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Stephen Parsick - Hoellenengel ("Hell's
Angels") "Not every angel is a godsend." Der Tod ("The Death") Der Prinz ("The Prince") Die Koenigin ("The Queen") Die Burg ("The Castle") Der Leichenkeller ("The Morgue") Der Barde ("The Bard") Der Nullpunkt ("The Absolute Zero") Einer wartet immer ("Someone will always be waiting") Das Lied vom Ende ("The Song about the End") Das Observatorium ("The Observatory") Das Auge des Horus ("The Eye of Horus") Auf dem Boden tote Engel verstreut ("Dead Angels scattered about the Floor") |
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stephen parsick – tektonik
all music composed, performed, and produced by stephen parsick all rights reserved. gema. stephen parsick: electronics, atmospherics, loop devices, feedback systems, sampling, processing, treatments, chimes, giant oil tanks, canisters, processed piano. the first recordings for "tektonik" came into being in early september 2004, shortly after i had moved from herne to werther. at some point i was toying around with some new tools in my new studio and suddenly the track "subduktion" happened. i found myself listening to it over and over again and i immediately had some idea of continental shelves grinding against each other, one slipping underneath the other. i tried to go down as low as possible and create some of the deepest drones and rumbles i had ever done, using my trusty old arp 2600 synthesiser, among other things. shortly after that, during the same week, i recorded the tracks "tektonik" and "seismik" but i felt the album was still a little incomplete so i put it aside. in december 2004 a disastrous tsunami struck south-east asia, and i felt somewhat terrified by my own music which clearly dealt with those geological phenomenons of continental drift which, in the end, caused the death of more than 250,000 people. in january 2006 i found myself working on a series of ambient recordings which utilised new electronic equipment i had acquired in order to replace some of the analogue synthesisers i had been working with for the past eighteen years. i soon realized that some parts of these recordings would nicely knit the three earlier tracks of "tektonik" together. i slightly remixed and edited the earlier recordings to make them fit with the rest and i soon had the finished album which you are now holding in your hands. the remaining tracks formed the basis of "gronland", the sibling of "tektonik". "tektonik" will be available in a very small production run of 25 copies only as i feel that this music is currently a bit too far ahead of my other work, so it would probably be commercially difficult to produce 500 copies of this cd and sell it as a regular album. like its mate "gronland", i might release it officially at some point in the future but for now it will be a strictly limited production run. each cd is totally black, hand-numbered, and comes in a pitch-black cd shell with a shiny metal label. |
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stephen parsick – gronland
all music performed, recorded, and produced by stephen parsick all rights reserved. gema. stephen parsick: electronics, atmospherics, feedback systems, loop devices, sampling, processing, treatments the recordings for "gronland" were made in early january and early february 2006, and as it´s mostly the case with my music, all music came into being rather unexpectedly. i was experimenting with some new instruments i had acquired to broaden my timbral palette, and luckily i hit the "rec" switch on my dat recorder while i was improvising the music live, without overdubs, sequencers or backing tapes rolling along with it. very soon i realized that the images the music created were provoking a sense of a vast and cold area. by chance i was editing the tracks while the tv was on, featuring a documentary on greenland. the music literally slotted in, and it was as if i had made the recordings just for this purpose. like its mate "tektonik", "gronland" is a very ambient album which relies on textures and timbres rather than on melodies, rhythm or chordal progression. i rather had the timbres and textures take on a rhythm of themselves to weave some kind of aural tapestry while they were unfolding. while "tektonik" is slow, deep, and dark, "gronland" has an airier, loftier quality to it. yet, both albums should be regarded as a whole, each forming one part of an image, of a setting which i would call my "geological albums". they both belong together, not the least because parts of the music i recorded during the "gronland" sessions were used to tie the single elements of "tektonik" together. like "tektonik", "gronland" shows my current state of the art in terms of ambient music and sound design. like "tektonik" i believe "gronland" to have too little commercial appeal to make a full-scale release worthwhile right now. yet, i still wanted to share this music with my listeners. thus, "gronland" will provisionally be released in a limited edition of 25 hand-numbered copies, like "tektonik". it comes in a special clear-blue package with a shiny metal label, the cd is all blue and also numbered.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- stephen parsick - deltaplan - muziek voor polders -
sound sources include: hybrid synthesiser, physical modelling synthesiser, digital sampling systems, e-bowed lapsteel guitar, big orchestral bass drum, loop devices, various processors, akg dummy head microphone, ambient field recordings
mighty drums on track four by martin stürtzer/phelios.
the recordings for "deltaplan" came into being while rehearsing for the joint concert with phelios at the sophienkirche in wuppertal on november the 24th, 2006. this is my "water album", so to speak, and it deals with a topic i always wanted to illustrate musically. what struck me most about the "deltaplan" project was the ongoing struggle between man and nature and the continued onslaught of water. i found the idea of creating a perpetual sense of threat, of calmness before the next flood, of disasters waiting to happen very tempting. one could also view it from the angle of losing ground beneath one´s feet, of encountering things infinitely more powerful than us mere mortals, of fragile peace and devastating changes to the world once known. hence, the music is of very spooky quality and, not to forget, this is what the name of my band project [´ramp] refers to, the great flood disaster of 1953 which struck the netherlands and which gave way to one of the biggest "waterbouw" enterprises ever in the history of mankind.
to augment the sense of threat i used field recordings i had made at night using a dummy head microphone on one of europe´s oldest "polders", patches of land wrought from the sea in a life-long struggle. these recordings give the foreboding timbres an almost subliminal quality when listening to the music via headphones.
