R.E. Transmitter

This album is mostly about fascinating human human brilliance, be it scientific, artistic or otherwise, but also about incomprehensible (sometimes collective) stupidity, that prevents the big steps that are necessary to secure our future from being taken.

But not all the songs are about these themes, so it can be seen as a loose concept album.

This album is available here as free download. The package contains the tracks in highest MP3 quality and the artbook as PDF file.

You can also listen to the individual tracks below. A short accompanying text classifies them thematically.

Notes on production:

01 Emmy

The life story of Emmy Noether, a mathematician who achieved great things at the beginning of the 20th century - against all resistance and the prevailing image of women at the time. The theorem named after her revolutionized the foundations of physics.

02 Algorithms

The title says it all: Algorithms determine our lives in all areas. A blessing or a curse? In part.

03 Uncut Scenes

Guitar instrumental rock.

All images for this album are royalty-free. They are either from Wikimedia Commons, Pixabay or were created with Dreamlike Art.

04 The Disciples Of False Prophets

A tirade about all the complete morons, fact deniers, ignoramuses and conspiracy believers, influencers and internet trolls who make life difficult for sensible people.

05 Decisions

We keep making the wrong decisions because they are more convenient, even if we know that they will backfire on us at some point.

06 Cosmic Eye

Instrumental.

This track is about the James Webb Telescope, a brilliant feat of engineering and space travel. At a cost of 10 billion dollars it is one of the most expensive projects of its kind. It took almost twenty years to develop and complete, there were numerous launch delays and a tremendously risky deployment process, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. But it was worth it. The telescope provides completely new insights into the universe, the history of which will probably have to be rewritten, and searches for life on distant planets.

07 Turbulence

Inspired by the outstanding Australian series "Wakefield", which is set in a psychiatric hospital.

08 The Fable Of The Sparrow
And The Owl

A text with a wink. I leave the interpretation of the moral of the story to the listener.

09 Fabulous

A tribute to the Beatles, inspired by their music and lyrics. Instruments and amplifiers were used, they used themselves: Ludwig drums, Höfner violin bass, Rickenbacker and Fender guitars, Vox and Fender amps, harmonium, sitar, tablas and trumpets. However, the sound is more modern.

Musically, various styles come together that they have explored throughout their career - from rock & roll to psychadelic phases and Indian influences.

B1 Turquoise Water

Instrumental.

At a certain age, we admit to ourselves that we are mortal and start to deal with death. This meditative piece deals with the last dream of a dying person. The crystal clear, turquoise sea symbolizes the peace he finds.

B2 Fabulous (flesh & blood Version)

I had an urgent desire to record the Beatles-inspired "Fabulous" with real singers. I would like to thank Richard Bellinghausen and Pit Rauert for fulfilling it.
It is also understandable that they did not want to be the only flesh-and-blood singers on an album that otherwise only features synthesized voices. That's why I'm releasing this completely rearranged and remixed version as a bonus track with real added value
The following instruments have been replaced by others: Guitars and amps, bass, drums. The following instruments were added: strings and synthpad. The mix sounds warmer and more analog than the "official version".

Dan Simmons' "The Hyperion Cantos" is not only in my opinion one of the greatest works of science fiction literature with fantastic worldbuilding, multi-layered characters and a complex and exciting story. It is not possible to describe it in a few words on this page. That's why I've created a separate illustrated artbook for it, in which I try to summarize at least the first volume of the saga.

Even though the text is written in German, I recommend that English speakers take a look at the artbook.

What is it about? Eight very different people with equally different motives take part in a pilgrimage to the "Time Tombs" on the planet Hyperion to meet a mysterious and dangerous being, the "Shrike". The journey takes them through several stages and stations using various, sometimes archaic, means of transportation. Along the way, they tell each other their life stories and the reasons why they set out on the journey.

All images for this album were created with Dreamlike Art, Playground AI or Lexica.

