Art Abscon’s latest album “Nach allen Regeln der Kunst” has been out for quite a bit now, i.e since June 2021, but Michael has been rather lazy recently and has failed to properly promote it. He will be punished for it, no worries.
Nonetheless, we have just decided to upload the album to bandcamp, so that you can also enjoy the album in case you do not need a vinyl record or a compact disc, or, if you would like to have a listen before purchasing a physical version.
This album marked in fact the very first vinyl release of Art Abscon’s own label, Opus Abscondi – a reason to be very proud, especially because the record really looks and sounds great (the CD, too), but also a rather disastrous financial undertaking – despite the many generous and kind supporters who had preordered the album way back in 2020. Again, thank you, from the depths of Art’s and Michael’s heart.
The album holds a very special secret. Art has decided that Michael may not give it away. But, we will give you a hint anyway: Take any instrument at your disposal, try to play along and see what happens. This secret was the result of two years of research and preparation.
Feel free to have a look at the video section of this website; there are three new videos to promote the album, among them an ambitious stop motion endeavour featuring Grandmaster Abscon as a little manikin.
Enjoy!
Love & Lightning
Art/Michael
P.S.: If you would like to see Art Abscon live, feel free to pop in here from time to time. I have a few plans and arrangements for live shows in 2022. Check the Live section.
Art Abscon’s new album, “Nach allen Regeln der Kunst”, has been finished after almost one year in the making and was mixed and mastered by Nathaniel Ritter (Kinit Her, Brave Mysteries). The album is currently being prepared for the pressing plants (vinyl + CD). Its release is scheduled for late May / early June 2021. You can support the release and its planning by preordering the album at Opus Abscondi. To thank you, Art Abscon will send you plenty of unreleased music, such as outtakes from “The Separate Republic” and “Nach allen Regeln der Kunst”.
Here is the music video to the album’s pop hit, “Gold”:
This Winter Solstice, on 21 December 2020, Art Abscon will share a free download album, “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland (relax or sleep and dream well in Abscon)”, via bandcamp. Alternatively, the album will also be available through Opus Abscondi on music cassette.
About the album
The subtitle of the album, “relax or sleep and dream well in Abscon”, precisely communicates the album’s intended purpose. I have produced it in all its aspects so that you can listen to it at daytime for the mere purpose of relaxation and well-being without paying much attention to the music, or in the evening, when going to bed to fall asleep to it, so that it will give you deep sleep and interesting dreams. In fact, this album can even lead to lucid dreaming experiences and has been specially conceived for this purpose. You will find precise instructions further below.
We are currently experiencing times in which our regular daytime experiences have almost come to a complete standstill. Life as we knew it is on hold. Let’s not forget, however, that we spend almost a third of every cycle of twenty-four hours in a realm that is still as exciting as ever: the Realm of Sleep and Dreams. There is so much to discover and learn in that realm. The purpose of “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” is to take you on a dream journey deep into your mind.
The cause and the inspiration
There is one particular album I have been listening to over and over again since my teenage days without getting tired of it: “Music for Airports” by Brian Eno. Over the past months, I have been trying to answer the question why this album is so important to me, why I have been listening to it so often in the background while I was busy with other things and so many times while going to bed to fall asleep to it. There are not many albums that have given me that much in life. For quite a while now, I have felt the urge to produce an album that would have similar virtues, so that I could send it out as a gift into the world. Out of gratitude. Out of gratitude to music itself, but also out of gratitude to the small handful of people who have been listening to my music over the years, who have never failed to support me and who have always given me a reason to make and explore new music. Thank you.
I have incorporated many things in “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” that I have discovered in “Music for Airports”, but also many other things that I have discovered for myself – especially in the Realm of Sleep and Dreams.
