Sebastian Arnold // Monolog Memories

beeah–music BEH030 / CD / 01.09.2023

# Title Time
1.Chronologue06:21
2.Tree of Dreams04:44
3.Moon Cookies03:01
4.Souvenir06:22
5.Push/Pop07:18
6.No Gravity04:57
7.Low Battery04:42
8.Go North06:50
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Multi-instrumentalist Sebastian Arnold reflects on the past eight years that have left him with manifold personal developments, but obviously, no new music released.

In 'Monolog Memories' (beeah-music, 2023), the Berlin-based 'mad scientist drummer' assembles eight unreleased songs that have been part of his live set since the early 2010s, but also newly recorded material. He returns to his trademark sound of spacy electric piano and vocal melodies mixed with complex grooves and interstellar synthesizer spaces. Sebastian glues these elements together, stunningly live using an acoustic drum kit, into a danceable electronic post-rock experience. Especially after this long time in the making, this album will stick as one of Sebastian's most recognizable works.

'Chronologue' serves as a thematic and auditory introduction to the album. Several layers of piano loops and sequences are triggered by Sebastian's Senode sequencer and his drum kit. The instruments are meeting the chorus "Looking at myself in the mirror / mirror looking back at myself", followed by an elegiac piano solo.

'Tree of Dreams' tells the story of reaching the subconscious mind at night. On top of a catchy 7/4 dance groove, a retrofuturistic vocoder sings "The minute I wake up at night / I'm seeing what I feel inside / The second I will start to sleep / The Tree of Dreams comes into leaf".

'Moon Cookies' is based on a jazzy drum'n'bass style improvisation for demonstrating Sebastian's Senode sequencer app. The somewhat spacy trip received additional vocals sampled from Martian astronaut Colonel Cosmic: "My landing was a little bumpy / But I saved my precious cargo".

'Souvenir' describes the rare occurrence of a stellar corona during a solar eclipse. With lots of 2000's ambient elements such as wavy synths, bird sounds, atmospheric vocals and cinematic piano, the track provides a calmness in contrast to the two opposing drum kits.

'Push/Pop' are two important standard operations in memory allocation. Here, they are creating a fast, percussive and uplifting dance track that has been a floor-filler on Sebastian's live sets since 2015.

'No Gravity' is a busy track with sequenced probabilistic minimal music elements. It was originally inspired by the fast-moving time lapse pictures of Godfrey Reggio's 1982 movie Koyaanisqatsi.

'Low Battery' refers back to Sebastian's early funk-inspired solo experiments with drums, synthesizers and melodica in the mid-2000s. The sequences are triggered by the bass drum, while the melody is telling the untold story of a draining power supply.

'Go North' is a dance track driven by the idea of finding you inner voice while traveling. It started as an opening track to Sebastian's TEDx talk in Cluj, Romania. Later, the lyrics idea was initiated by a visiting art group asking him to pick a destination for his journey when standing on a compass rose.

Credits

Sebastian Arnold – Drums, Synthesizers, Percussion, Vocals

All songs written by Sebastian Arnold, 2014–2022
Recorded at Tricone Studios, Funkhaus Berlin
Mixed by Sebastian Arnold at daseinslabor
Mastered by Conor Dalton at Calyx Mastering