Sexta-feira 19 Mar 2010, 18h:54
This catalogue is at the moment being updated (August 2014)
Here's a fairly chronoligical list of my productions, with short descriptions. I hope to write a liste with extended descriptions and reviews one day - if I ever find the time to…
If You are just interested in the albums as such, You can skip the (not complete, but still lengthy) introduction and just scroll down a little bit; however, I would be glad if You would read it, it will tell You a little bit about why I did certain things in the way I did…).
The album titles are actually linked (as far as possible), so clicking on one should bring You to the corresponding album, here on LastFM in most cases…
General introduction:
1.) Availability
Most of my albums have not been released on a label, with two exceptions so far, most important my recent album "100 Million Miles Under The Stars" on SynGate Records, a small but fine German CD-R label that concentrates on Berlin School style electronica (= similar To Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, etc.):
http://www.syngate.biz/epages/15513652.sf/en_US/?ViewObjectID=24932016
Then You can purchase most of my recent albums (= mid 2011 and later) from my BandCamp page, and also pre-listen a lot of the music from there (not all of it though):
http://michaelbrueckner.bandcamp.com
All of the many other albums can be ordered directly from me as CD-Rs (in jewel cases, with hopefully fashionable covers…) or as (personalized) digital downloads (if You prefer this). You can still pre-listen most of them here on LastFM (unconvenient, but it works…).
If You are interested, please contact me via a personal message, so we can work out the details. Payment via PayPal is possible (and prefered…).
2.) Rough overview of twenty years of music production:
From about 1992 until 1997 I recorded on 4-track cassette tapes, about 1997 I switched to hard disc recording.
At late 2006 I had already produced a big basket full of tapes, among them a handful of finished projects, about 20 albums on CD-R and a vast archive of unfinished projects and lone tracks in varying states of completion.
In October 2006 however I decided to produce a box - mainly for promotion purposes - which should contain my complete work up to that point, yet unfinished projects included.
My initial estimation was that the box would contain about 40 albums - but when the final project was finished and the formerly lone tracks were organized in albums (about 9 months of severe production work later) I counted 85 albums and one CD-Rom (containing a musical/visual game I had produced during my communication design studies…).
Since most of my albums are contained in this box, which I named NO SINGLE SINGLE (hinting at the fact that my emphasis rather lies on larger projects than on seperated, individual tracks), this discography will follow it's structure.
After the box, I decided to slow down a bit, and in late 2007 started a series of half improvised/half composed tracks that appeared exclusively on one of my Myspace blogs called SEQUENZ UND KONSEQUENZ.
Eventually in the spring of 2008, I liked Part 8 of this series so much that I decided to turn it into an album (which became "Days in the Sun").
Already a bit earlier, some other albums had taken shape, but without the pressure I felt in earlier years…and after another while, several new (partly BIG) projects followed, and even with album 100 there is no end of it in sight… ;-)
3.) …and for accuracy's sake:
This discographie also contains the four albums of the art rock trio B4 SUNRISE which I'm a part of (together with Reinhold Krämer on keyboards and vocals, and Wolfgang Bechtluft on guitar and vocals) - plus the one album I did with (and for) Wolfgang Bechtluft ("Bechtluft-Brückner-Projekt").
Now - let's get into the "details":
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NO SINGLE SINGLE
The Box has two divisions, the first ("The Tape Archives") contains my early work, originally recorded on four track tape; the main section starts with my first hard disc recording project
I. The Tape Archives (1993 - 1997)
Generally speaking, during the first three years I was still searching for my direction and learnig my art (which is, in a way, still the case until today - but much more obvious during my first ten albums…)
1. FRÜHSTÜCKE (Early Recordings 1992-1994) (engl. "breakfasts" - it is a word game in German)
1993 -1994: More a "documentation" of my first steps than a real album; some tracks are unintendedly (or even: intendedly) funny, others maybe "innocently charming". Not decidedly electronic, rather searching (without any success) for a rock/world music sound inspired by the likes of Mike Oldfield or Andreas Vollenweider (this is true for many of my early efforts…)
2. EARTHED/UNEARTHED
1994: First cohesive project, the first side of the cassette I called "earthed", the second "unearthed". Also on rock/world music search. Some nice melodic offerings…
3. SHEBA'S DANCE
1994: Project with a belly dancer from southwest Germany who introduced me to oriental scales and rythms. Never really was finished. I was searching for a sufi music/oriental jazz direction…
4. CELTIQUE
1995: As the name suggests, a collection of tracks which aimed at an Irish folk sound, mixed with New Age.
5. SUNDAY ETUDES
1995: A collection of "piano" tunes, some classically, others jazz inspired…
6. COLLABORATIONS
1994 to 1995: early sessions with musical friends, guitar players in the first place. The presence of real guitar (as opposed to cheap samples I could use otherwise…) brought me closer at points to that forementioned rock/world music idiom…
7. BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE
1995 to 1996: Mostly a collection of songs I eiher had dedicated to my later wife Cäcilia, or wrote for her to sing to (what she didn't do back then, so the tracks remained instrumental - with the option for a late update…). Some in a weird "classical" style, some (unusally for me) funky or "middle of the road". Also contains some cheesy early "disco tracks"…
8. THE FAR SHORE
1995: A collection of first extended jams that had a more or less decidedly electronic focus and less "plastic-like" sounds…
9. PANTALEON EQUATIONS
1995 to 1996: a collection of early weird and experimental tracks; actually, the "style" of some of these tracks is hard to describe - drunken procupines whistle through the yeast (to say the least…) Please approach with a sense of sonic humor ;-)
10. MICROGRAMMAR
1996 to 1997: first (almost) cohesive attempt to express myself in the ambient/drone idiom; long, slow evolving soundscapes with a slight flavour of new age at times…
11. ATMOSFEAR
1996: a collection of half ambient - half old (Berlin) school inspired tracks (hence the little nodd in the title to a well-known album of a famous band - TD-fans, please don't expect too much from this…)
12. AMARDILLO GLUE
1996: Another set of fairly experimental electronica and first messing around with dance elements; some tracks remind of Krautrock, others maybe of 80ies avantgarde pop: Amardillo Glue, if You know what I mean… Please approach with a sense of sonic humor ;-)
13. GHOST MUSIC
1996: Atonal avantgarde bells meet abstract ambient and new age soundscapes, occasionally spiced with "ethno" percussion…
14. HEARTBEAT
1996 to 1997: Old school electronica with flavours of New Age, World Music and Ambient; contains five different versions of the title track (call it remixes, if You like…)
15. A RING OF COPPER
1997: Collection of the slightly darker tracks among my early output, mixed with "space music" efforts…
16. A NEW AGE Vol. 1
1997: My "age of 4-track tape recording" ended with this "large scale work", which I regard as one of my early highlights. The original concept was a 90 minute cassette (with five extended tracks), which couldn't really be transferred to the 78 minutes running time of a CD-R. Therefore, I split it into two parts and added some bonus material on the second CD. In spite of the album title, please don't expect New Age music: You'll get ambient/drone soundscapes with a few tinges of Berlin school - very meditative. The whole thing illustrates the genesis of a planet, by the way (a "concept album" if You like)…
17. A NEW AGE Vol. 2
1997: (see above)
II. Main Section (1997 - 2007)
18. ONE MA TOPO
1997: My first hard disc recording project; a big progress in terms of recording technique, yet a step back artistically, for I gave the my "Oldfield/Vollenweider" leanings a last chance, before finally taking an electronic direction; so, here You find rather innocent New Age/World Music inventions, and even some steps into Blues and even (yes…) Tango.