"deltaplan" could be regarded as an acoustic version of land-art, incorporating the timbral characteristics of a region into a larger context.
like my previous ambient music albums, "deltaplan" will be released in a limited edition of 25 copies only. i am not keen on giving it a full-scale release yet but i´d rather like to share it with those curious to hear what else i´m keeping myself busy with. thanks for not messing with it and for not putting it up for illegal download on the internet.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- phelios & stephen parsick - it always rains in wuppertal -
live at sophienkirche wuppertal on november 24, 2006
personnel:
martin stuertzer: synthesisers, electronics, treated acoustic sound sources stephen parsick: synthesisers, loop devices, lap steel guitar
tracks:
floodland (parsick) here comes the flood (phelios & parsick)
info:
martin stuertzer aka phelios and stephen parsick got to know each other through germany´s synthesizerforum network on the internet. they soon discovered that they had some mutual interests musically and figured that a joint live concert could be interesting. martin – being an active musician in wuppertal´s music scene – organised a concert in an old church at the heart of wuppertal. making pun of an old title by kurt dahlke aka der pyrolator martin and stephen thought it would be very apt to describe the cold and rainy evening exactly this way.
martin loves merging his dark ambient soundscapes with elements from classical music as well as from other musical genres. on stage he uses a vast array of electronic hard- and software to produce his music. his set here was assembled from both recordings straight from the mixing desk as well as from audience recordings made with a hybrid dummy head / jecklin disc technique which allowed for capturing the ambient sound of the church. so when you listen to his music via headphones you ought to get the impression of actually sitting among the audience.
stephen calls his set "floodland" as it is very closely related with the recordings on his "deltaplan" album. "floodland" sees stephen play a solo concert for the very first time after quite a few appearances with his [´ramp] project. to stephen it was of utmost importance to steer clear of the trappings of traditional "retro" electronic music which is heavily based on berlin school bands like tangerine dream or artists as klaus schulze. "floodland" sees stephen use a wide scope of mighty drones and loops as well as e-bowed lapsteel guitar and ambient field recordings made with a dummy head microphone.
in contrast to many other drone-based recordings phelios and parsick tried to keep the timbral palette as varied as can be in order to avoid producing boring "fridge-drones" all the time. the massive finale showcases martin´s skill as a classically trained musician and stephen´s approach to sound design in an impressive way. without being assuming they can claim to have performed the first dark ambient concert that literally rocked the house.
unlike stephen´s other limited cd-r releases "it always rains in wuppertal" comes in a limited edition of fifty copies which are sold in equal quantities through the respective webshops of martin and stephen. thanks for not messing with it and for not uploading it illegally on the worldwibe web.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- stephen parsick - schwartzschild music for planetariums
all music conceived, performed, and committed to dat by stephen parsick at zwischenraum werther between january and february 2007. produced, edited, mixed, and engineered by stephen parsick. sound design and synthesiser programming by stephen parsick.
sound sources include vector synthesiser, acoustic modelling synthesiser, digital sampling systems, electric piano, string synthesiser, analog organs, tape echoes, loop devices, big orchestral bass drum, gongs, singing bowls, metal, and various objets trouvées.
track list:
tesla creation du monde (vangelis, arr. by stephen parsick) gasriese the mighty surge schwartzschild a question unanswered (based on a theme by charles ives, arr. by stephen parsick)
info:
this music was the result of my personal rehearsals for the concert [´ramp] was to perform at bochum planetarium in february 2007. unlike most of my previous releases, this music deals with the number one cliché in electronic music: deep space exploration, alien worlds, giant spacecrafts, you name it. thus far i tried to avoid these trappings like the plague but a planetarium show begged for this type of music. i started rehearsing and designing timbres in december 2006 and put together these recordings while i was discovering new tools and learning how to use them. i knew it was up to me to avoid being predictable and i think i succeeded pretty well in steering clear of the "cosmic couriers" rubbish or that new-agey fluff many try to pass off as "space" music. furthermore, i thought it was of utter importance to make the entire "dark ambient" or "deep space ambient" music concept timbrally interesting without drawing too heavily from those "fridge drones" many consider "dark ambient" (ho-hum). i never get tired of directing criticism at these folks who try to pass their inability to create interesting timbres off as "dark ambient music", so i really focussed on inventing sounds which are, of course, drone-based but which are still interesting and complex enough to keep the listener fascinated throughout.
with the assistance of the bochum planetarium crew i used this music to develope a visual concept and also submitted this music to them in case the concert could not take place for some reason or other. i chose to use a theme by vangelis from one of his earliest albums as i always thought that "creation du monde" was of otherworldly beauty and way ahead of its time. i thought that it deserved to be available in better audio quality, hence i created an arrangement based on the theme by vangelis. "a question unanswered" sees me dabble with orchestral music composed by american composer charles ives who was one of the first to use spatial arrangements as a central part in his compositions. his "unanswered question" always fascinated me but at the same time the nervous, atonal outbursts put me off a little, hence i sought my own way round his composition.
in some respects these recordings are similar to the cassette tapes i used to distribute in the early 1990s because i could finally manufacture the medium myself but – with technical progress taken in to consideration – this time the audio quality is nothing short of an "officially" pressed cd.
like my previous ambient music releases "schwartzschild" comes in a limited edition of 25 copies only. both format and package design are to continue the serial character of the albums that came earlier (like "tektonik", "gronland", "deltaplan", and "it always rains in wuppertal"). like with the other albums i might give "schwartzschild" a proper release someday but not now. thanks for letting me share this with those interested, and thanks for not messing with the music.
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