Library Music & the KPM 1000 series

Guess I have to thank my old buddy Wolf at World In Sound for once turning me on to stuff like this -- Don't let the boring covers distract you, this is awesome stuff from the time "when music still was music" ;) You'll find some of these sounds more at youtube too. I'll set it as a life goal to at least once produce an album that sounds that perfect.

SBB - Szukaj, Burz, Buduj

SBB in the 70s - now that's my kind of prog ;)

Here's an odd thing, I never liked King Crimson and wasn't a super big Pink Floyd-fan either although I like them much more than Crimson, but one band that really struck a chord in me was this odd Polish 70s Prog group that is still active today: the Silesian Blues Band a.k.a. Szukaj, Burz, Buduj (Search, Break-up and Build) or just commonly referred as SBB. They have traits of other big British groups of the era, yet something very different which I always referred to as some sort or Slavic melancholy. Well, or maybe it's just that they sing in their mother tongue which is Polish and some of my own ancestors are from Poland too. My grand-grandma's parents spoke no word of German is what I've been told. 

So I discovered SBB sometime in the late 90s in my father's record collection. Their abstract covers may have attracted me but I listened to every LP in his collection anyways. Back then we really lived in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the East German woods of the Harz region. Our village comprised of a total thirteen houses and I was the odd kid with long hair and doing my odd things like handcrafting a bong from a beer can and sat there in my little room in the light of one lonely green bulb and listened to this old music from the 70s. And for some reason SBB had these weird sounds that always attracted me: I thought it was a guitar (!) but much later found out that it was a Moog synthesizer that they used excessively among other popular Prog Rock-keyboards of the era like a String Orchestra drenched in lush Phaser-sounds, a Fender Rhodes etc. 

Their 1977 album "Ze Słowem Biegnę do Ciebie" would probably be among my top ten of all times, or at least top 20. I don't have lists like that but SBB are very close to my heart and for some odd reason I never really liked King Crimson at all who may be like SBB's own big influences along with John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. While SBB is that type of band that has a kind of cult following of mostly old dudes from Poland or East Germany but never really made it much further than that despite even playing shows outside the Iron Curtain. I guess it's because of the (mostly) Polish lyrics but then these make a significant difference. Well for me most of their 70s albums are real highlights along with master Józef Skrzek's solo work and parts of the album "Geira" as a backing band of pop singer Halina Frąckowiak.

Early influences: Gas Giant

Gas Giant live 2005 by Scott Heller

I'm recently (re-) discovering the GAS GIANT-discography. They kindly provide us with all their studio releases on Spotify, quite a boss move if you ask me, every band should do that somehow ... and I know not nearly no one earns much at all from that, but at least these recordings don't get lost like so many, but so many from the "early days" of Stoner/Psychedelic-rock. So many 12inches and stuff that no one has ever heard of, yet a lot of cool material. For me somehow much more interesting than what you could find on any kind of virtual 'stoner meadow' these days ;) but maybe that's just some old dude's rambling because not many of the new groups really strike a nerve in me.

Not much hits me like Gas Giant for sure, who were one of these groups that really impressed me a lot while we shared a gig with them so many moons ago in a little town in the middle of nowhere East Germany (read here). And it's actually funny how after so many concerts with so many bands with SBE, many of the bands that I kind of worshipped in my adolescent years, it's still these early memories that shine the brightest. Gas Giant, House Of Aquarius, The Hidden Hand - these shows were so special in so many ways, or am I after all experiencing what everybody does at some point in his life: moaning the lost youth? Well anyways... Gas Giant, man what an amazing band they were!

Back in 2003 while watching their soundcheck I already felt like they were completely another league. Even though from Denmark, they could have easily been among those California heroes of the 90s; Nebula, Fu Manchu, Kyuss - Gas Giant totally belongs into that realm. And it made me a bit sad to see how after their brief comeback in the mid 2010s, it seemed people had almost forgotten or still never heard of them and you found them under the little names of the few festivals they played. But ofc these days it seems more important how many social media followers you have - at times it seems all about numbers - but then how can you not acknowledge these are the kind of forefathers of a whole scene?!