19. MELODIKA
1997 to 1998: A collection of tracks in a similar mood like on "One ma Topo"
20. STARFISHED
1998: First exploration of "real" club sound…maybe it's Trance (You see, I'm clearly not a purist if it comes to microscopic sub-genre divisions; on the contrary, I'm a musical omnivore…). So, here are some tunes with danceable beats :-) and first tracks to feature my wife Cäcilia's beautiful voice.
21. A NEBULAR BEACH
1998: Originally this was a birthday present for my younger brother, who is a gothic and death metal musician and producer. Therefore, You can find gothic/rock/industrial à la Brückner here, in places inspired by bands like Tiamat (if I had had a singer at hand, most of these tracks had vocals…maybe there will be an update one day…).
22. PREVIEW:BLUE (Interactive CD Rom)
1999: During my design studies I took part in a project where we produced an interactive CD-Rom (programmed in Director); as usually (I confess) I had bigger ideas than I could put to practice, and instead of five "coloured worlds" where You could explore synaesthetic relations between colours, structures and sounds, I could just finish the "blue world". Unfortunately, my CD-Rom runs under Mac OS 9 only, an operatic system that isn't supported anymore since a couple of years by now, and I don't have the skills to re-program it to make it compatible to other systems. Maybe I will make a slide show of the visuals and a medley from the sounds, to save just a little bit of the "magic" of the original "game". It was inspired (in terms of navigatin and aesthetics), by "Riven" and by Peter Gabriel's wonderful game "Eve".
23. INCARNATION GENERATOR
1999: This was kind of a milestone album for me; since I had started to do hard disk recording, I had somewhat lost my direction, and this was the first album where I felt that I finally had arrived at the right path. It's a mix of experimental electronica, with more ambient moments and a few touches of dance. Seemed to me rather "modern" and original when I did it (though it wasn't really, with hindsight…).
24. EUPHORISMS
1998 to 1999: After producing "Starfished" I thought would be easy to produce nice dance music (the error didn't last long…) and made different attempts to come up with some decent club sound. Early efforts are collected here - please approach with a sense of sonic humor ;-)
25. EROONIAN AVADY
1999: Already some years earlier the classical cello player Christoph von Erffa had introduced me to the mysteries of microtonal music - something I never really could grasp, but like to come back to time and again. On this album, I mingled an unfinished project in that vein with a second, where I used only flutes, pipes, glasses, detuned acoustic guitars, a small glockenspiel, pots and other household items as sound genetrators, which were severly electronically processed. The result seems surprisingly cohesive, a strange kind of "world ambient" maybe…
26. UNDERWATER CHILLIES
2000: Maybe my first attempt on Lounge…or Chillout…not really "Café del Mar", but more into that direction than anything I did earlier…
27. SPACE PROPHECIES
2000: Next efforts on the dance idiom; maybe it's "hard trance meets Berlin school"? Contains some tracks that really kick (IMHO, especially "Zyklotron".
28. 143 BPM
2000: More dance, this time as a cohesive album with crossfaded tracks (the first CD I ever produced which had crossfades - something I love and shurley had done earlier, but my first burning software didn't support it…). This time I thought I had it done properly, but the final mix somewhat suffered from the fact that I had to produce with bad earphones - so I wasn't completely satisfied and decided to come back to the same basic material (much) later (see two albums below).
29. ON PEBBLES
1998 - 2007: Did I ever mention I'm a rock fan? Time and again I couldn't resist the (vain) longing to produce some "progressive" rock myself, which of course without a real guitar player was doomed to fail. Still, some of my attempts work in their own weird way. Most of them were produced between 1999 and 2000, a few later, one or two not so long ago… Contains my for any reason quite popular mimicry "Another pink in the floyd Parts 1 + 2" (popular for my humble standards…), which demonstrates the whole dilemma: in part one I could perhaps trick a deaf person into believing I were Rick Wright (may he rest in piece), but not even a deaf person ever would buy David Gilmour emulation in the second part… ;-)
30. ASCENSIONS
1999 and 2007: In 2007 I finally came back to the forementioned basic material from the late 90ies (see "143 BPM"), and while I used many of the same sequences and basic beats, I finally came close to my initial idea, and ended up with a cohesive dance album in it's own right rather than a remix album of "143 BPM".
31. KABACAB
1998 to 2000: Already in early 1998 I had started with a some kind of "world ambient" project, which yielded a mix of down tempo tracks and more Berlin school like moments
32. MOVIES MOVING IN MY HEAD
2000 to 2001: Rather unexpected this album "happened" to me (that's how it felt like) which I still (68 albums later) regard as the best achievement I could reach so far. Although it's a rather subdued and academic, maybe even dry sonic exercise (maybe venturing in "avantgarde" territory at places), consisting of 45 short tracks, most of which explore microtonality in one way or another, I was in a special state of inspiration…or rather…"in the flow" when I did it, and the result seemed to me like a real artistic statement that (hopefully) would last. It also forms the first part of a loosly connected "trilogy" with the following two albums "Mousic" and "Drones".
