Markus Reuter

Extended 3-week Touch Guitar Circle Project

2009-05-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Markus Reuter will lead an Extended 3 week Touch Guitar Circle Project in Innsbruck(Austria) this summer.

The Project will happen between mid-July and the mid-August. Exact dates to be confirmed soon.

It is open for players of all levels of experience. "Beginners" and even "Absolute Beginners" are more than welcome, the only requirements is to own a touch style/tapping instrument.

It is possible to attend the whole project as well as for shorter periods of time. More experienced students will be present during the whole period providing a supportive environment in which to work.

A 2 to 3 day full group meeting will also happen at some point during the 3 weeks, this will probably be on a week-end.

Based on more than 15 years of playing, performing and recording as a professional artist, Markus Reuter has developed a clearly defined approach to playing the Touch Guitar and a set of exercises which he calls "The Family".

The practice and use of "The Family" provides a "solid backbone" on which to develop a playing technique and fully realise one's potential as a player.

For those not familiar with Markus Reuter's music and playing it can be heard here: www.myspace.com/olderthangod

For application, more information and any questions please send an email to touchguitarcircle@gmail.com

TUNER 2005 - Interview by Owen Keenan

2009-04-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Owen conducted this interview with Pat and I some time in 2005. Thank you, Owen! Meet him at http://mootmobile.blogspot.com/ or http://twitter.com/point_moot

Metaphorically, what is TUNER?

Pat: Markus?

Markus: Pat?

Initially TUNER were referred to as TU[n]ER. What, if any, is the connection to TU and is TUNER a part of the TU dynasty? (TU -> TU+2 -> KTU -> TUNER)

Pat: Wait and see/hear.

Markus: Musically and aesthetically Tuner is quite a different beast, I think.

So, if TU & KTU & TUNER had a fight who would win?

Pat: KTU - there are more of us, and Kimmo is the devil.

How did your collaboration come about?

Pat: Fate.

Markus: By chance Trey, Pat and I met on a train in Germany in 2000. Trey introduced me to Pat and we exchanged CDs. Pat gave me Mastica ’99, I gave him ‘Distant Rituals’.

Pat: things grew organically.

How do you deal with the problem of intercontinental collaboration and can you tell us about your collaborative processes in general?

Pat: Airplanes and email help. We started passing files and then in March of 2005 Markus came to my place for a couple weeks.

How does TUNER compare to other projects you are in, particularly other duos such as TU & Centrozoon? Did you set out to deliberately distinguish yourself from these projects?

Pat: Those comparisons are best left to the listener. We deliberately set out to be ourselves.

Markus: That’s true, but being myself in this case was that I wanted this record to be different from Pat’s and my recent work in the sense that I wanted the material to be completely composed and structured. I like jam-based music but didn’t want to do an album of it.

What have been your major influences, musically, texturally & otherwise?

Pat: Life. And I like satin and velvet.

Markus: For me it’s the urge to create, the creative impulse. It influences me a lot indeed.

How did the touring go? Are there more shows planned?

Pat: It was good fun. And yes, I hope to do more.

Markus: Same here.

I understand the shows were all recorded. Will there be a live album in the future?

Pat: Yes they were and yes, I think we might release a live album, too.

Markus: It largely depends on available time and money. The live recordings need to get mixed properly in order to work, I think.

What equipment was used on Totem? Any new percussion toys we need to know about? Is Pat still using Ableton LIVE as part of the recording/composition process?

Pat: This whole record was done in Ableton LIVE, the whole shebang until the mixing and even several mixes came from Ableton LIVE. Lots of Stylus RMX, Drumcore, Absynth, Atmosphere, B4, Charlie, and tons of Ableton LIVE internal workings. As for acoustic drums I used an old Ludwig drum kit with vintage Paiste giant beat cymbals.

Markus: Pat was using Ableton LIVE mostly for live performance before we met. I In turn had used LIVE as a creative tool for composition and serial composition experiments only. I introduced Pat to the more esoteric features of LIVE and doing that we created and finished most of the ideas and pieces for the album within a week or so.

Markus, could you tell us about your gear? We don’t know that much about your set-up and methods.

Markus: I am not much of a gear-head. I use whatever is available. For me it was paradise to come to Pat’s place and to find a well equipped software studio. I play keyboards and Touch Guitar, mainly an 8-string Warr Guitar. As far as hardware is concerned I think that the creative combination of gear is the key to cool sounds and an individual voice rather than a particular piece of gear. I am friend of uncool cheap digital (guitar) effects processors. It’s fascinating to use them in series and to let them feedback onto each other.

Pat, why the fascination with Warr Guitarists?

Pat: Because they ARE fascinating...

Markus: There not a lot of Warr Guitar on Totem that one would instantly recognize as such, though… A lot of the my guitar performances where cut up and re-assembled.

