THE NEW CONTINENT
 
by Lars Bartkuhn In the beginning there was the departure. But where was the trip going to? Was the destination known? Was it important for it to be known in the first place? Could it be that I already found myself in the place I had wanted to get to for a long time? Questions like these went through my mind and always do whenever I face a new project, generally, and with The New Continent in particular. It is about a trip then, or at least a way. The New Continent, however, is less a geographic location than a place of imagination and identification whose history reflects my personal development both in the past and in the future. It seems familiar, and yet it has so many new things to offer. We probably all know these moments in life when the supposedly new seems strangely familiar to us – when we move around in a foreign country and nonetheless there is this feeling of home (Heimat). The idea of the “foreign home” inspired this album. I wanted to explore all the new connections that were still unfamiliar to me in my daily musical practice, and at the same time I wanted to stay true to myself (which should be taken for granted!). In a few words: I wanted to go on a trip to The New Continent. First of all, with every project or every musical situation I find myself in, I want to make a statement – a statement that represents my stance in this world. A very basic thought that keeps coming back to me is that there is not always one musical (or textual, or visual etc) counterpart for the different thoughts, views, and emotions. From my point of view the exact opposite is true, for nothing seems more boring to me than thinking in patterns: according to which, for example, social resistance automatically manifests itself in Punk, deep reflection in Folk, or the desire for virtuosic improvisation in Jazz. I find it even more boring – if you do have to stick to just one style – when all too evident quotes and clichés are used in order to anticipate or pre-programme certain reactions in the listener. At the end of the day, this approach mostly leads to results that follow principles of consumption: buy me, and I’ll keep this or that promise by giving you a certain attitude to life or securing you a certain status! This works very well in pop music and in my opinion is legitimate to some extent, but with progress in time and global networking (which comes with a better transcendence of market oriented practices) the production of consumption oriented music happens excessively in all musical fields. It makes me think and bores me. To me the most important virtue of a musician is honesty – honesty towards themselves, always asking who you are as an individual. I also know that many people are scared of this question and prefer to be part of a crowd they regard as precious on their quest for acceptance. I have been asking myself this question for a long time now, and I think it is essential to follow your own path. At this point I hear people objecting loudly, calling this attitude presumptuous because my music so obviously is not carried by a revolutionary mind set. But I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. All I want is for my music to sound personal and convincing, and at times daring in the sense that it does not sound completely predictable. My personal pursuit of individual expression is not even nearly finished, and it will probably never come to an end. I would lie if I said that I didn’t want a sound on my guitar that is completely individual or a certain harmonic technique that is all mine. But only very few people have such a gift, and I do not know whether I will ever reach that point. What I do know, though, is that the way I play something, when I play it, or how I compose and above all arrange, defines a personal space – my very own world… or, as the album title puts it: my own “continent”. The music on this album took years to develop, and the process of creation was very tiring. Every piece was very demanding to me, since I questioned and reviewed, at times too self-critically, every note again and again. Something that struck me very early on was the desire to link things that on first sight did not fit together perfectly but meant a lot to me personally and whose exploration was very appealing. Furthermore, I wanted to create a comprehensive work whose elements not only stood for themselves but also made sense as a sum. The approach that I chose was to build up sort of an inventory of themes, ostinatos, harmonies and colours of tone, incorporating them in the single pieces in order to create the kind of integrity I was hoping to achieve. Having in mind a theme from an earlier piece when you are in the process of writing something new can be a little limiting. On the other hand, there is always a freedom in these ideas
 
 
06.10.2008