33. MOUSIC
2001: This "middle part" of the formentioned "trilogy" consists mainly of short improvisations, which I performed just using the computer mouse and an early version of the popular soft synth "Absynth" - when it was still shareware, before Native Instruments bought it and made it a "mega seller". I'd characterise most of these tracks as "psychedelic electronica"…
34. DRONES
2001: This third part of the "trilogy" is in terms of production and "technique" much closer to "Movies moving in my Head", but in a little more acessible way, so I like to call it the "pop" version of "Movies…". My second-most loved album from my catalogue, by the way…
35. LAUMSPUR
1997 - 2001: A collection of "atmospheric electronica" with some oriental colours, sometimes touching drone terretory, sometimes rather "avantgarde".
36. I SEE MY LIFE
2002: One of my rather melodic offerings, oscillating between melodic ambient, new age and world music. I originally produced it for a lady I knew, who's taste was rather on the "kitsch" side of new age (to see how close I can get to that and still produce music I'd sign with my name…). If You think my other stuff is too weird, try this one!
37. SOMEONE ELSE
2002: Back in 2002, this was originally kind of a "greatest hit" mix tape (of still unreleased hits - HAHA!) which I made for a friend, a collection of more or less "commercial" tracks, many with a dance feeling.
38. ONE THIRTY EIGHT
2002: This album was reviewed for the German KEYBOARDS-Magazine (quite mercyfully by music journalist Albrecht Piltz) who described it as "a mix of Ambient and Hard Trance with occasional Drum'n'Bass touches…"
When it was finished I was quite proud of it - especially while producing the quiter middle section (with the help of Klaus Chmielewski on keyboards and Wolfgang Bechtluft on guitar) I felt that special kind of inspiration than I did while working on "Movies Moving in my Head".
39. OR MAKIF
2002: This short album reflects my feelings about and relationship with Jewish culture, religion and history, and Klezmer music in particular. It's a kind of serious, but beautiful exercise which navigates between light and mystical soundscapes and…maybe…modern classical music (some people were partly reminded of Penderecki, for example).
40. EEEK SHOW
2002: In contrast to the serious and introspective "Or Makif", this was a quick fun album, with mostly cheesy and slightly grotesque "dance" tracks. I invented it back then as a possible "free bonus albums for real fans" - yet due to the lack of any publicity of course I still waited for those fans for a long time. Now - here You are, and it's still for free. Please approach with a sense of sonic humor ;-)
41. THE OUTSIDER - Music inspired by the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft
2002: This album was (a small) part of my diploma project in communication design (the bigger part was a layout for an illustrated book on HPL). In spite of it's gothic topic, please don't expect clichée "gothic" music - instead, it's rather a mix of "world" and "anvantgarde" electronica with some "soundtrack" interludes…
42. IT IS NOT DEAD (The Outsider ReMakes)
2002: Based on the (severly transformed) material of "The Outsider". Somehow, there was so little left of the original tracks that I rather called it "ReMakes" instead of "ReMixes". It was also included in my diploma project. Some of the tracks are more accessible and "pop" than the original versions (yet others even stranger…).
43. CALL ME AGAIN (with Klaus Chmielewski)
2002: Klaus Chmielewski is a close and dear friend to me since many years, and for many years we had talked about producing music together. Actually, Klaus is a much more gifted musician and producer than me, and a great singer. If You imagine a combination of Brian Eno and Frank Sinatra, You get an idea. Still, there are fields of creativity which are more important to him (font design, for example) and he won quite some reputation in the field of financial communication design. One fine day he brought me a CD-R without cover and said: "Listen to this music, I could imagine to do something in that style." The album was by a band I had (then) never heard of before, called "Lali Puna". I thought "nice" and started to produce a handful of tracks with a (hopefully) similar approach. When I played them to Klaus, at first, he was exited. Later though it proved problematic to find enough spare time to work out proper songs. We had several (not very productive) sessions over some years, before finally I decided to close the project - with one song completed, and the rest as instrumentals (in the bonus tracks, Klaus has a short return…). Oh, and there's B4 SUNRISE guitar player Wolfgang Bechtluft again on one track, too…
44. FIVE MINUTES
2002: This album owes his title to a special "technique" I used while producing the tracks: for five minutes I "painted" a whole piece (sequences, chords, melodies, beats) in my midi editor without listening, resulting in a tune I otherwise wouldn't have invented. Then I develloped that further, while keeping as much as possible from that first sketch. Interestingly, these "deaf flights" proved in most cases to work (ok - sometimes in a strange way…). Most tracks have something 80ie-ness about them, due to the soft synths I used. And there's one song, featuring the beautiful voice of my wife Cäcilia.
45. HAUNTED
2002 and 2007: A collection of lone dance tracks I had produced "in between" larger projects over the years, some with more "trance" leanings, some fairly "minimal", or even "pop", still others rather weird…
46. BEBURPURATION OF THE THWERFT
1999 - 2002: A collection of slightly bizarre little tracks which I had produced between "larger" projects; most have a slight dance approach, spiced with experimental madness… Please approach with a sense of sonic humor ;-)
47. SOMNAMBOULE
2002: My first completely beat-free album (except some "ethinic" percussion chatter here and there) after "A New Age" six years earlier, and one of my personal ambient/drone favorites from my catalogue.
48. SLEEPWALKING The Somnamboule ReMakes
2002: Having enjoyed producing the "ReMakes" for "The Outsider", I was in the mood to mess around with the basic material from "Somnamboul" as well, and again the resulting music was something completely different, sometimes tending to Krautrock, sometimes to Cuts'n'Clicks insanity. Includes my experimental "classic" "Two vertical flippoints disconstrue a verbator by ensuading it's nash" (try to repeat that ten times quickly when You're drunk…).