01 The Pilgrimage

The first track describes the pilgrims' journey. They meet in the orbit of Hyperion on the "Yggdrasil", a spaceship consisting of a one-kilometer-long living tree encased in barrier fields. After landing on the planet, the journey continues on a riverboat pulled by manta rays, then on an archaic vehicle, the "Wind Wagon" across the "Sea Of Gras", with a cable car up into the mountains to the castle "Chronos Keep", then down into the abandoned "City of Poets", and finally they reach the Time Tombs. Dramatic events occur along the way.

The following tracks deal with the stories of the pilgrims.

The pilgrims' journey - sections:

• I. Yggdrasill
• II. On the Hoolie River
• III. The Sea Of Grass
• IV. From Pilgrim’s Rest To Chronos Keep
• V. The City Of Poets
• VI. The Time Tombs

On the Hoolie River

02 The Priest's Tale: "The Man who Cried God"

Father Lenard Hoyt tells how he was sent to Hyperion many years ago on behalf of the Catholic Church to search for the missing Father Paul Duré. He finally finds him and at the same time discovers a terrible secret that will affect his life forever.

A calm, meditative, but also sad piece, which slips into dissonance at the end following the priest's torment.

Lenard Hoyt

03 The Soldier's Tale: "The War Lovers"

An excursion into the symphonic metal genre.

Fehdman Kassad

04 The Poet's Tale: "Hyperion Cantos"

The poet Martin Selenius, a hedonistic old man with a penchant for all kinds of vices, is obsessed with completing his great work, the "Hyperion Cantos". To do so, he needs the shrike as his muse.

Progressive rock with some instrumental solos.

Martin Selenius

05 The Scholar's Tale: "The River Lethe's Taste is Bitter"

The tragic story of the scholar Sol Weintraub, whose daughter Rachel explored the time tombs as a young archaeologist many years ago and encountered the Shrike. She has been ageing backwards ever since. She is now an infant again with no memories. The Shrike is Sol's last hope of reversing the reversal of time.

The confusion of the old man, on whom thoughts storm wildly, is reflected in the course of the piece by a polymetric part. The following meters are layered one on top of the other:
5/4 (acoustic guitar) - 6/4 (harp) - 11/4 (bass) - 4/4 (drums) - 7/4 (electric guitar).
The accents are constantly shifting as you listen.
After the polymetrics, it continues with the following time signatures:
9/8 - 4/4 - 5/4

Sol Weintraub und Rachel

The Detective's Tale: "The Long Good-Bye"

In her story, the detective Brawne Lamina encounters the "cybrid" Johnny, an artificial human whose body and personality are modeled on the English poet John Keats. Johnny is hunted down, murdered, but then recreated and doesn't know by whom or why. Brawne and Johnny are constantly on the run and in search of answers. One clue finally leads them to Hyperion and the Time Tombs. But before they get there, the murderers strike again. Johnny's body is now dead for good, but Brawne has saved his consciousness. She sets off on her journey alone.

A piece with changing moods, sometimes gloomy, sometimes euphoric, as befits the narrative, which oscillates between suspense and love story. Musically, the intermittent chaos is represented by a 13/8 time signature.

Brawne Lamina

07 The Consul's Tale: "Remembering Siri"

The former consul of the planet Hperion is a double agent in the service of both the "Hegemony" - the world government - and the "Ousters", a renegade, hostile group. He was born on the idyllic water planet Maui-Covenant, whose ecology was destroyed by the Hegemony and whose indigenous inhabitants are being oppressed. He tells the story of his grandmother Siri, her fight against the Hegemony, and how her revolt was bloodily suppressed. His hatred of the hegemony is great. He secretly supports the Ousters.

• I. Paradise
• II. Exploitation
• III. Rebellion
• IV. Siri's Legacy

The Consul

08 The Lord of Pain

The history of all pilgrims is closely linked to the "Shrike", and they all brace themselves to encounter it at the Time Tombs. Even though this only takes place in the second volume, this murderous monster from the future deserves its own track on this album.

