1. Where Are You Going - 04:03
2. (Ich Werd Dich Einfach) Abknallen - 04:29
3. Vienna Tragedy - 03:00
4. GKO (Gershon Kingsley Orchestra) - 05:01
5. Neon Lights - 07:10
6. Petutschnig Hons - 05:36
7. Scatman John - 03:56
8. Sombrero - 03:28
9. The Scatrobots - 04:01
10 (Bonus). Where Are You Going (Quo Vadis Mix) - 03:53
11 (Bonus). Immer Wieder - 04:01
12 (Bonus). Der Opa - 02:08
Coming soon
Remastered (High Quality, but non-mastered volume)
Remastered (Mastered volume, but compressed quality)
Release date: December 6th 2020
Information:
Where Are You Going is not only the first song of this album, but also my oldest. Seven months before I came up with the idea of making music in August 2020, I heard a riff melody which I liked. In April, I took the riff melody and also used it as an inspiration for a demo of this song. It's entitled "Dü dü dü dü dü". I wasn't serious about composing music yet and did it just for fun.
Abknallen was inspired by a person called Norman Kochanowski, formerly known by his pseudonym "Hercules Beatz" who is famous for his computer rage video "PC Spielen". There's a video of him reacting to that video. When his younger self screamed "Ich werd' dich einfach abknallen", he got a flashback of a song which goes "Boom boom pshh, ich werd' dich einfach abknallen". I was amazed by the small drum beat which is followed by the chorus because of the gangster vibes it gives and one of my relatives had a gangster phase during his adolescence which gave me nostalgic feelings. Norman most likely referenced Alligatoah's Counterstrikesong which has the part with the "Ich werd' dich einfach abknallen" from PC Spielen, but it doesn't sound like how Norman reproduced it in his self-reaction video (probably due to memory loss) which disappointed me. So, I did a song based on how I would imagine the full version of what he reproduced.
Vienna Tragedy is dedicated to the victims of the Vienna attack 2020. It's especially tragic because it could have been prevented by the Austrian intelligence agency which knew of the terrorist's activity months before this happened. The melody is actually made by my old friend. I made a full song out of it for this occasion. Its sadness just fits well with the situation we had in Vienna and the melody is supposed to be for similar situations. I remember when my old friend and I sat outside of the Stephansdom years ago and he sang this melody with improvised lyrics about war, poverty and corruption.
GKO is a tribute to Gershon Kingsley. His life had an impressive history. Gershon was born in 1922 in Germany as a son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. He had a happy childhood, his adolescence on the other hand was turbulent. He fled from Germany to Isreal in 1938 due to antisemitic policies. Fleeing was extremely difficult because he first had to work for a brutal farmer who paid him money for the departure. His life got better in Isreal and there he got in touch with music while working at the kibbutz. After the war, he migrated to the US to start his music career with the goal of becoming a conductor. There, he changed his name from Götz Gustav Ksinski to Gershon Kingsley. In 1964, he got exposed to avantgarde music while working with John Cage after which he was interested in electronic music, a heavily experimental genre at the time. Jean-Jacques Perrey who was a veteran in electronic music, resided in NYC as well, so, Gershon decided to team up with him producing music with electronic instruments. Five years later, he discovered the Moog synthesizer which he wanted to use due to its infinite possibilites. Thus he visited Robert Moog in Trumansburgh to try the instrument out and later buy it with his last money he had. According to Gershon himself, the condition of Moog's basement was so poor that he contracted an illness afterwards. With the moog synthesizer, he produced commercial music, TV idents and most importantly his album Music To Moog including his famous hit Popcorn and other tracks which I find underrated. Gershon carried on by using the synthesizer in live performances which was completely new during the early 70s. At the end of the day, he pioneered electronic music. Gershon then spend his last 40 years composing more music, processing his live experiences during the dark times of Germany and giving interviews to sustain his legacy before he dies which eventually happened on December 10th, 2019. I discovered Gershon Kingsley and his music during mid 2019 and was impressed by his eerie tunes and songs that are far ahead of time. His longevity impressed me too and I hoped he would manage to reach the mark of 100. I only discovered a few days later that he passed away and it made me really sad. To honor his work, I created this song which captures the eerieness of early electronic music. RIP!
I made another Kraftwerk cover. This time it's Neon Lights. It's a well done cover for having a trancy atmosphere. Back then, I was cheeky that I built in an easter egg at the end of the track. Now, I wouldn't do that.
Also, I did a song as a homage to an Austrian youtuber called Petutschnig Hons who works as a farmer and a comedian. He produces many comedy videos about current events. A long time ago, he did a video where he said that someone who drank Red Bull had complained to him about high milk prices. Then Petutschnig compared prices of both the milk and the Red Bull and came to the conclusion that a liter of milk was cheaper than a liter of Red Bull. He got so angry that he smashed the Red Bull can with his sledgehammer.
Scatman John is another tribute song. I took samples of Scatman John's scat singing and made him sing in this song.
Sombrero is an old song aswell. It's four years older than Where Are You Going, but the melody is taken from my old friend who "stole" it from a(n) (in)famous song.
The last song, The Scatrobots, was inspired by Scatman John and Kraftwerk. Both of them are my favourite musicians and I love their songs. I did the Votrax SC-01 voice with a speech synthesizer plugin.