new range, These synthesizers are designed he would like to offer Krischer’s and handmade by John, to offer users the opportunity to crea- an optimal and durable product. te their unique sound universe. John work as a sound engineer and producer. As electronics was always Krischer Analog Polyphonic Syn- a passion since childhood, he was thesizer V2: able to merge his skills by creating Described as a 3-voice Drone Syn- their own machines. As a matter of th the Analog Polyphonic Syn- fact, he also use their own machines thesizer has evolved to include 3 in his music mixes and production. CV inputs with the combination He started his business with the of just 3 knobs and 3 buttons. 3-voices polyphonic synthesizer in Each knob and button refers to one of the 3 sawtooth oscilla- 2018, a simple design and use with tors inside the box. You can crea- an idea of integration into modular. te chords or detuned notes by Indeed, he would like to offer to changing the pitch with the knobs. users and those curious about elec- Krischer has released a new ver- tronic music, the possibility to choo- sion that features 3 CV inputs. se their filter modules, envelope ge- Each input is set to control the pitch of one of the oscillators. Instagram: Krischer_analogsynthesizers 3 AUGUST 2023

INTERVIEW: PH: CORNELIA KERN MATHIAS GRASSOW AUGUST 2023 “…the aim of my music lies in a phi- losophical digres- sion, as well as in a strong spiritual orientation” Grassow is a German musician who has been called “The King of Drone Ambient”, one of the leading figures in “sacred” space music, and much more. His music encourages slowing down the pace and connecting with the inner self. He calls it “Alchemy of the third ear”. How were your first steps making ambient/drone music? Which artists influenced you in this style? Is there something that you manifest or transmit punctually with your music? - I can’t say exactly when I decided to make music. It probably started at the end of the 70s. Originally, I wanted to make rock music in the style of YES, RENAISSANCE and the supergroups of the 70s, which all disbanded or became entangled at the time. The “culprit” was the burgeoning PUNK and the DISCO wave. This obviously irritated my idols, and so I wanted to “save” this music, but at that time I couldn’t find any comrades-in-arms and there was also a lack of money for synthesizers and / or drums... Since I always took a two-pronged approach as a listener, there was also the electronics with their long pieces, in which I could lose myself so beautifully. Of course, Schulze and Tangerine dream were very present, 4

as were Georg Deuter and the entire instrumental albums, as well as In “Through an unknown “Munich School”, specially around in a strong spiritual orientation, stargate”, the album you released KLAUS WIESE and POPOL VUH. without being confessional or last year on Cyclical Dreams label, One of my favorites and good friend representing a particular doctrine. you raise the direction of the until today is PETER-MICHAEL planet from certain questions, HAMEl. So I wanted to play and How is your current workflow, such as turbo-capitalism, own synthesizers, which were what instruments, composition exploitation of all kinds, climate still very expensive at the time. A and recording processes are you change, war and epidemics. MEMORYMOOG or PROPHET 5 using? Do you have any method Is there any branch of art that remained a dream, but at least I of inspiration when you dive into serves as a source of inspiration had the opportunity to play and the studio to compose? for you when approaching an record these instruments in the - At the moment, it’s summer album like this? Could it be the legendary SYNTHESIZERSTUDIO break. In this respect, everything music of a work of art you like (be JACOB in Wiesbaden ! rests, and I start again in autumn. it a painting, an opera, a movie)? My main influence has always I don’t like to disclose my -Well, I let myself fall into the sounds been the “spiritually oriented” equipment. For me, the way and that I carefully selected beforehand Munich School rather than the style of composing is something and see how the “live” fit very intimate, which I don’t PH: CORNELIA KERN Berlin School, although the two necessarily want to share publicly. together, what the vibration is like, do not have to compete. The Good music does not depend whether the “spirit” is there, etc. musicians behind both schools only and not necessarily Certainly, there are influences from influenced me in some way, and on expensive equipment! film and experiences running in in the early 90s I got to know the In autumn, I will start to work with the background. However, these Americans around RICH / ROACH the HYDRASYTNH, the ingenious are not the basis of a process of / STEARNS etc. know and love. SOMA gear and the NYMPHES, creation in the sense of experience The unfortunately deceased ELMAR CIRCUIT RHYTHM etc. Furthermore, = direct implementation in music. SCHULTE (SOLITAIRE) also gave us I have been using CLAVIA and It’s more like a dream, in which many the opportunity to get to know ROLAND equipment for years. experiences mix and which is often some of these personalities. It was I don’t make any special preparations chaotic and difficult to interpret. I a wild and beautiful time - early during the admission process, but let “help” myself by musically “sort” 90s (in my opinion the heyday myself drift. My specialty is probably and let my listeners participate of ambient and subgroups...) that I always record LIVE. There are in it, (that’s the “afterward My goal and intentions in my no multitrack recordings and no concept” on most albums...) music clearly lie in a philosophical elaborate rework. With the various - Here is a little more understandable: digression with largely tools on the PC, I am rather spartan. I would even go so far as to say 5 AUGUST 2023