Here is a list of a few things that were important while producing this album:
Tape
I have used tape in many different ways for the production of “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland”. Each track of the album has been recorded electromagnetically and not digitally. Tape, unlike digital recordings, offers many highly musical sound characteristics that have a very positive effect on our brain and mind. I have taken advantage of this property to create sounds that are wholesome to our brains and our organism and create deep sensations. My friend Nathaniel Ritter has done the analogue audio mastering for this album to further enhance these qualities.
Moreover, tape loops offer the possibility to let hypnotic repetitions of certain musical elements circle around themselves in an unpredictable way. The constant repetitions, on the one hand, have a relaxing effect while, on the other hand, they open up certain areas of the mind. By manipulating the tape speed and creating various other fluctuations, however, two repetitions will never be the same while new, unpredictable musical events will constantly occur, so that the repetitions will never become tedious. This is actually the big secret of Eno’s “Music for Airports”. And it is precisely this continuous, progressive cyclical self-rearrangement of musical motives – mimicking the complex movement of the planets – that feels like a massage to our brains to solve many things while setting other things in motion.
Tape noise and other interference
Tape hisses and hums – and some of the equipment I use is old or simply “broken”. While producing “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland”, I did not consider the hissing or humming of some of my analogue devices as noise, but treated these noises as musical elements. I myself have been suffering from a hissing tinnitus for several years now, which sometimes makes it difficult for me to enjoy music. I have found out that tape noise is nothing irritating to me, but rather something very pleasant that relaxes the area in my brain that produces the tinnitus by laying itself over the tinnitus and thereby neutralising it.
If you listen carefully, you will notice that I have used and processed tape noise as a musical element on this album. Even the grounding hum of the power supply of a certain broken device has served me as a meditative keynote from which a whole piece of music has emerged. Some devices even “broke down”, suddenly or temporarily, during my work. For example, my tape deck suddenly started to wobble. I did not interpret this as an accident or bad luck, but as a wish of the device to communicate something specific as a contribution to the album. So I made a feature out of it. I think there is a wisdom inherent in these devices that has been important for this album and for the dreams and reveries of its future listeners. During the entire production process, I was listening very closely to what my dear devices had to say.
Words
Unlike my favorite Eno album, I wanted my album to have words. However, I did not want these words to communicate a particular message. Rather, I wanted these words to evoke a meaninglessness that, like a universal mantra, prompts the mind to create free images that can weave interesting dreams and reveries. I have used haikus for this purpose.
The Japanese haiku is considered to be the shortest form of poetry in the world. I have recorded each of my haikus once and then played this recording back over and over again on an audio cassette whose speed I could manipulate by hand to create a strange wobble. This wobble makes it sometimes difficult to understand the texts, even for German ears. That is alright. You do not need to understand this text. You may hear what you want in it. The mantra only serves to send the mind out on a journey. This applies specifically to those who do not understand German.
There is a passage on the album that is specifically meant to induce lucid dreams. It is exactly the point in the course of the album at which the listener will surely have fallen asleep. For this specific point, I have asked as many friends and confidants as possible in different countries to speak the sentences “Áre you dreaming?” and “Yes, you are dreaming” in their respective mother tongue.
Experiments in sleep labs have shown that telling a sleeper that he or she is dreaming during the REM phase helps induce lucid dreams. However, since a sleeping person only enters the first REM phase about one and a half hours after falling asleep, it is advisable to hear “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” as an infinite loop during your sleep, so that the spoken hint that your are dreaming will be perceived during a REM phase of your sleep. Since this little trick only works well if you are addressed in your mother tongue while dreaming, I have used as many speakers with different languages as possible for this purpose.
I would like to thank all the people from all over Europe and even Russia, Israel, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Georgia, the Basque country and South and North America for their great contribution, from the depths of my heart.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
1) Relaxation
“Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” is composed in such a way that it does not require any special attention. This artistic concept goes back to Eric Satie’s “Musique d’ammeublement” and leads, via John Cage, directly to Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports”. “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” can thus be used simply as background music that does not require you to listen closely. Just like Eric Satie’s “Musique d’ammeublement”, this album has no other function than, for example, the wallpaper in the room where it is played. You can listen to the album while reading, studying, driving a car, lying in the bathtub, assembling a cupboard, etc. But, of course, you may also pay attention to the music, and even to the lyrics, if you like. It is, however, not necessary.
