Frank Rothkamm [ Arp Solus ]

XXIX

Fashion is all about timing. It was not good timing when the American synthesizer manufacturer Arp started the brand new decade of the 1980s with the release of the Arp Solus, an analog synthesizer that squarely belongs into the 1970s. But, it featured technology that for some reason turned out to be the most fashionable thing for all hipsters of the 2010s and beyond. Even though any half-witted sound designer can now produce anything for free with open source software, legions of micro-brewed and medically marijuana-ed fashion music makers insist on buying and sucking the life out of the simple form of subtractive synthesis we find on the Arp Solus. This album is no exception as there is nothing but 100% Solus on it. It sounds really phat, even though it was made in 2008. Well, this only proves that true fashion is really timeless as it didn't make any more sense then as it does today. To the uninitiated into hipster trends, the Arp Solus album here amounts to nothing more than aimless noodling that moves forth and back between the speakers without any direction. Progressive Baroque without any roque, rhyme or reverb. Only when you put on headphones everything falls into place because "it`s in your brain now", as they say in the trade. Far out, dude. That`s polyphonic music. Like in multiple universes at the same time or, like stepping into any monophonic synthesizer shop and taking in all the solos played by everyone all at once. This really does not express anything that has not been said many times in many ways but this is precisely the magic of the Arp Solus synthesizer on the album Arp Solus. One aptly titled song follows another. So, switch on, open your wallet, and your mind will surely follow. You`re on the inside now.

XXIX

“Insects” was produced in August of 2008 with an Arp Solus analog synthesizer in Los Angeles. Via multi-tracking, four Arp Solus monophonic voices move independently in pitch, timbre and space, much like a string quartet if the players were to constantly move around. No effects or other processing was applied.


   
Catalog No: FLX46 (LN42)
Title: Arp Solus
Sound Artist: Frank Rothkamm
Visual Artist: Holger Rothkamm
Label: Flux Records
Length: 33:20 (2000s)
Composed: 2008
Location: Los Angeles
Instruments: Arp Solus
Release Date: 01/25/2016
Format: Digital
Tags: Progressive Baroque
 
209 ALBUMs
1100 TRACKs
112 PDFs
1 BIO


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