that the “concept”, as on the work more than 40 years of activity! That’s a nice surprise for me, you mentioned at Cyclical dreams, They also help not to rust and because I often think that I have only arises AFTER the music, or stand still in a self-indulgent way. long since “said” everything there shows itself to me afterward, like Here, too, I let myself drift is to express in the ambient... in a shamanic session! There, and see where a collaboration Nothing more is planned or fixed yet too, roughly speaking, it is first wants to emerge in practice, – I here follow the path of TAO ;-) experienced (making of music) which feels easy and coherent. My vision for the future is that this and then interpreted (the deep music will be used more in the listening sessions after creation). What new plans do you have in medical field. For me personally, “Lyramos”, for example, mind? Are you working on any ambient music is music that has doesn’t follow any concept and new work or project? healing powers, especially in today’s thus seems more “chaotic” -I am very happy with my world, which makes us more and than “Through an unknownn collaboration with HEIKKI more sick in our heads and spirits. stargate”. This is also interesting LINDGREN from Finland, who My experiences with this music for me to observe afterward! inspires me a lot and with whom and sometimes poignant fan I can work well remotely. Since he letters show me that music in the Besides making music as a soloist, has an acoustic set in his luggage, broadest sense is and should be you have had collaborations with he is an ideal partner as a contrast much more than just a narcotic other musicians, how do you live to my devices. From autumn on, for entertainment and distraction. that experience? Do you feel that we are working on a new album. In the words of the great medium it brings another kind of vision At the moment, I’m working EDGAR CAYCE: “Music and sound even within your music? on a project with a friendly and will be the medicine of the future”. -Of course, other musicians gifted guitarist. This process of - preferably from other genres - creation takes a long time and bring a breath of fresh air into my reaches new depths for me. PH: CORNELIA KERN PH: CORNELIA KERN 6 AUGUST 2023

COSMIC lending futuristic Luciferian dimen- ges from as close as 30 seconds GROUND: sions to the music and its ambien- later. Although muffled, its move- ENTROPY ces. Wind, woosshh and mechanical ment is fluid and circular, with slight yowlings combine to activate an ini- jolts. A more harmonious rhyth- Idon’t know if you’re in the tial rhythmic structure that stutters mic shadow - the arpeggios have a same place as me, but I’d like a train making buckings. Passed more translucent nuance - sticks to definitely place the name through a sequence shredder, the this structure that rolls beneath this Cosmic Ground, a project spasmodic rhythm eventually leaps woosshh storm in a seductive alter- by keyboardist Dirk Jan Mü- between rattling debris and other nation between the mutation of the ller, alongside Arc, Redshift, percussive elements to run like a color and tones. This cadenced me- [‘ramp] and Brendan Pollard rhythmic train. It rolls at breakneck lody takes on a more nebulous, al- when it comes to talking speed, even risking overflowing and most ghostly form, over the almost about those artists who derailing when it mocks a curve. The 10 minutes of Phasing 76. Dirk Jan have best transported the sequences are nervous. They twirl Müller plays with the modulations Berlin School style out of its and flicker in this mass of percussive of the sequencer, here as elsewhe- glorious 70’s. After all, the clatters, racing towards a passage re on the album, creating confusion man who co-directs Electric where the atmosphere becomes ra- and charm between our ears for a Orange’s activities with Dirk rer, before finally resuming a more structure that slows its course more Bittner, has been delivering solid albums in the genre and more to reach a short since his 2014 coup de ca- atmospheric finale. Are our non in the self-titled Cosmic ears still thirsty for these Ground. This album was the hellish rhythms? No pro- kick-off to a series of CDs, blem! Substance’s frenetic download albums and EPs rhythm and spasmodic mo- that have done wonders for mentum run through them, the eardrums of aficionados with the unbridled race of of Tangerine Dream’s style the sequencer running its from the Ricochet years to rhythm breathlessly under Force Majeure. And ENTRO- a veil of murmurs and ch- PY isn’t about to change thonian orchestral hums. that! Available on Digipak The Cage’s opening spreads its murky veil with a drone layer. The track feeds more on elements of industrial CD and in 24-bit download format, conventional momentum, inters- and psychedelic ambiences, enve- this latest offering from the German persed with a few atmospheric traps loping a rhythm that struggles to synthesist follows in the footsteps of in an industrial ambience as sordid emerge and remains stifled under the sumptuous Isolate and the fan- as ever. With a few variations, Ran- this hold for its 7-minute length. tastic Cosmic Ground IV in a rhyth- domize User 0 follows this rhythmic Q2408 feeds a little on these am- mic fury so powerful that even your train structure in a long more fluid biences to offer a rhythmic structu- ears won’t know where to hide. flight and a slightly more sober se- re born from the tinkling of metal We enter a universe of horror and tting. But the industrial scent con- on aluminum. The structure quivers science fiction with the strange mel- tinues to whistle through. Phasing and splutters in a rhythmic approach ting hoops of sound that fuel the 76 is a tribute to the pioneers of that jolts along without really taking introduction of Space Speed. Then the 70’s who recently passed away. off. The color of the sequences and come the hums of machine and Klaus Schulze, Vangelis and Manuel its jerky variations, like the blows of the ululation of cyborg specters. Göttsching come to mind. The track different instruments on a meshed Dirk Jan Müller introduces a fau- begins its turn towards our ears anvil, tinkle between the clutches na of psychedelic sound elements with the warbles, distortions and of a dark oily membrane that pu- into ENTROPY’s dimension that woosshh inherent in the genre of rrs and hums. A bit more, and we’d sets it apart from previous opuses, the golden years of electronic music be in Freddy Krueger’s dreams! Af- (EM). A sequenced bass line emer- ter the long journey of Randomize 7 AUGUST 2023