2) Sleeping
“Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” is also designed as a brigde into the land of sleep. The first piece on the album is still a bit upbeat and mildly “stressful”. It picks you up where the tensions of the day are ending and is specially designed for you to adjust the volume to a level at which you can easily fall asleep. As the album progresses, nothing really exciting will happen. The album is supposed to merely transport you gently to sleep.
However, since this album is not just the sort of relaxation music one might find in a New Age store, but also an experimental work of art, it might be a bit challenging for less daring sleepers.
If it is only used as a bridge into sleep, it is sufficient to play the album just once. It will still bring interesting dreams to the sleeper and hopefully help you if you are having troubles falling asleep.
3) Lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming is probably the greatest and most exciting success you can achieve in exploring your own mind. Some people – not many – are born with this ability, others need to learn it, and this can take months or even years. Experiments have shown, however, that a very good way of inducing lucid dreams is to tell the dreamer during a REM phase that he or she is dreaming. This is exactly what “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” does at a specific point during the second half of the album.
To ensure that this event also falls into a REM phase of your sleep, it is a good idea to listen to the album to fall asleep to and set it to infinite “repeat” for this purpose. The album version on music cassette has the album on both sides so that it will run continuously if you have a tape deck with auto reverse function. The music that follows the dream hint has been recorded in a special spiral tuning technique that provides a particularly enjoyable listening experience that will provide a beautiful soundtrack to your lucid dream, provided you will have one.
Another trick to develop the capability to become lucid in your dreams is to develop the habit of asking yourself whether you are dreaming even during your waking state if e.g. something surreal or weird happens, so that you will incorporate this habit also into your dreaming habits. If you are listening to “Electromagnetic Grandmasterland” during the day and while awake, make a “state check” when the album asks you whether you are dreaming: ask yourself whether you are dreaming and test it. Try, for example, if you can levitate. If you cannot levitate, you are probably not dreaming, but you will have trained the habit to make state checks. The next time something weird happens, you might make a state check during your dream and you actually WILL be able to levitate.
When I became lucid in a dream for the very first time in my life after having trained for a few months, I became so excited that I immediately woke up. Remember that the best thing to stay in the dream is to look at your hands. Whenever you notice that you are waking up, just look at your hands.
I wish you many good hours, deep sleep and many interesting dreams and discoveries in your own mind with my album. Thank you very much for all your wonderful support and your interest in my music. It has always been made for you.
Would you like to support Art Abscon in bringing his forthcoming album, ‘Nach allen Regeln der Kunst’, to the light of day? If so, you can preorder it already now to support its production and pressing. The release is scheduled for late 2020 / early 2021. If you preorder it now, you will receive your vinyl or your CD as soon as it will be hot from the press as well as a couple of digital gifts during production, such as demos, outtakes, mini albums, etc.
Your support will be very much appreciated since it will help me plan the number of copies to be pressed and finance the production and pressing. Otherwise, this endeavour might be quite risky since this will be Opus Abscondi’s very first vinyl release. A vinyl release is very expensive, and it would be impossible for me to tell how many copies I need to press. This is why your preorder will support me and the Grandmaster a lot!
If I should – for whatever reason – not manage to finish the album, I will, of course, refund you the money you have paid for your preorder. However, I am positive that Grandmaster Abscon will prevent such a disaster and spare me the embarrassment.
During the recent lockdown, I had recorded a few instrumental pieces – without actually knowing what to do with them. On 7 June, I had the idea to use this material for an ART ABSCONs mini album I could give away as a free gift to you. I only needed to write the lyrics. So I sat down and wrote them down in less than an hour in an automatic writing session. Then, I recorded the vocals in only one take, which also took less than an hour. Then, I mixed all tracks in less than an hour with the result that I had finished the entire album in just four hours. This album is not perfect, but I am fond of it. It was not supposed to be perfect. It was supposed to be special. It was supposed to be a small gift to you. A Gift of Nothing.