I understand Pat used some King Crimson loops on Totem. Any hints as to which ones and where?

Pat: The grunge drums on “Better take your head off” started with the drums from “Facts of life”... Some stuff was started in Reason & Recycle during Crimson demos and later moved into LIVE. Of course I cut them into new rhythms and retuned them but the source was the drumming from the tracking room with Machine’s stomp boxes for distortion and my SDSV and Ableton LIVE distortion.

Markus: I remember Pat using some of tom-tom rolls from Dangerous Curves, but not exactly sure where.

How would both of you describe Totem in nine words or less?

Pat: Rickitickitavy the mongoose is gone.

Markus: Long-lasting.

I’ve always been curious as to the naming of songs. Do the song titles have any meaning or are they just there to easily distinguish each track while working on them?

Pat: Most titles came as the songs took shape... Yes they mean things, at least to us. Originally they were Song 1, Song 2, Song 3 etc. with a few exceptions. Like “Hands” was “Hands” because Markus had a chunk of vox that says hands in there... That led me to add hand claps and congas (hand drums).

Markus: Titles are part of the composition, as far as I am concerned. It’s not that the actual meaning of the words is important, it’s the mental representation and feel they give me.

Totem also features many recurrent themes. What was the intention behind this?

Pat: Markus is a cereal composer.

Markus: Yes, I make a fantastic muesli. No intention behind the technique of recurring themes in itself, but it’s another expression of my holistic interest in art in general. Composers have been working like that for centuries, why shouldn’t we? For the album “Pure” that I produced in collaboration with Ian Boddy, I had started using an approach where mixdowns of complete pieces were used as building blocks within other compositions. I am still exploring this when writing, but also in the musical microcosm of granular synthesis. I have just completed a new solo album called “Trepanation” which explores the possibilities of serial composition and autopoiesis in emotionally engaging ambient music.

Pat: If you don’t have Pure you should get it, its a fantastic record and something that made me feel the time is really ready to get working with Markus.

Where did the vocal samples on the album come from?

Pat: Many many places: “Flinch” thats some of Mrs Lenin I found in Russia on old vinyl. The kids in "Kiss" come from some sample Adam Jones gave me. The first part of "Tide" is my laptop reading an email letter from a Russian girl (with misspellings), the back half is SiRenée recorded by Markus in their kitchen and effected by Markus.

Markus: I wrote a couple of lyrics in the past few years and thought that TUNER could be a good place to start using them. It’s me talking on ‘Test of faith’ and ‘Forward’.

What is the albums general balance between live playing, improv and overdubbing/programming?

Pat: It’s all layered, and mostly programmed.

Several songs on the album could be singles. Have you considered releasing anything in that format?

Pat: Nope.

Could you please tell us about the video clip that comes with the album? Who produced it? And have you considered a long-form project in the audio-visual medium, such as a DVD?

Pat: Renée Stieger (Austrian video and performance artist) did it. She has also done visuals we used in our live shows in Austin and Hall.

Markus: A DVD is an option that we strongly consider. There is a professionally filmed TUNER show and I am also interested in creating some mixes especially for DVD, in surround sound.

Speaking of visuals, TU played live in front of a Japanese film. What was that all about? Will TUNER be adopting a similar strategy?

Pat: Trey prepared footage to use for the TU shows, when we got to the first gig in St. Petersburg they didn’t work (wrong format) so about an hour before the show I asked a fan to quickly run to a Russian Blockbuster and rent us any David Lynch (1st Choice was Eraserhead) or Kurusawa (1st choice was Ran). He could only find a box set of early black and whites, we put them up, pressed go, started improvising and waited for synchronicity... after a few shows we started to learn the visuals, in fact before the 3rd Eye show we rehearsed for a day with the videos. Learning to connect the dots… But then the TU tour was cancelled so we never got to apply those lessons.

Are there any unreleased tracks from the Totem sessions? I have read of a Tim Bowness/TUNER collaboration. Any others?

Pat: Yes, there are some things that didn’t hold up or fit in and got left off.

Markus: There are no real plans to release those tracks at this stage.

Are there any other artists you’d like TUNER to collaborate with in the future?

Pat: We are excited to work with Damo Suzuki. We have already contacted him. We might call that project “Can o’ Tuner”. Also excited to do more with SiRenée and maybe Markus Stockhausen, whom we have contacted already, too.

Markus: I vote for Lenny Kravitz, but Pat isn’t sure if he’d be interested…

Pat: Hey Lenny! C'mon over!

What’s next for Pat & Markus, inside or outside of TUNER?

Pat: Tunisia is my next TU+ project. It’s a duet with an amazing Theremin player named Pamelia Kurstin, we have about 5 tracks and we plan to meet again in January to finish an album. Also talk of starting a proper KTU studio record (8 Armed Monkey performances were all taken from our first 5 shows).