49. OUTSIDE TRAVELS (with B4 SUNRISE)
2003: The first album of a band that I had joined some years earlier. B4 SUNRISE is the follow-up project of keyboarder and singer Reinhold Krämer and guitar player and singer Wolfgang Bechtluft (also know as WOLLOTOW). Their art rock band BRIGHTNESS FALLS had disbanded, so they were without drummer and bass player - and decided to recruit me as a replacement…
In the beginning, there was another former BRIGHTNESS FALLS member and second (brilliant) guitarist, Gerd Weyhing, who has earned some merrits in the soundscape guitar scene, but left B4 SUNRISE shortly after I had joined.
Anyway, here I had finally the chance to contribute to some "real" rock music. I'd describe our music as a sometimes slightly gothic, King Crimson-inspired mix of Krautrock, Ambient and experimental electronica - sometimes noisy, sometimes gentle, and always a little bit bizarre…
50. GOKURO
2002 to 2003: For some reason I felt this album had something "japanese" to it (though I can't really tell You what exactly…). It's a mix of longer electronicals, laid-back, almost jazzy tunes and a few weird experimental jams which (IMHO) works surprisingly well.
51. OXY MORON
2003: Here You'll find somewhat "ethnic" electronica spiced with dance elements and calmed down by ambient interludes.
52. MOLE
2003: Slightly bizarre mix of experimental pop with cuts'n'clicks aesthetics, dance beats and the odd soundscape in between. Features my (spoken) voice on two tracks (not exactly hip hop…).
53. ÔRNITHÉOLOGIQUE
2003: Another purely ambient/drone album in the vein of "Somnamboul". It's all about atmospheric storytelling…dedicated, by the way, to a little bird we found on the street. We tried to feed and raise him, but sadly the poor creature died two weeks later…
54. IRRGHUN
2003: Quite insane mix of sometimes digitally derranged dance/synth pop tracks with an extended spacy trance finale (or something like that…).
55. BREAKFAST ON YUGGOTH
2003: One last time I returned to Lovecraft as an inspiration, this time to his dark poetry collection called "Funghi from Yuggoth" (plus a science fiction story which itself was a tribute to HPL, called "Discoveries in the Ghooric Zone", by Richard A. Lupoff). The result was a more cohesive mix of dark ambient and avantgarde electronica than "The Outsider" (yet again still not the "gothic" approach the "average" horror fan might expect…).
56. TUNE FISH
2003: Another collection of slightly weird and bizarre atmospheric electronicals with some dance leanings in places…
57. THE BLUE BUTTON
2003: A collection of more accessible and relaxed tracks somewhere between chill-out, ambient and maybe new age. Maybe…commercial?
58. ADVANCED INVERSIONS
2003: A collection of some harder, some experimental, and a few rather relaxed dance tracks.
59. TRIPS AND TICKS
2003 to 2004: Bizzare album which oscillates between dance, film music, experimental ambient and other, less describable electronic lifeforms. The overall atmosphere is perhaps a bit somber…and I even whistle on one track!
60. LOST IN THE CITY (with Wolfgang Bechtluft)
2003 to 2004: The B4 SUNRISE guitar player WOLLOTOW and me decided one nice day to form the Brückner-Bechtluft-Project, and this is our one and only album so far - something between prog rock, kraut rock, dance, metal and pure noise. Maybe "modern" in comparison to B4 SUNRISE…
61. SUN POWERED
2004: After so much experimental madness an innocent little album with nice and friendly electronica-meets-pop tracks. Has a GREEN political message to it!
62. TWO DAYS IN SPACE Vol. 1
2004: A project that never really was finished: I had produced a lot of tracks in the hope of finding collaborating artist (guitarists, singers…), but after a while it became obvious that once more time troubles killed any progress and inspiration. So, after some months I collected what had surfaced and reshaped it to instrumentals, which move between pop, dance, space music and experimental electronica.
63. TWO DAYS IN SPACE Vol. 2
2004: It were quite a lot of tracks, so it grew into a double album… ;-)
64. FIVE SMALL NAILS
2004: I was approached by Sebastian Koch (son of my employer, media design student then, today a great illustrator who lives in Hamburg) to write some music for a video clip. He gave me a CD with Björk-ReMixes and played some tracks to me that he especially liked. I noted that they all had distorted drums, and produced a bunch of tracks in the hope that he would like one of them. Actually, I've forgotten which one he finally picked, but the result was this mini-album, which might not be "Björk", but "a study of dance-ambient-pop with distortion".
65. HOAX
2001 to 2005: A collection of lone tracks I produced between larger projects; time and again I came back to the topic "Drum'n'Bass" - and while I don't think that the tracks on this album would please D'n'B purists, they are as close to that genre as I would ever come…
66. SALAMÉANDER
2004: While "Five Small Nails" explored distortion, this album was mainly inspired by the element of feedback. The result is a mix of avantgarde pop and atmospheric electronica, which I somehow associate with "Mouse on Mars", though it's quite different again…maybe like "in the same spirit" somehow. One track features my wife Cäcilia on vocals.
67. FIRST HALF OF THE MOON
2004: From more or less up-to-date sounding "Salaméander" I fell right back into 70ies electronica stone age music. This album contains my (then) longest piece ever, the epic "The Silent Lie" which I had worked on longer than on any other of my tracks (and I would maybe still be working on it if I hadn't deleted some of the basic tracks too early…). It's quite a dramatic journey from quiet soundscapes over dramatic sequences back to peace again. Once more, Wolfgang Bechtluft lend a hand, as well as in the shorter "The Second Half" (Come on, do the Göttsching for me, Wolle!).
68. UNDER GROUND
2005: Another collection of lone tracks, in some of which I could detect a gangster movie or "James Bond" feeling. Among all my insignificant works maybe the most insignificant… ;-)
69. ONE STEP BEHIND
2005: This album has a rather odd "history". One of the things I was always interested in was random, self-composing music. One day I had the idea to produce an album consisting of one thousand (!) very short loops, and if the listener sets his CD-Player on "random selection" and "repeat", he would get and endless, ever changing automatic remix of the material. I started to produce this fractures, but soon had to face technical difficulties:
The maximum number of tracks allowed by the CD audio standard is "just" 99. then, after I "condesed" the particles to 99 short tracks, these didn't loop smoothly, because it took the laser too long to jump from one to the other randomly. At this point I put the whole thing to the shelve. But later I remembered that some of the loops had potential, and set out to reshape them to a "normal" album.