I have uploaded it at bandcamp. You do not need to feel guilty if you type in ‘$0.00’ because this album is a gift to you from Grandmaster Abscon. If you feel nonetheless inclinded to donate a bit of money for this mini album, Michael will use this money, too, for the production of my, Art Abscon’s, next proper album, ‘Nach allen Regeln der Kunst’. I hope you will enjoy this little Gift of Nothing!
In a couple of days, it will be available via your favourite streaming service as well!
Grandmaster Abscon feels very flattered to present Opus Abscondi‘s new ART ABSCONs shirts. The black Fruit of the Loom shirts are available with white or green print and as gentleman or lady fit. They are printed on demand by form and formless, but they are usually ready for dispatch within less than a week. The design was made by Ivan Builov.
No one knows what I am doing, but people will notice it anyway. Even colours are a product of time. That is all I will disclose for now. Magic is Knowledge. Art is the Craft. Both require Will. Will is the only Law there is – following all the rules of Art!
The man behind the mask of Art Abscon now has his own music project. It is called Tellbach. And Tellbach is me. About a year ago, Tellbach found out why there are analogue synthesizers. I had just released Art Abscon’s “The Separate Republic“, an album that had taken five long years to make, featuring 36 different acoustic instruments. When the album was out, I urgently needed distraction from Art Abscon. And the Grandmaster granted it. I wanted to discover something that was new to me. The infinite possibilities of analogue synthetic sound design quickly put a spell on me, and I combined it with my fascination for vintage studio gear, such as magnetic tape, mechanical spring reverb and tube amplifiers. I strictly avoided anything digital because I was aiming at the audio characteristics of the 1970s and early 1980s, the golden era of electronic music with acts like Mort Garson, Suicide, Kraftwerk, John Foxx and early OMD.
The music emerged quickly, but finding appropriate lyrics for this new kind of music was difficult in the beginning. Up until now, Art Abscon had been my only source of inspiration. I would only write what was in line with Abscon’s poetics. Without these guidelines, I suddenly felt completely left to my own devices. However, as soon as I had decided to use my family name, Tellbach, for my new electronic music project, I knew that I had found a new source of inspiration: myself. With Art Abscon, it is strictly forbidden to add anything personal to the songs I write. I have always felt that personal aspects do not belong in Art Abscon’s music. The poetry supporting it has to be of a universal quality and not inspired by my own petty personal matters.
Why did I all of a sudden want something different? 2017 marked ART ABSCONs’ tenth anniversary. That was one of the reasons why I started to write a book about my experiences with the Grandmaster, “The Book of Abscon” (I hope I will finish it this year). My work on this book showed me how rich the experiences actually are that I have made in those ten years behind the mask of Abscon. All of a sudden, my personal matters no longer seemed insignificant at all to me, but rather special and noteworthy. How much had I learned from leading this double life behind the mask, the strange situations it brought about, this peculiar perspective of the anonymous observer! How much had I learned from all the remarkable people I had met behind the scenes, in the shadow of this mask! How deep were some of these encounters and how extreme some of those experiences! How much had I learned from loving, and hating, admiring and detesting, from extreme sorrow and extreme joy and from learning to balance it all! How much had I learned from fathoming the depths of honesty and falsehood, loyalty and treason, friendship and enmity, trust and jealousy, magic and madness! And how much had I learned from dreaming and from turning the art of dreaming into a science by analysing the different natures of reality and perception! Art Abscon has taught me so much about myself, the world I live in and what lies beyond. He has shown me so many heavens and so many hells. I thank him for having turned me into a man who can now write about his personal experiences and thoughts without dreading their insignificance. And I thank him for giving me some time to myself, time that I have used to record my own debut album. This is why I decided to include a cover version of my favourite ART ABSCONs song, “Niemandsgebet”.