Markus: I’d love to do more playing with Pat and would like to work on a repertoire of pieces that we can pull off without having to use any backing tracks. Outside of TUNER there is too much to mention happening. The next release is a new CENTROZOON instrumental album that was mixed by Pat’s pal Bill Munyon. It’s called ‘Angel Liquor’ and will be out in late 2005. I am also working on a new concept for solo performance which I am going to test-drive in Warsaw this November.

Pat: Markus is planning another trip here to my studio this December and we should get a new studio record underway, and then of course there is the live recordings to mix and edit. We also have at least an hour of more ambient textural recordings, some of which Markus has tweaked and mixed some and its a great listen, very different from Totem... We decided to wait also as not to confuse people about what Tuner is before we even know ourselves!

TUNER: http://www.tunerband.com
Pat Mastelotto: http://www.patmastelotto.com
Markus Reuter: http://www.markusreuter.com
Renée Stieger/SiRenée: http://www.sirenee.com

Manifesto for the 'Quartet for the End of Time'

2009-02-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

the 'quartet for the end of time' is taking its musical inspiration from the following:

1) extension of the moment by consciously resisting the temptation to entertain. for example: if something feels like it is going on for too long, make it go on for much longer.
2) challenge the listener by using ambiguous harmonic material. more precisely: use modes of limited transposition exclusively.
3) improvisation is not a valid tool to create something new. improvisation is in order if it happens on one of the following levels only: rhythm, pitch, themes, dynamics, form. interaction guided by quality listening is not improvisation.
4) one musical idea per piece is more than enough.
5) it is pointless to give people what they expect if they fail to honour you. honour your audience by contributing to the self-actualization process of the listener.
6) allow the music to take on symphonic proportions. the whole is larger than the sum of its parts. also, the part is larger than the sum of its parts.
7) music lives in live performance

the group, made up of four guitarists, took its name from olivier messiaen's famous composition and was formed in the year of his hundredth birthday. however, there is no claim made to be related to him or his music in any way.

the players: robert jürjendal, tõnis leemets, markus reuter, mart soo

Markus Reuter interview from 2007

2009-02-08T14:53:00.000-08:00

Interviewed by Hande Burdg, 2007, for http://www.theprogfiles.com

TPF: First of all, we read on Tuner's blog that your new CD "POLE" was listed among the top 50 prog recordings of all times by the Modern Drummer magazine. Congratulations! Could you please tell us how TUNER was formed?

MR: Thank you. Pat (PAT MASTELOTTO of King Crimson) and I were very delighted to find our album in the list. We knew we'd done something special, but we didn't expect anybody to acknowledge it this soon.Pat and I met on a train from Munich to Bonn (Germany). He was on tour with King Crimson at the time. We exchanged CDs and are friends since. He invited me over to record with him once he had his own recording set-up at his home in Austin, Texas. We composed and recorded our first CD TOTEM in one week in April 2005. The second CD POLE was produced in about 8 weeks, but those weeks happened over about 1 1/2 years. It was a long but wonderful process. The great side effect for me was that I got very confident as a producer, a musical role that I will and do already explore more. album

TPF: Compared to your other projects, both as a solo artist and a member of Centrozoon, Tuner's sound is really very different. Could you please tell us a little bit about Tuner's sound and how you and Pat work together?

MR: The projects I am in all have a different flavour. That's what seperates them from each other basically. My solo music, for example, is improvised in a very controlled way. CENTROZOON however is wildly free and supposed to challenge both the musicians and the listener. TUNER is a very different animal as it combines Pat's vast musical experience in a number of styles with my vision for a music of the future. We're progressing from album to album. The first album occasionally stretched over into new territory by acknowledging the musical tradition that got lost from public view about 100 years ago. The second album does stretch over all the way through, but we managed to present it in such a light that people do not easily recognize it as such. The concept for the 3rd album is already in place, but although it's very restrictive, we have no idea what the music will sound like.

TPF: Some musicians who want to dive into the depths of "experimental music" often focus too much on the sound itself ignoring the "emotional" side of it. However you build a great balance in your music in this sense. How can you describe the relationship between you and the "sound"?

MR: Thank you for the compliment. This topic is indeed very close to my heart. I'll make it short: Recorded and live music has progressed greatly in terms of many aspects including sound, but the most important part of music has been mostly stagnant for a long time: Harmony, that is pitch simultaneity and it's structure. To simplify a bit, this is where emotion is located in music. Polyphonic application of free-tonal harmony is the field that needs to be tackled in order to push things forward in progressive music and even popular music, I believe.

My relationship with sound is getting better and better. I am slowly getting to a point where I have an opinion about sound. Some time ago sound did not matter to me at all. I was captivated by music, ignoring the sound. But still, I am glad that I have confidence in my abilities to create music that can exist without a "sound".