At the same time I had to learn that my father was suffering from skin cancer (he finally passed away in 2009), so this grew into a serious album contemplating mortality and the human condition.
As for style, it has some dance leanings, mixed with quiet soundscapes and atonal choir passages, but it also has it's melodic moments and features some spoken words by me and a vocal performance by Cäcila. Klaus Chmielewski was so kind to call that album my "strongest achievement". Probably he's right…
70. THE ONLY CHILD (with B4 SUNRISE) (no link so far)
2005: This second record of B4 SUNRISE is slightly illegal. It was "just" an EP, intended to bridge the long way to the next full album, and it contains early versions of songs that would find there way on "Poison Tongue" (in different versions though, see below), but also two tracks not contained elsewhere, and in the first place: our messing around with the Nico tune "My Only Child" (originally just vocals and harmonium). Especially Reinhold Krämer is a die-hard Nico fan, and it was his dream to produce this posthumous "collaboration". The EP contains three variations of the original material, and I have to say, I'm especially proud of my remix work on two of them. Still - to avoid any copyright problems - we don't publish or sell this EP, it's just a gift given in small quantities at special occasions (a pity, somehow…).
71. RESURRECTIONS
2005: Here's finally one for the dark electronica fans - darker in places, I think, as my attempts on Lovecraft. Some tracks are severly experimental - ah! And it contains a mistake: the track "Ressourections Part 2" is identical with "Oil Lamp" from "Sufi Sushi" (see below). Now - so much content: it had to happen sooner or later…
72. PSYCHO DE FLUXE
2005: Another excursion into more or less "pop" territory - structured tracks with danceable beats and melodic hooks at least, some even with cheesy disco synth strings. Once more, just the vocals are missing to turn this into a commercial outing…
73. SUFI SUSHI
2005: Atmospheric electronicals, in places with a Berlin school (and sometimes even Pink Floyd) touch, that circle around a mystical sufi tale, making use of oriental scales here and there. One track features Wolle Bechtluft on guitar.
74. EVERYWHERE (The Sufi ReMakes)
2005: Once more I felt inspired to give the same basic material a second go. this time, the original tracks were left recognizable (so I speak of remixes here instead of remakes…). The main reason was, that I had two versions of my "hit" "Everywhere" and I just couldn't decide which one to put on the album (finally, the first mix ended up on the remix album, and the second mix on "Sufi Sushi"…). The much shorter "soft mix" seems to be quite popular among my tracks :-) With "Time Climb" the remix album also contains one original track.
75. MARTIANS (with B4 SUNRISE)
2006: One nice day me and the rest of B4 SUNRISE were invited to play a session at the barn of Martina's flat-sharing community (Martina is a long-time friend of my wife and the barn was remodeled to a small "event hall" for parties etc.). So we met there and tried to play something decent, but messed it up completely and finally gave in quite dissatisfied.
Nevertheless, we had recorded the whole "happening" (in mono), and when I listened to it later, I had the idea to remix the material severly and turn it into an album that would "work". And what can I say? Somehow I succeeded. Still, the result sounds "experimental" to say the least. But also quite fascinating in a way. Maybe King Crimson after some drinks too much incognito in some provincial american café. Especially noteable is the three-part Berlin school-esque "Interplanetary Travel Agency", where I did produce ALL sounds just by transforming the last single short guitar note at the end of the recoring - and all sounds means: drums, bass, effects, sequences, pads - anything that is audible throughout the whole track is a transformation of the same short, simple note, a feat of "remixing" I'm still a bit proud of, I confess…
76. ANTIFERROMAGNET
2006: Another ambient/drone/soundscape album, pure atmosphere, not a single beat. The story behind it is that I bet with myself that I would be able to produce a decent ambient album on just one day. So, I pruduced the bigger part of these tracks actually really on one day, but then, due to hard disc space troubles, I burned the project on an archive CD-R to make room for other stuff that seemd to be more important to me at that moment (this was in 2003) - only to return to the material three years later (equipped with a new Mac and much more harddisk space…).
77. DAYDREAM
2006: This album I started with the goal to produce abstract, intellectual, "avantgarde" kind of stuff, but over the course of it's production I grew tired of the original concept, resulting in a journey from abstract sound constructions to (almost) "pop"…in a way. In the final arrangement of course, I tried to bring these two extremes into a harmony somehow.
So, You find insane electronic weirdness, jazz tunes, dance and oriental rock working hand in hand to form a bigger context. The title track features Reinhold Krämer on Nord Lead, and another track my wife Cäcilia on vocals…
78. ELECTRICITY DID FAIL ON ME
2006 to 2007: When in late 2006 a friend mentioned to me that he liked "Electro" and explained that it's "80ies with up-to-date beats" I decided to give it a try and produced this mini-album, which mainly pays tribute to my 80ies favorites PROPAGANDA (and maybe the EURYTHMICS…).
79. MARFOLOGY
2006: Experimental electronica, vaguely in the vein of my idols "Mouse on Mars"…
80. WARM UP Vol. 1
2006: Due to circumstances I point out somewhere else, I still rarely have the opportunity do live performances or give concerts.
Still, time and again I was (and I am!) looking for ways to do that (against all odds), and back in late 2006 I decided that since I my talent wasn't that of a keyboard player, but rather being quick and flexible with my programming skills, to explored how far I could get with programming tracks "live" from scratch in a sequencer, without any preperations or preconceptions. And that's exactly what You hear on "Warm Up" - so, this is kind of a first "live" album…
81. WARM UP Vol. 2
2006 to 2007: More live performances during the winter of 2006 to 2007 (see above).
82. FORGETFULNESS
2006 to 2007: Close to the final touches on my box set "No Single Single" I found an unlabeld archive CD-R with four or five tracks on, which I never seemd to have heard before (I swear!). And still - they sounded somewhat like me, apart from some guitar playing I couldn't identify…
After some hours of severe relistening and trying to remember, it slowly occoured to me that one day not too long ago I had taken that old, almost not tunable electric guitar a friend once left me a s a gift and messed around with it while drinking a bottle of wine (or two…).
