Album Notes

LANOIAH


Domine, Dominus noster quam admirabile est nomen tuam in universa terra.


LANOIAH is one of the wonderful names in the Qabbalah, the Judaic mystic tradition. I bow reverently to this lofty tradition.

The music of LANOIAH deals with tradition and style in a condensed way. It aims at the translation of mundane music onto an exquisite and futuristic plane.

After much experimentation I found this one-hour piece not to slacken ´under any circumstance´ - times of day, seasons, moon cycle, mood swings, weather conditions and so forth, producing a kind of contentment which held the energy for the duration of an hour, provided the volume was kept low and no alcohol was consumed. There came a time when I stopped wanting to be excited by music. Today I am much more happy if it produces for me a blissful and benign calmness.

Fifty years in music have made it apparent for me that entertaining factors in a musical work are by no means a prerequisite but a hindrance for enjoyment. In fact it was reciprocal: if ´entertainment´ within a certain time measure increased, access to the sublime decreased. It is not the intellectual concept behind the work of art, not “What is the artist trying to tell us”, rather what state it puts me in while being exposed to it LANOIAH grew in the course of five to six years during which I did a good amount of experimentation with Peter Maunu´s ´bizarre´ guitar noises.

In this respect I am a selfish person. If I want all occurring thoughts and sentiments bathed in a golden light, then that is my criteria for producing music – I think of myself first, not of what a possible customer might expect. As simple as this idea may present itself, it is still quite unique in the music business.




AGK summer 2008