New vinyl coming!

It's been a while, I am still a bit undecided about this whole blog thing. It seemed great during that "covid daze", to get things off my chest or use this as a kind of online diary, or even self therapy ... dunno. A lot of things are always happening, sometimes I may be just a little lazy to post stuff. Apologies!

So I have a new vinyl coming in January 2025, yay! I've been putting quite some effort into this, finding labels who'd take a bit of a risk. Don't get me wrong, I think this album is among my finest and totally deserves this "proper release". I may have quite my own philosophy about this, I don't think everything needs to printed on physical media anymore, no! 

I am not even a collector at all myself, but I know that there are people who love to have such things and like I said: This particular album totally deserves it. It will be the third Surya-vinyl after "Holy Holy Holy" in 2017 and the super rare "The Hermit" from 2016!

A few words about all this in general, because some people really liked it and one fan even wrote it may be my best release since Samsara's last album which in some ways is quite a bit "funny" for me, because the backgrounds of these two albums can't be much more different really:

This one here was made here in my brasilian home studio, in calm, with passion and dedication - while the Samsara-album almost ended my career. I really didn't want anything to do with it all anymore, almost gave up guitar because I had to play these songs like a zillion times before recording them under the stress of a dissolving band.

And how ridiculous it seems spending thousands of bucks on a recording (SBE), oh perhaps it still sounds a wee bit better while at the same time I hear the stiffness behind my tracks, and it's all just way too big of a compromise for me. So what's more important, good sound or passion? Eventually the goal is going for both! I might say with that latest Surya-album I am almost there and proud of my achievements.

It's a great album. Period.

An end, and a new beginning

There's a concert coming up, the first one since 2019 for me, and I'm writing here again ... a lot has happened in the last months, I've lost a few friends and found new ones. We've been evicted from our house, not sure why, crazy stuff ... In my fourth year in Brasil, things are still strange at times. I've been searching answers in spirituality. This may seem strange to some people, sometimes it seems strange to myself, but if that doesn't make sense, what else does? Some of the things here are a big old mystery. I have come to this foreign land, far away from the the life I've known before, and it's all so different ...

During these months I also tried to make something happen for SBE - it was suggested to me to return with SBE, after I expressed my "saudades" to play live and initially had this idea for a "best of career"-program with a new band. I began to miss it, and to travel and all. So Thomas, Hans and I talked for the first time in years, and although for a moment it seemed as if something could happen, it can't - ... I'll try not to stay bitter about it. It would have been easy to come back with the familiar name (that I created, where I wrote most of the songs etc) instead of starting over again. At least, we will continue to play some of these songs in the new group.

But these days I have other challenges ahead of me. I started the year with a new Surya-album and recorded a whole lot of new stuff, but I can't lie: the last few weeks I was in a bit of frustration perhaps. The untimely end of SBE and the loss of some friends took their toll and made me question how much of that is my fault, even though all I want to do is PLAY MY MUSIC really. Is it that difficult for every band? Was it like that when we were younger? Was I ignoring other people's feelings? I guess life's like that: things change. I look back at all with gratitude and will not try to force much for now, ... just recently I really enjoy to work together with other musicians again.

Here's three excerpts of constellations I have been playing in the last months ... all were special to me ... most impressive perhaps would be the group with Steffen Schneider (Spaceship Landing, Blackbox Massacre), Raphael Nigbur (Blackbox Massacre) and Charlie Paschen (Coogans Bluff, Charlies Studio etc) but also meeting with my old friends Jens Vogel and Robin Niehoff was great! Eventually though I have decided to stick with two "local" Brasilian guys, although drummer Lucas Fursy is from 200 km away. It was guitar- and amp maker Guilherme Bordin who initiated me to play with local guys, despite all the difficulties here ... let me just say it is MUCH easier to play music in Germany in general!

But that's how it is, I really learn to have a different view on the past and present here ...