Cool shot of guitarist Stefan Krey who's now playing in Magnified Eye - Scott Heller, 2005

Interesting links

http://aural-innovations.com/issues/gg.html - has even old tour diaries - it's a trip! 

https://www.facebook.com/gasgiantrock - they occasionally reunite

https://thegasgiant.bandcamp.com - you can buy some of their releases

https://www.discogs.com/es/artist/733174-Gas-Giant - has also a brief bio

Early recordings

Early Fuzz Sagrado-recordings have just been released. These and Surya's "Lost Transmissions" EP build the bridge to what I'm about to do in the near future: more guitar driven, synthesizer-drenched rock music. New old school -- I still tend the analyze things too much, actually I need to leave all that behind too ...

EHX rarities + lovely nerd jams

Sometimes I regret selling my one Russian Muff, also throwing the wooden box in the trash -- how could I? Yet when I look at collectors like this I feel like the most humble musician person on earth LOL

Surya "Lost Transmissions"

I just released a couple of tunes from a selection of what was supposed to be a 2021 full length album which I scrapped because that old guitar & rock music got in my way and I may have overthought these tracks anyway, but they are too good IMHO to only sit in a lost folder on my hard drive. To be honest I have no clue what kind of genre this is LOL -- it's synthesizer music with guitar, modular bleeps but not that cheesy stuff, I hope.

Recommended to watch

I stopped watching TV about 11 years ago and even while occasionally checking on some of the news headlines out of little curiosity I really don't think that most of the sensationalism is something that anybody needs in his life. At least I for myself had realized early on that watching corporate news-channels or getting deeper into politics does not contribute anything positive to my life. For those who are curious about what's really going on in this world and it's many microcosms, I'd wholeheartedly recommend to watch Peter Santenello's channel and for more also check out his older blog entries (here). Oh and of course the dude took Ayahuasca LOL

Five Horse Johnson

These days I am kind of rediscovering almost everything that made up my rocking world in the early 2000s. Five Horse Johnson are very much one of these bands that would deserve a lot more attention. I mean look at that guitar player alone. I drew quite some influence from this when writing stuff for Terraplane's "Into The Unknown", if you want to compare this with songs like "Once I Was You" or "Lower" from that period. Anyways, Five Horse Johnson, awesome band ... for some reason never made it bigger than being an insider tip mostly within the "old dude Blues Rock-scene" ;) not really big for the stoner crowd. Kind of strange if you ask me, but maybe they've been a little too early with that sound.

Interview for The Obelisk

Blogmaster JJ Koczan of THE OBELISK asked me for an interview, and even though I hesitated a bit - believe or not I am still insecure about speaking (english) in public - this was a request I couldn't turn down. 

After all I enjoyed this talk, as it was also the very first time speaking in person, after knowing JJ from E-Mail and chat for more than ten years now. We talked about the new project, which probably will remain rather low key and of course had also to talk a good bit about SBE, why it had to end (or to be paused?) and the unavoidable nostalgia about the "legendary" US-tour etc. 

Recently I have watched a lot of the other interviews JJ did, it's quite new to me to discover the mindsets of fellow musicians. I guess for most of my 20s and 30s I've been a little too busy on building up my own legend ;). Yet it was interesting to hear about LOWRIDER recording in a way the way I do now, including the use of amp simulations and synthesizers occasionally replacing bass. But anyway, one day after our interview my mind kept wandering, asking myself if probably I'd lifted too many "secrets" ... 

By the way I am a bit clearer now about what the next FUZZ SAGRADO-release will be, and it may very well be a full album. I will select ca. ten songs that include a few SBE-like tunes, but also kind of a crossover between my SURYA-stuff and back-to-my-roots Rock. It may take a while though as I still have to write some lyrics and need to finish all these basic tracks that I already have. I'm a bit lazy these days and mostly enjoy just "noodling" along to my Spotify-playlists LOL.

Collaborations

I wanted to mention some of the collaborations from the recent past, as there are PATER NEMBROT as one of the most underrated bands I know. Been a fan since their earliest release (Mandria EP), when they still sang in Italian. They were one of the oldest friend bands of SBE with several shared gigs. They are on hiatus at the moment but their main songwriter, singer/guitarist Filippo has a solo project and also a new band.