My new self-titled album is the very first release on my label, Opus Abscondi. It will come out on 3 April 2018, which happens to be my birthday. I have decided against the contemporary custom of making a new album immediately available for streaming and downloading. For the time being, this new release will only be available on CD. I run a music label because I believe in the importance of traditional music formats like vinyl records, music cassettes and CDs. Unfortunately, a vinyl release is not yet possible for Opus Abscondi. I will try to finance future vinyl releases with this current album, though. This is why streams and downloads will not be made available before I have covered the production costs for this release.
As I am writing this, my mind is already busy with ideas for a new ART ABSCONs album and a series of electronic music releases on cassette, the “Time Trip Tapes”. The next release on Opus Abscondi, however, will be Misty Bywater’s “Lullaby Waterfall”, and I look very much forward to this.
I am a hopelessly old-fashioned person, but I have learned that many people enjoy streaming music these days instead of listening to records, CDs and cassettes, so I felt like making Art Abscon’s music more accessible to the people of today.
I still stick to my view that music files have no material value and therefore should be offered for free. Unfortunately, there was no option to offer free downloads in the above-mentioned music stores. So if you wish to obtain any music files without feeling like supporting the one who recorded them, just drop me a message and I will gladly make you any album available for free download.
Old-fashioned music formats are still available at Opus Abscondi.
I have heard rumours that Michael has shared fake news about my death. I have no idea what could have driven this person to spread such nonsense. Did it ever occur to him that it is one of the privileges of the Hidden One to never taste death? At least I can I assure you that I am doing splendidly well out here in Abscondinium and that I will continue to do so till the end of time and beyond.
I can only guess that this person was somehow referring to some of his own weaknesses and that he projected them onto me. I also imagine that he was driven by the illusion of his own free will.
As for the weaknesses, I was told that he was unhappy with the success of my latest album, “The Separate Republic“. My people have heard him whining about bad physical sales, free downloads, consumers who only stream music for free these days and the corresponding total devaluation of music. He said that, considering the way things are nowadays, he would no longer be able to afford to release my future albums. He was also complaining about all the money he had lost due to bad luck with my albums and about all the people who had cheated him in the past. All of this nonsense apparently drove this person to claim that I was dead, probably hoping that he would no longer need to work for me if only enough people would believe that I was dead.
He was wrong. He was very, very wrong. First of all, we never promised him any reward whatsoever for his services. When he agreed to lend us his voice and his musical skills ten years ago, he claimed that he would only do it for the honour of working for the Grandmaster Abscon. We do not see why he would expect anything in return for his past services now, after ten years of humble and modest servitude. He never complained so far. Why should he now? Is it any less honourable now to work for us than it was ten years ago? And is it not incredibly profane and inappropriate to talk about money in connection with the holy duties he owes the Grandmaster? And where would he be likely to find inspiration for the music if it was not through the joys of deprivation and frustration?
As for his alleged free will, we are very sorry to say that it does not exist. We still require his services. He might be an idiot, but he is a useful one. He has a nice voice, and even though he is far from being a virtuoso on his instruments, he plays quite a lot of them with a certain charming ineptness that we appreciate. We must admit that even though he could do a lot better, we find the way he has arranged the Grandmaster’s compositions somewhat endearing. So, no way Michael, we are sorry to say, but you will absolutely have to record Art Abscon’s thirteen future albums. Neither you nor anyone else has a free will.
And as for you, dear Whoever, just forget the nonsense that Michael was babbling about my death. Just forget about this entire person. He does not have a single creative bone in his body. All he ever accomplished was bestowed by me, the Grandmaster Abscon. Michael will gladly record more of my music and pay for the releases. And he will never complain about money again, even if you download and stream my music for free. We will make sure of that.
Because if he did, my music would stay in Abscondinium, forever.
ART ABSCONs 