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Kasar releases improvisation album

Kasar about his improvisation album: „Two years ago, when I pressed the record button and played these short piano improvisations, I really didn’t expect that the music I played would bring me such a close and intimate connection to myself and to my home. I had once again begun to play on the piano I used to have as a child. There was something about this piano that had always bothered me in my childhood, or rather, stopped my ideas from developing how I wanted them to. It lacked a bass frequency here, a resonance there, or had something else I couldn’t figure out. Now as an experienced musician and sound engineer I know what was going on: the sound chamber of the piano was too small and the room it was sitting in – the living room of my parents house with wooden walls, heavy carpet and bookshelves full of books – swallowed up the overtones and created a dull, expressionless sound. Maybe this is getting too specific, but it really bothered me in my youth! But, when I started that Devil’s Kitchen” recording session two years ago I found myself hugely inspired by the very same set of circumstances. The piano has a “practice” pedal  which when pressed puts a felt cloth between the strings and hammers  and as a result makes it sound particularly poignant and quiet – like being under a warm blanket close and intimate. So I recorded it exactly like this and consequently I found myself playing more carefully and with more delicately. After a couple of days I had the framework for a whole album. Eighteen months later it was released as “WALK ON” after elaborating on these piano recordings with additional electronics and vocals from my studio in Berlin. When you’ve found a room, a sanctuary, which inspires creativity and inspiration in such a strong way,  you shouldn’t change it. Never change a working system! From now on it will be: head south for piano recording. The work emerges unique with the rediscovery of old places,  the old home – as I’ve now been living in Berlin for twenty years – and memorable times with family and old friends. I see these old places now in a new light and they have a much deeper meaning to me now: Ödland, Jungholz, Krai Waag Gumpe, Engelschwandt – and Devil’s Kitchen. Places I’ve known since I was a child and now experience differently. I even called my studio ‘Devil’s Kitchen’ after the beautiful secret waterfall hidden away in a Black Forest valley. Improvisation is always the base. From there songs grow and everything else blossoms. Sometimes the improvisation is the finished piece. I’ve been improvising for as long as I could play piano,in my own systems and patterns, but always ‘in harmony’. When I moved to Berlin and started producing electronic music, the piano fell out of the central creative role and almost completely fell out of view. But the piano was always there in the background and has now pushed itself back as the focus of my work. These improvisations are very important part of my work. Sometimes they seem like the left over remains of a chemical reaction, but they’re far too precious to simply throw away and have become very dear to me. So I have compiled a few of them for my album “INSIDE DEVILS KITCHEN”. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded as authentic and direct as on these recordings because they’re all improvised out of nothing, created in the place where I grew up. From here the road could lead in many directions. New songs, maybe new sounds on another piano, but this is the foundation. Purity and tranquility. I went back to the beginning so that I could keep going forwards.

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