I also have contributed a little synth atmosphere to my friend Alex'-solo project OCCULT STEREO. He's also been part of IMPURITAN (check em out) who had been a cool band out of San Francisco. God stuff, and definitely different from most "standart psych"-bands these days ;) ...

And then I added a bunch of instruments on the first MUDDY ORCHID-EP which is one of the latest outfits of my old buddy Robin, who was also the first drummer in SBE when he was not much older than 16. He's a very talented guy and I think on the following full-length album played every instrument himself.

Oh, and I just remembered that in January 2018 Alex & Pepe of IMPURITAN and I almost had played a spontaneous jam-gig in San Francisco, which would have been kind of *hilarious* for me since it seemed impossible for SBE to return to the USA due a bunch of reasons / limitations  --

Making music in 2021

Okay this may be a nerdier kind of post but I figured it may be interesting for some people. In recent years I learned a lot from electronic music producers whose approach to making music in my opinion is a lot more efficient in than being in a band and having to discuss like every little step - which really was one of my bigger dilemmas in SBE btw. 

But often it may also be a problem that you want to make music and there's just not the right people around or whatever, and I somehow believe that in the future probably more people will come up with solo projects and again the technology provides with a lot of amazing tools, many of them even for free. All you gotta do is research, ... I think in the end that is every creative artists dream to produce his music the way he wants, right? 

The guy here explains very well, of what is possible nowadays, and you can adapt this to any kind of style. I'm not the biggest modern prog fan, this is more about the whole technical aspect of producing ...

Another world

A few impressions from my life in the new world. Funny when I remember how much - due all the prejudice - I'd been hesitating before finally coming to Brasil for the first time in March 2017, and subsequently fell in love, not just with the country ;) 

It's a bit difficult for me to understand what's going on in the rest of the world and how they present this amazing country often in a bad light. I mean we have our difficulties and a rather unpopular president in the rest of Western media, but then that's that and just a small part of reality in everyday life within this country. Just from my humble point of view, I probably have never been to a greener, friendlier country.

And I'd still recommend to visit Brasil at least once in your lifetime, if you have the possibility - well, our borders are open ;) The following pictures were taken in January 2021 at my in-laws farm in the heartland of Minas Gerais, where life seems simple and pure.

Sunday vibes

I just stumbled upon this beautiful video ... music is kinda nice too. Never heard about this guy before. Sometimes I feel like I've spend a lot of time under a rock LOL ...

"Fuzz Sagrado" EP

New 3-track EP available via Bandcamp!

First review via DENPA FUZZ: "In Spain we sometimes use the phrase 'la cabra tira al monte', which is a way of saying that something returns to its natural environment, and this is precisely what Christian Peters, the guitarist and singer of SAMSARA BLUES EXPERIMENT, has done in his new personal project FUZZ SAGRADO. If in recent times Christian had been creating albums under his pseudonym SURYA KRIS PETERS, in which the main instruments were synthesizers and his sound was electronic, now he takes up the guitar again to create new songs. 

After having put an end to his little offspring SAMSARA BLUES EXPERIMENT, the bug to continue making music brings him back to the scene. A week ago Chris told me, to my joy and amazement, this great news that brings a great musician back to the present, with this new project called FUZZ SAGRADO. Here Chris plays guitar, bass, hammond, mellotron and mini-moog being accompanied only on drums by a mysterious character named Mr. Slater, providing the perfect groove for his songs. 

So far only three tracks that represent a return to the origins, with vintage atmospheres, psychedelic touches, progressive atmospheres and guitar rock. The EP contains three tracks with a common denominator in their sound, but each one has its own identity. From southern vibes and aromas, to moments of great intensity in which psychedelia appears majestic showing a wide chromatic range; without forgetting the progressive vibes of the early seventies, it makes the songs become more complex and majestic. 

If you add to that the contrast between some of the beautiful melodies with the intensity and heaviness of some passages, we can conclude that we are in front of a fascinating debut and a new hopeful stage. If here all the themes are instrumental, in future releases we will be able to find songs with vocals, which can be one more incentive for this exciting return ..."