User 0’s rhythmic train has reached fluid and the other spasmodic, knot Rhythm! Lots of rhythm. Sequen- its destination, Equilibrium takes us together this rhythmic momen- ces spread out in constantly per- into ENTROPY’s only moment wi- tum that mechanized fireflies peck mutating rhythm structures, and in thout real rhythms. It’s a track full at here and there, giving Entropy’s tones, in colors and modulations, of chthonian ambiences, where music a tormented psychedelic ENTROPY explores a hidden facet of machines have souls and breathe sheen. This is as true for the title Cosmic Ground’s repertoire, at least out their dark thoughts. These dark track as it is of the other 7 structu- not in that dimension, inserting psy- industrial ambiences flow over into res on an album designed to chan- chedelic and industrial textures into the introduction of the long title ge the minds of those who whine an electronic music inspired by the track. Here, specters and evil gargo- that the Berlin School style has ne- best moments of Tangerine Dream, yles are born from a fusion of cast ver been able to reinvent itself. The Arc, Redshift, Ramp and so on. Dirk iron and tungsten. Their yowling, rhythm wears out these sequences, Jan Müller has the gift to astonish murmurs and hungry gurgles inter- which leap like scissors across the and seduce even more. Album after twine in long howling moans, akin industrial void, only to disintegrate, album! Here he delivers 72 minutes to metallic winds. They run throu- rather like a rhythmic weapon, in of flawless ferocity, where the anvil gh long imaginary corridors before a slow, atmospheric finale just be- of our eardrums vibrates in symbio- fueling a rhythmic structure that fore the 14th minute, whose sonic sis with an infernal music conceived shudders to ignite like a train from combustion is lost in the muffled in the shadow of darkness. Yep... the underworld shortly after the winds and murmurs that will haunt true Berlin School in a tradition that 8th minute. Two rhythmic lines, one our ears for a few minutes yet. transcends its usual gothic universe! Sylvain Lupari synthsequences.com 8 AUGUST 2023

TOP 12 RELEASES: AUGUST 2023 FOLD BY ANDREW HEATH WHEN TIME STANDS DREAMS AND DRONES GARDENS IN GLASS BY STILL BY ASTROPILOT BY CHRISTIAN WITTMAN DARYL GROETSCH BEFORE OUR TIME BY GESCHICHTEN BY HENRIK STRANGE NEW WORLDS STEPS TO STARS BY FRITZ MAYR MEIERKORD BY JOERG DANKERT JOHN SCOTT SHEPHERD DECLIVE BY M3NASH IRREVERSIBLE XLIX BY RAYSPARK I QUASAR BY THALIOS REVELATIONS BY MICADO NDUSTRIES 9 AUGUST 2023

CYCLICAL DREAMS: LATEST ALBUMS DECLIVE BY M3NASH MUSIC COMPOSED, PERFORMED AND PRODUCED BY M3NASH MASTERED: M3NASH BANDCAMP ALBUM: https://cyclicaldreams.bandcamp.com/album/decli- ve-cyd-0085 ARTWORK: CYCLICAL DREAMS PHOTOGRAPHY: AMP PUTTIPONG STEPS TO THE STARS BY JOHN SCOTT SHEPHERD MUSIC COMPOSED, PERFORMED AND PRODUCED BY JOHN SCOTT SHEPHERD MASTERED: JOHN SCOTT SHEPHERD BANDCAMP ALBUM: https://cyclicaldreams.bandcamp.com/album/ steps-to-the-stars-cyd-0086 ARTWORK: CYCLICAL DREAMS PHOTOGRAPHY: AMP PUTTIPONG NEXT ALBUMS MIES VAN DER ROHE’S SUSPENDED LIFE BY SUSCRIBE NOW! DREAMS BY CHRISTIAN FIESEL AND NEVER MISS AN PABELLÓN SINTÉTICO ISSUE 10 AUGUST 2023