Eventually, that tune became the title track of this album, which I completed with another couple of "lone" tracks that did fit well into the slightly optimistic style of those forgotten tracks… All in all, one of my best working "pop" offerings.
83. ALL THE PIECES FIT FOREVER
2007: The five shorter tracks of this album were designed for my wife Cäcilia to sing to them, but as on earlier occasions, time and circumstances were against us, and the singing never took place. Still, the highlight of the album is the later added title track, a slow ambient exercise that turned out to top my former "epic champion" "The Silent Lie" in length by ten minutes…
84. A CALM BUT STEADY FLOW
2007: In early 2007 I already had started to be active on Myspace (thanks to the continuing recommendations of a good friend) and had met the austrian ambient musician and radio DJ Alex "Klangforschung" Spechtenhauser there. In creative mood, I decided to produce an ambient album especially for his radio show, and to my great delight, he aired it in it's entirety. It's one large cohesive mix, oscillating between ambient, psychedelic and (a little) dance.
85. WRONG NOTES ON A FALSE PIANO
2007: Something COMPLETELY different: as a kind of balance to my electronic escapades, I improvised on my wife's piano (a wonderful Yamaha baby grand we sadly had to sell a few years ago, replacing it by a budget sample-based piano…). Now, I'm clearly not a trained piano player at all, still: when I have a good day, my noodling can sound somewhat inspired. So I decided to include one album with piano improvisations to the CD box, to represent this side of my musicality as well. Rather jokingly I titled the bigger part of the improvisations "The Olm Concert", as a loving side blow to "The Köln Concert" by my admired Keith Jarred (I lived in a village called "Ober Olm" - hence the title…). So, for those who might complain about my music being "artificial" or "programmed" (which is true…) a chance to listen to me "unplugged" (mistakes included).
86. CHALLENGE 29
2007: The final album to be included into "No single Single" was also specially designed for Alex Spechtenhausers radio show. Stylistically, it walks the line between commercial and"experimental, and between dance and traditional electronica…
Albums after NO SINGLE SINGLE:
87. ...UND FREUNDE - LIVE NOVEMBER 2007
2007: After finishing the big box in October of 2007, I decided to celebrate the end of this exhausting endeavour with a concert for my small circle of friends. It finally took place before a breathtaking audience of about 30 invited guests, at exactly the same barn as the original session that led to the B4 SUNRISE album "Martians" (see above). I was happy about the contribution of my long time musical friends and partners Klaus Chmielewski, Wolle Bechtluft, Reinhold Krämer and of course my beloved wife Cäcilia on vocals. My brother Steffen, who works as a sound engineer and death metal producer, cared for the sound and the recording. Not being used to live performances, I had some difficulties with the sound (especially the first track was muddy…also later, the lead sounds were way too loud, while Cäcilia's vocals had the wrong reverb and effects…). Still, it was a very special evening, and the set all in all worked well, although I compromised to the (anticipated) taste of my audience and included more meldodic and even "jazzy" parts (while for myself I had preferred a much quiter and "ambient" set…).
88. POISON TONGUE (with B4 SUNRISE)
2008: Finally (after five years) Wolle, Reinhold, me and a couple of musical friends managed to come up with a second album - the result was much more "commercial" in places than our debut, and the stylistic range much wider. For some reason, I like the first album more, nevertheless I think "Poison Tongue" is a strong effort - a wide panorama of kraut rock meets metal meets funk meets ambient meets main stream rock meets prog rock meets King Crimson meets Penguin Cafe Orchestra meets ethno folk meets pschedelic, and finally: Franz Lambert cheap organ instrumentals. If You'd had our sick taste You'd understand why this makes perfect sense…
89. A GAME OF CHANCE
2008: In the summer of 2008 I had the GREAT luck to enjoy a double pleasure when I attended the first day of the "Night of the Prog" festival on the Loreley, for 1.) as a highlight of several great concerts for the first (and maybe) last time I saw my idol Klaus Schulze in concert (together with the adorable Lisa Gerrard) and 2.) I met my Myspace friend Alex Spechtenhauser (see above) in person. We had a long talk about aleatoric (or random) music, and Alex had ideas for sonic installations which later inspired me to produce an album that explores the idea of aleatoric music form different persepectives, resulting partly in rather "new age" tracks, but also in abstract academic soundscapes. It's a double album, by the way, CD two consisting just of one extended track (my longest to date…).
90. DAYS IN THE SUN
2008: This laid back mix of melodic electronica originally formed part eight of my blog series "Seqeunz und Konsequenz" (see below).
Actually, it started with some tracks I produced as personal gifts to two long-term Myspace friends, inspired both by music they produced themselves, and music they enjoyed to hear.
Maybe this sense of purpose enableded me to be more to the point, and more accessable than at other occasions; at least, in the end Part Eight proved to be so convincing that I just couldn't resist to turn it into a "regular" album. It also contains wonderful vocal performances by my wife Cäcilia and our daughter Hannah…
91. ODDWIND
2009: Especially for a live performance at the wedding of two friends, I bought my first hardware synthesizer after 13 years (the "Blofeld" by Waldorf), and recorded this album while making myself familiar with that new tool. The special thing about "Oddwind" is that I played everything (with exception of one short track) live, without programming or sequencing or the use of arpeggiators - something I had wanted to do long before, but never really tried. I confess, some of the tracks have problems with timing, yet all in all, the album is a nice exercise between psychedelic, old style electronica and ambient…
92. OMBRA
2010: Already almost finished in late 2009, I produced this atmospheric ambient/drone album especially for the Russian, Moscow based ambient community AmbiOne, so it was kind of a first public (non-commercial label) release. I still regard OMBRA as one of my finest ambient efforts, and it also was friendly received by the public ("A must-have", as one Russian gentleman commented…). As far as I know, You can still download OMBRA in HQ from AmbiOne (all Russian page, scroll way down there for the link).
There is also an (English) review of OMBRA by Russian reviewer Artemi Pugachov on his excellent website "Encyclopedia of Electronic Music"…
93. ENDLESS MIND PORTAL
2011: Containing more than 3 hours of retro space ambient and sequencer based music, this large project is my tribute to the masters of the Berlin School type of electronica (Tangerine Dream, Ashra, Michael Hoening, but foremost Klaus Schulze). Not a carbon copy, but rather my own interpretation of the essence of the music from the Golden 70ies.
