Here is an interview I did with AAS who released my second soundset for a synthesizer named Chromaphone today.
The interview is also about my life and music in general so it could be of interest to a broader audience.

Artist in Residence...

During the next season beginning in Septembre 2012 my brother Markus and I will be artists in residence with the Hamburger Symphoniker-orchestra. Since 2 months I am composing a big orchestral piece which will be premiered on Octobre 27. It will be combining the orchestra with live-electronics and a sampler player. It's my first piece for big orchestra and I am really excited about this as a strong wish is finally becoming reality.
The first project for me though is being staged open air on Septembre 1st, music from my album Minimal Nightmare and some new pieces arranged and extended for a 4-piece band (including myself) and string orchestra with players from the orchestra. The band will feature Christian Weidner on Alto Sax, Ketan Bhatti on drums and Hannes Huefken on electric bass.
Then there will be a sound-installation including some orchestral live-musicians and a project with an actress (my wife Andrea), an actor (my old friend David Bennent), a great singer (Katja Stuber), two musicians from the orchestra and some live-electronics.
For next year I will be writing a Flugelhorn-concerto for my brother Markus (whose Flugelhorn playing I've always adored) and a chamber ensemble mainly including brass and wind instruments, myself again contributing some live-electronics.

Lot's of stuff to write and explore....

Progressions

Another track of the moment: Progressions

New track: Drowned

Here is a new track from the more hidden regions of my brain...

Minimal Nightmare

I just released my album Minimal Nightmare - 9 tracks of dark ambient music and soundscpes inspired by dreams and recent experiences.
Merry Christmas!

New track: Minimal Nightmare

I am more and more attracted by minimalism and reductiveness - this track was created out of the blue today, the voices you here are white russian border guards who extracted us from a train on the border to the Ukraine because we didn't have transit visas...that was back in April during our film odyssey through Russia and other countries.

Album release: Non-Stop Ambient Flight Vol. 1

I just release a compilation of ambient electronic soundscapes and music, here is what I wrote in the release notes:

This album will take you on a fantastic journey into ambient electronic music and soundscapes. Originally produced as demos for Simons sounddesigning platform patchpool.de, carefully remastered and mixed, this first compilation of soundscapes is one of a kind triggering a wide range of emotions and states of mind. Just sit back in a comfortable chair, turn your stereo system up to a comfortable level or choose some high quality headphones and fly away. The album has no pauses, all tracks blend into each other in order not to disrupt the flow of your imagination.

And here is the widget:

what a ride....

So after travelling through Russia and Kasachstan with the Marinsky Orchestra by train and plane for over 2 weeks, visiting 13 cities we were taken from the train today at 6 am in the morning by white russian border guards on our way to Vilnius/Lithuania because we had no transit visa for White Russia.
So we missed the concert at Vilnius and experienced a little odyssey getting back to Moscow via Kiew.
Standing on the railway track with all our equipment in the middle of nowhere we felt kind of lost, we then took a train back to a small city on the Ukrainian border and then made it to Kiev in another 3-hour train ride where we eventually found a taxi to the airport. Cramped into tiny seats we finally reached Moscow at night.

What a strange and bewildering country this is, the old authoritative system on the one side represented by guards and police officers, the helpful and open hearted russian people on the other side.

Trip to Russia

For a documentary film directed by Alberto Venzago about the Mariinsky Theatre-orchestra and it's conductor Valery Gergiev I will create the Filmscore, the Sound Design and do the premix.
Alberto Venzago (director/camera), Markus Zucker (camera) and myself (sound) just travelled through 3 russian cities to collect images and sounds for the film. We visited Kaliningrad, Cheylabinsk and Ekaterinburg and - among other things - gained access to some incredibly huge factories producing metal products, cars, cement and other industrial goods.
We also collected fascinating impressions during the end of winter celebration in Cheylabinsk, a joyful gathering of thousands of people celebrating the beginning of spring.
The images and sounds we found during this first trip through Russia were simply overwhelming. Our next trip in April/May this year will lead us through many more russian cities during a tour of the Mariinsky Theatre.
Stay tuned...

Hot Summer

So this summer I will be focussing on developing new sounds and patches for Kontakt, Absynth and Alchemy. So many ideas and quite a few sample sets are already in the making. I found this big drop-off box for old clothes the other day in a street around the corner of my studio. It makes a huge percussive metal sound when moving the insertion-slot so I will multisample this on a quiet sunday and make a special percussion instrument out of it.