Musically, this track is characterized by its driving rhythm and some disturbing passages.

The Shrike

My 9th solo album comprises tracks of the genres prog, classic rock, symphonic rock, pop rock, folk rock and synth rock.

Due to its length of over an hour, the album is divided into two blocks of six tracks each, referred to as "blue side" and "yellow side".

I am solely responsible for the music (recording, production, mix and master). But I also had help from some friends.

Credits:

Richard Bellinghausen wrote the lyrics, designed the booklet and sang on blue 3, 5 (bg), 6, yellow 1 and 3.

Claudia Theisen sang on blue 1, yellow 1 and yellow 3.

Sony Lichtenberg sang on blue 5 (bg), 6 and yellow 4.

I had an appearance as a singer on blue 2, blue 5, yellow 1 (bg), yellow 2 and yellow 5.

Jean Schlieber (Website) kindly allowed as to use his drawings for the cover and booklet.

I would like to thank everyone involved, especially Richard Bellinghausen for his great lyrics and for his help with the recording process.

Download

As always, you can download the music in the highest MP3 quality and the artwork files for free. The folders are compressed in a ZIP file.

Point Nemo

The songs:

This "Corona"-album from 2020 is my 8th solo album. Standing in the tradition of its predecessors, it comprises melodic progressive rock with flavors of synth-rock and folk-rock.

I wrote the music and five of the lyrics, but as so often before, I could count on the help of some nice people:

Richard Bellinghausen wrote the lyrics for 1, 3, 6, 8 and 9, and he sings lead und backing vocals on 3 and 6.

Claudia Theisen is the lead singer on track 4 und contributes backing vocals to some of the other songs.

Sony Lichtenberg is the lead singer on 8 and has a supporting role on 10.

Julian Richter is the lead singer on 2 and 7.

On the other songs, I sing lead and backing vocals. Furthermore I play all the instruments besides:

Peter Müller plays the Irish bouzouki on 8.

A big thank-you goes to all the above-mentioned, especially to Richard Bellinghausen, who helped me with recording the tracks.

Download

As always, you can download the music (high quality MP3) and the artwork (PDF) for free. The folders are compressed in a ZIP-archive, so you have to unpack them.

Musik

Artwork

The songs:

For the track The Darkness there is a video on my Youtube-channel

Solo album No. 7 from 2018 has again a proggy feel, without being too complex. My goal was to write sophisticated music, which still comprises catchy melodies. The hardware version includes a twenty-page booklet with the lyrics. Since I do not offer the CD for sale, you can download not only the music but also the complete artwork.

I had active support from:

Richard Bellinghausen, who wrote the lyrics for 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. He also designed the booklet and sang lead and backing vocals on 3 and 6

Claudia Theisen performed the vocals on 1, 5 and 8.

Ute Grewenig provided me with some of her paintings that were photographed by Tom Birkhäuser.

Tanja Raffel worked as a model for some pages in the booklet, Karin Kämmerer took the Images of Tanja.

A big thank you to all those involved, especially to Richard Bellinghausen, who contributed to this album with his smart lyrics and also was a helpful hand during some of the recording sessions.

Download

As always, you can download the music (high quality MP3) and the artwork (PDF) for free. The folders are compressed in a ZIP-archive, so you have to unpack them.

Musik

Artwork

The songs:

*) The siren sample is made available by FatLane on freesound.

Click on the Image above to view the art book. A new window will open. It might take a while to load the data. Using the two windows, you may read the lyrics while listening to the music.
Have fun!

For the track Something Fishy At The Outpost there is a video on my Youtube-channel

This is my sixth solo album. The download version is as always free and contains the songs in the best possible MP3 quality as well as the art book in PDF format. Click on the cover image to view a virtual version of the art book. Use the player below to listen to the songs.

I've been working on this album for two years. I had a lot of support from my friend Richard Bellinghausen. He performed the lead vocals on "The Present's Too Precious" and "Attracted To Foreign Shores" and wrote the lyrics for "Too Dumb For Paradise", "Attracted To Foreign Shores", "Something Fishy At The Outpost" and, together with me, "The Present's Too Precious". He also designed the art book and contributed some photos.