At first, this project was published only as an entry in the forum of the EM Portal (an online community dedicated to classical electronica), with free mp3 download, and later shifted to BandCamp.
It also received a fair share of applause, and a friendly review by Dutch reviewer Bert Strolenberg on his excellent page SONIC IMMERSION…
( / ) APRIL RAIN (no number since it is only an EP)
2009/2011: This one is somehow the "odd one out" of this list and maybe should rather appear oin the addendum (see below) - on the other hand, since it's quite "popular" (for my humble standards), I decided to put it here…
In autumn 2011, a colleague and friend convinced me to give the distribution platform BandCamp a try (which proved good advice!).
To celebrate this, I decided to start with a free EP as a giveaway . Looking around for suitable material, my eyes fell on a live-in-the studio improvisation I had recorded back in 2009 (the title track), which I had mixed feelings about. I loved parts of it, and wasn't really sure about others. Then again, it had proved rather popular on yet another platform where I had once put it and then (almost) forgotten, called SoundClick. Anyway, I decided to use it and to complete the set with some other improvisations I had done recently.
It's all very much in Berlin School / traditional space music vein, parts of it are quite melodic, while others feature lively sequencing in the first place…
94. THIS FRAGILE HIDEAWAY
2011: Actually, also my second project on the BandCamp platform (or third, depending on how You count ENDLESS MIND PORTAL, which existed earlier, but was put on BandCamp later…) was originally a free giveaway - but on a mor "epic" scale, as it contains more than two hours of music. In this case it was my Christmas gift to my listeners in that year; in the meanwhile, it "transformed" into a regular album.
While the bigger part of the material consists of Berlin School style improvisations again, sometime quite rough and with an experimental edge to them in places, it also contains two serene ambient tracks.
95. A SLOW WALK THROUGH CLEAR AIR
2007/2012: I started the year 2012 with the first (re)release of material from my sporadic blog series "Sequenz und Konsequenz" (see in the addendum below). This album contains the original ambient/electronica epic "Part 1" - as the original all in one long track, as well as a remastered version, which also contains newly recorded sections, and is split into several tracks (so sections can be skipped or picked as the listener wants to…). In addition, an album's worth of new bonus material was added. While the original "Part 1" is (more or less) in a modern/contemporary ambient style, the bonus tracks are rather retro, more traditional electronica. The reason for this was that many new listeners only knew me with such material, and in case someone bought the album in the hope to get some more of it, I didn't want to let them down…
96. THE DAYS OF JOHNNIE ZILCH
2009-2012: Well, the proper headline for this release maybe should be: "soundtrack to an imaginary movie" - for that is what we have here.
Just a side project of sorts, the whole thing had an interesting evolution:
More than half of the tracks which form this album were originally laid down as basic tracks for an experimental cooperation with a female guitar player, already in 2009.
Unfortunately, this didn't develop any further. Instead, when communicating with a musician and friend who is running a non-profit label on LastFM, Zilch Records, the idea evolved to contribute an experimental EP, especially for this…
To make a looong story short, I used these older tracks and added some from another project that was on hold as well, and after having a (hopefully) brilliant idea how to get all these quite different tracks under one roof, I produced still some more tracks, and the result was this album - which is a rather experimental offer, much (dark) ambient tracks, some experimental stuff, and some weird "dance" interludes - all forming the soundtrack of a mind movie about fears and dangers connected with nuclear power and the atomic industry.
If You like, You can read the whole "making of" story at the albums BandCamp page (yes - there are two releases in this case, on BandCamp for those who like to have their music in HQ quality (and are ready to pay some Euros for that privilege), and here on LastFM, at 96. Zilch Records …
97. R IS FOR "ROCKET" AND S IS FOR "SPACE"
2010-2012: This is a rather traditional space music / electronica album with sometimes melodical, sometimes more rhythmic sequencer based tracks (and a few quiter spots).
The story behind it is that in late 2009 I bought a soundset for my Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer which was created by excellen musician and sound designer Jörg Schaaf.
I have a lose contact to Jörg, and decided to explore this set by creating some tracks that used exclusively the sounds coming from it, and then sending it to Jörg, as a personal little present.
As there was no time limit, these tracks evolved over a period of some months, and then other things happend, and I put it aside for a while.
When I next listened to those tracks again, I liked them a lot, and I decided to just produce two or three more, and turn it into an "official" album. But then I had to realized that the initial "fire" was gone, and it proved difficult to re-connect to the earlier vibe (I think it worked out in the end, but it took me a while…).
98. SQUEALING WITH GLEE
2007/2008/2012: This album is the second (re)release of material from my sporadic blog series "Sequenz und Konsequenz" (see in the addendum below). This album contains the complete "Part 2", two tracks from "Part 6" and (rather as a bonus track) "Part 7" (which as a rather traditional piano/synth improvisation is something like the "odd one out" from that series…).
Especially "Part 2" is rather weird and experimental, but also has it's Berlin School like moments. Music hard to categorize actually, and it's maybe best approached with a sense of sonic humor…
99. MY SETUP IS UPSET
2012: This is a live album, and a rather "epic" one again, containing more than four hours of music in total. All the tracks are connected to my first public appearance at the RaumZeit Festival 2012 in Dortmund, Germany. While most of the tracks were played live at my little studio (all completely improvised and live without any playback), when I rehearsed and prepared for that event, it also contains the two sets I actually played at the festival themselves (partly improvised, and partly supported by reduced backings), as well as the two "naked" backing tracks, for those of You who are curious to find out what exactly came from the playback, and what was played live (there were some discussions among musicians lately that made me decide to include those…).
100. (A) 100 MILLION MILES UNDER THE STARS
2012: Well, and THIS is IT: my album number 100, and at the same time the first one to be released with a (commercial) label, SynGate Records, a real milestone for me!