TPF: Music that can exist without a "sound"... Could you please elaborate on that one?

MR: A fleshly answer is that you can write down a series of pitches, not specifying the sound/instrument to play those pitches. This collection of pitches can be highly musical, no matter which player and instrument plays them. You don't even need to play them. Just looking at the score, it's structure, the ideas it is using and developing, is a musical experience. There is conceptual music as much as there is conceptual art.

A "metaphysical" answer is, some say that music is the highest form of communication, which in turn means that communication follows musical principles. Communication is music. People communicate just by looking at each other. Where's the "sound"? What I am trying to say is that everything has a vibration/pulse/timing, a musical essence. The process of structuring and working with these vibrations is what I consider making music. It is also what I consider existence.

Some practical advice for the musician in the world today: Integrate rather than separate. Improvise the composition. Generate the composition. Perform the process. Improvise the performance. Compose the improvisation. Speak before you think.

TPF: We have listened to the commentaries on your website about the new Centrozoon album "Lovefield". One of the things everybody was agreeing on was that this album is very different from the other Centrozoon albums. Could you please tell us a little bit about this album, and what do you think makes it different from the other ones?

MR: From a technical point of the view the difference is that Bernhard and I are playing in the studio with just a guitar and a keyboard. No sequencers or digital delays were used. But coming from the "sound" perspective discussed above, I think the music manages to reach over to the unknown constantly while still sounding quite good in a traditional sense, which our earlier releases failed to do. We can and maybe should go down this path further, but I doubt it's going to happen in a way that we can foresee.

TPF: Independent musicians today sometimes face great deal of difficulties to reach their audiences. From a sociologist's point of view, do you think there is light at the end of the tunnel as far as standing against what mass media offers us to consume goes?

MR: I believe that artists in general will need to re-individualise (I made up this word, meaning that one should find one's self rather than trying to be part of a group or fashion) in order to survive in the future. There's "bad music" that nobody wants to hear and there's "good music" that nobody wants to hear.Strangely enough it's still the "bad music" that is being courted by the industry, but this will have to change rather soon. One way to prepare for the future is to use the old-fashioned means of marketing (that is: money) and apply it to an unlikely product. In the end the unlikely product will generate lots of positive repercussions for a very long time.

TPF: When you were growing up, who were your most favorite musicians?

MR: Mike Oldfield was my definite number one. I saw him in concert when I was 10 years old and the energy left a big impression that I still compare every music to, I believe. I also enjoyed English bands like New Model Army and Level 42. Then there was J. S. Bach and Olivier Messiaen, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, but also Klaus Schulze ("X") and guitarists David Torn and Robert Fripp.

TPF: Will there be any US dates in the near future for Tuner or Centrozoon?

MR: Nothing's planned for the near future. We're really dependent on interested people to set things up for us over there. We got too much to look after already. TUNER is playing three dates in Estonia at the end of October and Bernhard, Pat and I are opening as an improvising trio for The Flower Kings on their European tour in November.

TPF: And lastly, what bands / artists are you currently listening?

MR: I still listen to most of the music that I've been listening to in the past 20 years, adding to it as I discover new artists. Most recently these have been Don Li (Album "Out Of Body Experience") and Nik Bärtsch's Ronin.

2008 in review

2008-12-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

the year 2008 has been the busiest in my life, with many projects started and completed. this included lots of travelling, more solo performances than usual, studio experiments (over 140 solo performances recorded), the composition and recording of my first full-blown album length "new music" piece, the formation of two new bands (gojjo, quartet for the end of time) and exciting forthcoming album projects (respectively with sha, tilomo, pat mastelotto and ian boddy), a new configuration of centrozoon, many album productions (most notably the season standard’s squeeze me ahead of line and TUNER's live record MÜÜT, tovah’s escapologist, yoshi’s water dealer, the redundant rocker’s heart), the design of a new guitar (U8), seminars, the preliminary systematization of my touch guitar instruction method, about 8 weeks of proper daily guitar practice (finally picking up on exercises presented to me by robert fripp in 1996), heart-warming meetings with people like nik bärtsch, margus laidre and tim motzer, several new 'quality' friends and many happy days with my beloved wife.

however, over the course of the year i started to see the dark side, or better, a new and stronger face of the dark outside, plus the dark inside. i'm feeling the price that i'm paying to be able to do what i do. there is also the realization that i've gone too far to go back.

it is astonishing that bernhard and i have been able to sustain our life from our own initiative for such a long time. feedback (in quantity, quality and financial compensation) has been going way down over the past two years. there seems to be less and less demand for what we can give. things are difficult because it is difficult to see where we actually are.

looking at the last two paragraphs i have a déjà-vu. does this mean everything is fine?