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Here you see the actual concert from winter solstice 2020, where I played the improvisation that ended up on the album and became the basis for Der Schwarm.
Over the past years, my closest friends and I have established a personal tradition of honoring the solstice and equinox days as special milestones in the course of the year with making music and celebration.
Therefore I thought summer solstice would be an ideal starting point for this project. Despite of all the restrictions in this year, I was even blessed with the opportunity to play a public concert on that special date. And after it was finished, I packed my stuff and hiked through the woods in the night to a sacred place of my youth to make the very first recording for this album: The sound of the river in the piece Satori.
During the following weeks I recorded all the synthesizer parts for the piece in my creative home base, Weltklang Tonstudio. At the date of autumn equinox, I happened to be on vacation at the mediterranean sea with my family.
I hardly believe in coincidence and when I realized the situation, I knew I had to record the shores of the sea at this special date for the album.
Having made these to recordings, I saw the unfolding of a theme. How about recording something at all four milestones of earths travel around the sun?
For the occasion of winter solstice, my band Polis organized an in-studio concert. The next day I was shocked: In all the effort it took us to organize and execute the concert of the band, I missed to record something for my solo album on the third cosmic date!
Then I realized that we actually had recorded the whole concert of the band and that I played a solo improvisation all on my own.
Regardless of my plans with the solo album, my bandmates loved the piece, which was an affirmation of the idea to include it on this album and have a recording for winter solstice after all.
I already mentioned that I don’t believe in coincidence…
In the following sessions, I enriched the original recording with some Mellotron (I would need to find one for the recording of Der Prophet anyway…) and Taurus Pedals and composed a complementing part to go after the one I improvised at the concert. Then I realized that the beginning of it fits the ending of Der Prophet pretty well and decided to make them go together seamlessly.
Rhodes Stage mk I Electric Piano + Moog MF104M analog delay w/ Mesa/Boogie F30 amplifier + Mesa/Boogie 2×12 Cabinet
T.C. Electronics Ditto Looper Pedal
Moog Minimoog Model D + Roland RE-201 Space Echo
GForce Software M-Tron Pro Mellotron Plugin
Mellotron M400 mk VI, owned by Nils Frahm
Moog Taurus I