It was quite a challenge record this one, because I had to get quite a few paramters "under one roof" (or believed at least I had to…):
What I wanted to do (obviously), all that made my music "special" (if there is anything like this…), the specific stylistic preferences of the label (which is specialised in the Berlin School tradition of electronica, or less specifically of music that is loosely in that vein), expectations I believed (or suspected) my listeners might have, and some more. Also, there was a (self chosen) deadline to finish it, as both me and the label thought it would be a good idea to have it released in sync with my performance at the RaumZeit Festival (where SynGate also had a booth).
After a slow start finally inspiration came along, and I recorded really a lot of (very promising) material. Too much for one album actually, so (with a slightly bleeding heart) I had to pick a (rather) small number of tracks. The result is, I think, a quite cohesive mix of space ambient and melodic, sequence based electronica.
One one track I was accompaigned by the excellent flute playing of flautist/electronic musician Hans-Dieter Schmidt (who is part of the German Em scene under his project name Imaginary Landscapes since the 80ies).
100. (B) 100 MILLION MILES UNDER THE STARS - THE SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME
As mentioned right above, in the sessions for "100 Million Miles Under The Stars" a lot of additional music was produced and recorded. Many of those tracks are not worse than those which ended up on the album - it was rather a question of which tracks best form "a whole that's bigger than the sum of it's parts". Also, I asked several people in who's good musical taste I trusted, and there was a number of tracks which were favorited by most, so these were preferred while I considered which to take and which to leave.
However, instead of keeping the rest of the tracks for seperate albums, I soon decided to release them a while after the release of the original album, as a supplementary volume - because to me, the music is connected, and comes from one and the same "wave of inspiration", maybe just showing different sides of what I was concerned with at the time. So, I prefer to mirror this connection in this way.
Also, both releases are "bundled" in terms of distribution: If You have purchased the "main release", I give You a (significant) discount on the supplementary volume. Please read the info on the BandCamp page for details, if You are interested.
By the way, this release is my largest ever, containing more than five hours of music (the larger part different tracks than on the main album, the rest variations or alternative mixes/versions of other tracks)
101. ELEVENTH SUN
This album contains six tracks of slowly evolving textural drone / ambient, here and there enhanced and accentuated by distant melodies, atmospheric samples, sequences, bass lines or light rhythms.
I would describe the overall atmosphere as calming, sedate, introspective and spiritual, in some tracks with a slightly melancholic touch, while others are more lighthearted, and again others rather otherworldy…
Actually, most of the album was already recorded in late 2011. However, at that time I wasn't aware at all that I was working on a new album - I had been invited to contribute to a compilation on the Ukrainian non-profit netlabel GV Sound, and in doing so, the material which now forms this album took shape, with no plans for a release at first.
However, Kilian Schloemp-Uelhoff from SynGate (the label that already has released "100 Million Miles Under The Stars") was interested in releasing the music immediately, but with the plans for "100 Million Miles…" to be my first "official" album release etc. (see above) I decided to wait…
Later in 2012, things fell into place, when Kilian decided to launch a new sublable of SynGate, called "Luna" and dedicated to less traditional forms of electronica, and "Eleventh Sun" fitted in there just perfectly…
102. LE JARDIN OUBLIÉ
A mostly gentle and slightly subdued ambient album released on the net label Ancient Languages Records - and actually my first album ever to be availabel on iTunes.
( / ) KINGS OF THE EARTH (no number since it is a free release for a special purpose)
Special ambient album about the problems and dangers of the use of nuclear energy, on occasion of Earth Day 2013. There is an interesting review in the webzine [url=http://synth-caresses.blogspot.de/2013/05/kings-of-earth-michael-bruckner.htmlSynth Caresses.
103. NAURA
A special album and my first release on the label Klangwirkstoff Records, which only releases music tuned to cosmic frequencies (like the rotation frequencies of planets, or molecules, or in my case to the resonance frequency of Earth's electro-magnetic field, the so called Schumann resonance. There's a very good review of this album on progarchives.com, so if interested please read there…
104. IN LETZTER KONSEQUENZ
This is the final and biggest part of music originally released in my "Sequenz und Konsequenz" blog series in 2007 / 2008 (see below). Both up to then still remaining parts of the series (Part 4 and 5) where, like the other parts before, remastered, partly rearranged and presented together with a wealth of bonus tracks - this time in a variety of "sizes" (buyers can choose between a two, three, four, or five CD-R set, all of them containing the actual two parts, and depending on the set size, more or less (newly recorded) bonus tracks; it has to be mentioned that what is labeled "bonus tracks" here in some cases is even better than the "main" material - especially the two very long compositons "Die Letzte Konsequenz" and "Ygramul". Like the other parts of this series, the album features a wide variety of electronic styles, including ambient, space music, but also dance-ish stuff…
105. THIRTEEN RITES OF PASSAGE
Another release on the SynGate label, this album is compiled from various concerts and live performances I played in 2013; actually it's not completely a live album - some tracks are taken directly from the concerts, in other cases though the live recordings were used as a starting point, and edited, remixed and / or rearranged, resulting in new tracks (with the goal to generate a coherent new album from what basically were recordings from quite different events…).
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Addendum:
SEQUENZ UND KONSEQUENZ (originally only available on a blog for a couple of weeks each, but from early 2012 on extended rereleases):
Part 1 - 2007 (released as A SLOW WALK THROUGH CLEAR AIR AIR 2012)
Part 2 - 2007 (released as part of SQUEALING WITH GLEE 2012)
Part 3 - 2008 (a remixed medley of some older tracks…)
Part 4 - 2008
Part 5 - 2008
Part 6 - 2008 (released as part of SQUEALING WITH GLEE 2012)
Part 7 - 2008 (released as part of SQUEALING WITH GLEE 2012)
Part 8 - 2008 (released as DAYS IN THE SUN 2008)
+ different not-counted parts containing just rehearsal tracks and improvisations…
THE MICHAEL BRÜCKNER GROUP ON LASTFM
Here I already have shared more than seven hours of music which is exclusively for group memembers and not released elsewhere - much of it is actually so good that I wished I had not reserved it for here… ;-)
EVERYONE is cordially invited to join! :-)
At the moment - in August 2012 - I have about seven projects on my hard disc which are rather close to finishing, so quite likely a couple of albums will be added to my catalogue in the course of this year and the next…
(P.P.S. It didn't do…but NOW I found out how to do it: Michael Brückner)