This album was made at the tail end of my fraught relationship with “experimental music” in its exoteric, social forms - the noise scene, EAI, Wandelweiser schtick, and so on. I’d been, in many ways, hiding out in that zone, hoping that the fringeness of the music was an indicator that the people making it would be more accepting and open-minded than those I’d met in traditional instrumental music, IDM and techno.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Don’t get me wrong, I met some wonderful people, heard some great music, and played some rewarding shows, but overall, I found those scenes to be some the most ideologically stuffy and closed-minded I’d yet encountered, so I decided to make one last album in that mould, and to name it Ideologues, as a tip of the hat to the very dogmatism that was driving me elsewhere. I did one live performance of it, on a rooftop in downtown LA, to a resounding nothing from the crowd, before packing my gear into my car and driving around listening to Queens of the Stone Age, and feeling confident in my decision to move on.
As to the album’s content, it’s probably best described as a kind of musique concrete - the first track was done with my modular synth + iPod, same as on the Three Stars Each album, while the rest were pure Ableton splice jobs (after I’d sold all of my synths). I think the album has a certain charm, but feels desperately transitional - I suppose I’m keeping it up here to keep me honest, in one way or another. Always remember, never forget.
The cover art is a photograph from an abandoned house in Zerpenschleuse, Brandenburg, Germany, taken by my dad, Michael Keusch.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Don’t get me wrong, I met some wonderful people, heard some great music, and played some rewarding shows, but overall, I found those scenes to be some the most ideologically stuffy and closed-minded I’d yet encountered, so I decided to make one last album in that mould, and to name it Ideologues, as a tip of the hat to the very dogmatism that was driving me elsewhere. I did one live performance of it, on a rooftop in downtown LA, to a resounding nothing from the crowd, before packing my gear into my car and driving around listening to Queens of the Stone Age, and feeling confident in my decision to move on.
As to the album’s content, it’s probably best described as a kind of musique concrete - the first track was done with my modular synth + iPod, same as on the Three Stars Each album, while the rest were pure Ableton splice jobs (after I’d sold all of my synths). I think the album has a certain charm, but feels desperately transitional - I suppose I’m keeping it up here to keep me honest, in one way or another. Always remember, never forget.
The cover art is a photograph from an abandoned house in Zerpenschleuse, Brandenburg, Germany, taken by my dad, Michael Keusch.