But he wasn't the only one who helped me. I would like to thank the following persons for their contributions:

Nikolas Mews performed the lead vocals on "The Acrophobic Balloonist" and "Beware Of Sirens".
Hiltrud Triphaus, Sonja Lichtenberg and Peter Müller together with Richard were my choir on "3000". Hiltrud also performed one of the background vocals on "The Present's Too Precious". Elisabeth Enders, Bernd Giershausen and Karin Kämmerer have contributed photos. Anne Schiranski worked as the model on the cover and in the art book.

Download

MP3-Dateien

Artbook

The songs:

Resources used for cover design
Michael Gaida at Pixabay
Ashish Bogawat at Pixabay

The Last Of The Mohicans

Multi-part suite based on the story "The Last of the Mohicans" from the "Leatherstocking" cycle by James Fennimore Cooper. The novel is relatively complex, so I'm referring to the 1992 movie of the same name, with a simplified script that differs slightly from the book. I devoured the book as a child, and when the movie came out in 1992, it rekindled my memories of it.

I. Hawkeye (0:00)

II. Chingachgook (1:00)

III. Unkas and Alice (2:00)

IV. Magua (3:00)

V. Capture and Verdict (4:20)

VI. Pursuit and Confrontation (5:32)

VII. Death Song (6:28)

Retropolis

A retro-style instrumental piece with a classic rock line-up: guitars, keyboards, electric bass, drums.

Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” (Isaac Newton)

This famous quote describes the constant gain in knowledge in the natural sciences. All scientists and researchers do not start from scratch, but continue the work of countless famous and unknown predecessors. Without the preliminary work of generations of researchers, Newton would never have have gained his groundbreaking insights.

However, I am not referring to science with the title of this piece, but to music. When I compose, I orient myself to models, learn from them without copying them. In this piece, the giants on whose shoulders I stand are the great film composers, above all Howard Shore, John Williams and Hans Zimmer.

A more appropriate title, however, would be "Standing In The Shadow Of Giants", but I don't want to dwarf myself any further.

Behind The Curtain

You can interpret many things into the title: a stage curtain just before the performance, the curtain in front of the window of a neighbor's house, behind which something mysterious is going on, or metaphorically the eyelids of a person whose thoughts you would like to read.

Bild von Julia Schwab auf Pixabay

A Druid Spotted On Mullaghcleevaun

I like the sound of Celtic instruments like Irish flute, bouzouki and uilleann pipe and that's why I wrote an instrumental folk piece with a Celtic flair. "Mullaghcleevaun" (in Celtic Irish "Mullach Cliabháin": "summit of the cradle") is one of the highest mountains in Ireland.

Image by joakant at Pixabay

Subaqueous Garden

The music of this track is not based on a story or a character, but simply describes the beauty of a coral reef and its colorful habitants. The corals are dying rapidly due to global warming and marine pollution. The Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world, lost half of its coral polyps between 1985 and 2012. It is likely that future generations will only get to know the beauty of these oceanic biotopes in pictures.

Image by Stefan Keller at Pixabay

For this track there is a a video on my Youtube-channel

Katabasis

Katabasis (Greek for descent) has many meanings. One of them comes from Greek mythology and describes the journey of a living person into the underworld and back. Some Greek heroes ventured this dangerous trip, e.g. Odysseus, Aeneas and Orpheus.
The katabasis of this song tells the story of a woman who argued with her husband - a simple soldier - on the eve of the destruction of Troy. The next day he is killed by the Greeks and she regrets her bitter words. So she sets off into the world of the dead to reconcile with him.

