I haven't been on stage with Arve since 2019. We recorded three albums together. Illusion of a separate world, Unexpected Isolation and Sense of destiny. In addition, he performs on my album Sculpting in time and in the Crime on the Bunny project. Arve has enriched my musical life in an incredible way. Our long phone conversations about music are a huge inspiration to me. He is an incredibly talented and musical musician. Moreover, he is very uncompromising. He works on his music daily and expects the same from me. He has become a true musical friend and colleague of mine over the years.
A week before our short tour (Prague, Dresden) we talked on the phone.
AH: "How are you David? Are you working on any new music?"
DK: "Hi Arv, I'm working on our new album and I'm still working on the musical material that I brought in from Rick Cox in Los Angeles. I'm gradually sending you sketches of songs that we can use to complete our Pentimento project.
AH:" Well done David! It's great if we can record an interesting idea or sound every day. Sometimes even one a week is fine. Are you working on orchestrations within your guitars?
DK: "Yes, but I'm working more on stringed instruments, which I also want to use in our concerts.
AH: 'Excelent David! I keep telling you to find someone to write your music into sheet music for an experimental ensemble and see where your music can go. I see it in classical music. Trust me.
DK: "Thank you Arve. Maybe slowly that time will come. I'm 40 this year... I'm slowly getting into it. I'm using the electric guitar less. I'm still practicing, but I'm playing more or less acoustic guitars and I'm using the keyboard to control the stringed instruments and their different variations. I loop those live and process them in different ways. This creates music or musical units that are based on chance, which I call up myself.
AH: "Excelent David! Let's go to the concerts. We can play songs from our albums, but only small parts of them... Let the process of creation flow and see where our recorded musical material takes us. What about you?
DK: "Sure. I'm ready Arve.
AH: "Great, see you soon in Prague..."
I went to Prague by car the day before the concert. The journey took me over eight hours. I met Jan Sudzin and we visited some famous Czech pubs. The next day I picked up Arve at the airport at 1pm. I was very happy that we were together again after three years. We discussed the conflict in Ukraine and it made us both sad...
We had lunch and moved to the Acropolis Palace. The sound check was great. Every note that Arve plays or sings is unique. I showed him my orchestral samples and Arve was very pleased. The concert went very smoothly. We improvised the whole thing. It went like clockwork. We understood each other and complemented each other. Arve responded to a cough from the audience. He recorded into Ableton and jokingly reminisced about the Covid era... In the dressing room Arve praised me and said that I had moved on again. He was intrigued by my samples and orchestrations. He was very happy about it and so was I. I work on it every day. I must admit that after Sculpting in Time I was worried if I would ever be able to make an album again. Covid came along and I started to feel useless to myself. Phone calls with Arvo, Erik Truffaz and Paolo Raineri helped me. We have to do what we know and do the best we can at all times...
In the morning we had breakfast and headed to Dresden.
I was very happy that Arvo and I could travel together and get closer. I miss the Covid years. It could still be 2020 and I would be 37 years old... It snowed heavily the whole trip. After a two hour car ride, we checked into our hotel and had lunch. We discussed different ways of orchestration. Arve sees the future of music in chance. Random orchestrations and variations that we can then stack underneath or next to each other. Like naive people who master the craft and want to say something philosophical but spontaneous at the same time. An interesting vision...
I have to say that improvising like that is very difficult. It's not just about playing around... A musician needs a very varied palette of colours. Rhythmic, melodic, ambient, sonic, and he must be able to react instantly without knowing the key. He needs to be able to play out (out of key). He should have experience with rock music as well as experimental or contemporary classical music. He should be in control of his instrument and should not be afraid to step out of his comfort zone. Most importantly, however, he should listen to the music in which he is directly involved. Create in the here and now. To be able to lead and to yield at the same time.
My guitar practice goes something like this:
I play, for example, Jon Hassell's Last night the moon came. Otherwise, we played it in Prague as an encore.
I'll play the parts that Jon Hassell plays and the parts that the orchestra plays in the introduction. It's a Thomas Newman sample that Rick Cox did. It's very simple and beautiful. Hassell's trumpet is also very cheeky. I love it. I try to use my whole palette of colours in this piece. I play the melody, then I play variations of the main melody with the bow on the acoustic baritone. Then I play the bass line. I play the song 5-6 times in a row. I try to play fifths of all the notes I play (as in the main melody). I try little flourishes from chord breakdowns. I change major to minor and vice versa. I play extended turns of simple chords. Then I try playing the whole song by myself with a looper. I change guitars and colors... It's one of the ways I practice. Other times I play chromatic scales while the washing machine is washing. I love the ones Fripp plays. Sometimes I'll just sit at the acoustic guitar and pick out F major and G sharp major. I play their turnarounds and work on fingerboard orientation... Sometimes I play concert repertoire again. The practice also includes working with the computer. I try to produce new samples to use in concerts.
I visited a gallery in Dresden. I really wanted to see Kandinsky's paintings live. However, I was in the wrong gallery. I didn't have time to go to the other one. I ran to the hotel and to the sound check. We played at the Tonne Jazz Club and we had a special guest, drummer Demian Kappenstein. I didn't know him, but it was clear to me that if Arve had invited him he must be a really good musician. Arve introduced me like this:
"This guy is a totally crazy. He plays this improvised music with us, he plays completely different music with the drummer from King Crimson, he has a trio with this crazy drummer Gergo Borlai, he does movie scores, he publishes books, he goes boxing and he has a huge machete in his car. He's really crazy!"
Demian laughed. "Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you ..."
The concert was amazing. Demian is an incredibly musical and modern drummer. Instead of transitions, he has different effects that he uses to effect his playing and at the same time record the sound on stage. That is to say, he immediately creates samples of what is happening and reacts to them. Arve does the same thing all the time. This created a lot of very interesting and surprising moments. The concert was recorded. I hope we'll get to it soon. During the concert Demian introduced me to the full club and mentioned that I live 80 kilometers from Ukraine. People applauded me. I felt strange...
After the concert, Demian and I were selling CDs. A gentleman who had almost my entire discography, which was released on CD, stopped by. He even knew that I was in the US recording with Pat Mastelotto. He was looking forward to Komara 2. I was very moved. I had an immediate desire to release another album. Not every music lover has FB and was giving out likes and views. I think within this genre of music, most of the audience is off social media. We also talked to Arvo about Spotify. Arve has over 100k on it. Monthly listeners. He's not getting a single euro out of it. He said that if he could get 50 cents from everyone he could have his own band. He'd have money for promo and producers...
Me without promos and albums in ECM I have around 1700 monthly listeners on Spotify. I would only need a euro a month from everyone and it would be a completely different situation... Last year I had over 7700 listeners on Spotify... About the same on Apple music. All without promos. Never mind. Let's move on and focus on new music.
Demian showed me his project with his wife. It's really great music. That chick is incredibly musical! They travel all over the world with this project.
After the concert, Arvo and I had a late night farewell beer. We talked about our plans together, hugged and said goodbye. I realize how important it is to be together and play. To play with and learn from better people.
I'm very happy to have met so many great people besides music. Be that as it may, I agree with Ennio Morricone's statement that:
Tones are like building materials. Every building uses the same one, but in the end every building is different...