The trip is divided into several scenes:

I. The Descent
Travelling through vast caves and deep chasms and finding her way amidst thousands of men killed in action is frightening, arduous and dangerous.
II. Charon
As the last of the long procession of the dead, she comes before Charon, the ferryman, an unkempt and somber-looking figure dressed in dirty rags. He is suspicious because unlike the others she looks alive, but she pays the price and so he has to lead her to the realm of the dead.
III. Crossing the river Styx
The river marks the boundary between the world of the living and the underworld. Charon ferries her across. Many dead people desperately try to cross the river swimming because they could not pay the ferryman, but the current drives them back to the shore, where they have to walk as shadows forever.
IV. Kerberos
The three-headed hellhound guards the entrance so that no living person should enter the realm of the dead and no dead should leave it. The woman rubs her face with ashes, mingles with the stream of the dead, and gets into Hades unnoticed by Kerberos.
V. Reconciliation
Finally, she finds her husband. He scants his fate and curses the insidious Ulysses. However, he is comforted that his wife has undertaken the dangerous journey down to the Hades to tell him that she loves him.
VI. On the run
When she makes her way back, Kerberos discovers her. She has a narrow escape.
VII. Daylight again!
When she finally sees the daylight again, she feels very relieved. A new life now lies ahead of her.

Image by Pexels at Pixabay

Calypso

Ulysses is the only one to survive his long journey. All his comrades have died. He finally runs aground on the island of Ogygia. There he meets the nymph Calypso in a grotto. She falls in love with him, promises him eternal youth and immortality and embraces him with her magic. At first Ulysses enjoys it, but at some point he gets bored. He longs for his home and his wife Penelope. But he has to wait seven years on the island before the gods finally have mercy with him. They send their messenger Hermes, who orders Calypso to let Odysseus go. The nymph is pretty upset, but eventually fits in. She gives him tools to build a raft, provides him with travel provisions and sends him a favorable west wind.

Image by Yuri_B at Pixabay

The Night When The Wolves Came

Imagine a village on the edge of the mountains: children playing and laughing, waiting for the sheep, which are driven from their pastures to the village green to be sheared. A folk festival takes place during the sheep shearing. After the work is done, the party continues in the village inn.
In the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, a pack of wolves is chasing from the mountains, attracted by the bleating of the sheep and the soft ringing of their bells. The animals, robbed of their wool, are crowded together in the pen against the cold of the spring night. They have no idea of ​​the danger, just as little as the shepherds who stay in the village.
Then the pack comes, encircling the pen. The dogs strike and the villagers wake up. Armed with torches, clubs and scythes, the shepherds rush to rescue their sheep. Together with the herding dogs, they plunge into battle.
In the end, they put the wolves to flight. Both sides lick their wounds and mourn victims. The decimated pack retreats to the mountains and howls at the moon.

Image by FelixMittermeier at Pixabay

Demeter

Demeter is the Greek goddess of fertility and agriculture.

The main theme of this piece is written in D-Dorian, the notes of which all come from the C major scale. However, I have inserted some transition chords unrelated to the basic key to spice up the harmonies.

Image by Bessi at Pixabay

Nyx

Nyx is a Greek goddess and the personification of the night. Even Zeuss - the ruler of Olympus - is afraid of her.

This piece is the dark counterpart to Hemera. It is written in C minor.

Image by marcelkessler at Pixabay

Hemera

Hemera is a Greek goddess and the personification of the day. She rises when Nyx - the goddess of the night - recedes.

I am currently dealing with modes, an very useful part of harmony. I chose G-lydian for this piece. This mode is often used in epic film music and is described as uplifting, extraterrestrial, sometimes heavenly. Its special features are three whole-tone steps in a row with the raised fourth leading to the fifth.

Image source: NASA

Voyager

The Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled the furthest distance a human-made object has ever reached. It is also the fastest artificial object and (with its Voyager 2 sibling probe) the only one that has ever left our solar system.

The current distance from Voyager 1 to Earth is approximately 22 billion km, which is 148 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Their speed is approximately 61000 km / h or 17 km per second! The probe started in 1977, has been on the move for more than 40 years, has now reached interstellar space and will still need around 40,000 years to get close to a star.