Thinking about myself

THOUGHTS:

Artistic self portraits always bear the risk that the artist is seen as self-aggrandizing and narcissistic. This starts as soon as you use the term “concept album”, which I often use for my work.
My main intention here is to clarify the fact that I was always wanted to create more than just a few functioning tracks or club hits. I always wanted to draw a larger picture, as much as possible within the system I identified myself with (techno).

I drew up the first sketches for my second main work in May 1993. The main focus of the piece moved from a kind of stellar “everything is possible” sense of joy to reflection on the experiences I’d had. It concerned walks, the feelings during these walks, in Berlin, at the coast, and in a number of other cities I had visited. It reflects the people, landscapes and social conditions expressed in my own desires and doubts.

For the studio work between August and September 1993 I moved all my gear back into Jen’s studio. Some pieces had already been prepared at home (2/3/7/8/10). The others were composed alone at night, while Jens and I worked on the mixing during the day. Reminiscing on the studio work on “Stellar”, I see it as a light-footed game in the sun. “Thinking” was more of a heavy and dark kind of adventure. What both have in common is the direct, relatively effortless realization of an inspiration.

Beginning a techno album in a kind of electrified impressionistic Satie style was a clear statement on the following content which spanned the gulf from “Brooklyn” and “Herbst in Berlin” through to “Movements in Love”.

The best piece on the album and in my eyes the most successful song cycle on any CB album is the final stretch from “Herbst in Berlin” to “Fantasia” to “Loops of Infinity” to “Movements in Love”.

Treptow: “Treptow” deals with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a synonym for a disappearing world. The more it is eliminated and radically replaced by the victorious “other” the clearer it becomes that alternative social structures beyond capitalism will likewise disappear.

Loops of Infinity: June 1993: one evening I had a telephone conversation with a female friend which I ended from one minute to the next with the words: “I’ve gotta hang-up. I just got an idea for my next big piece.” From the beginning, the composition was a balancing act between excessive romantic, excessive speed, excessive piano and excessive arpeggios. With a wink at my favorites from the 19th century, a play on the term “virtuoso” thoughts from the book, “Gödel, Escher, Bach” and the tongue for a hefty debate starting up between techno fundamentalists, I found my own path.

The selected bonus tracks on the MP3 release should illustrate the compositional progress of “Thinking” in more detail.

a) the original layout of “Treptow” was created in April 1993 and represents the starting point for the thematic atmospheric concept of the entire album. Consequently, along with the title track, “Loops of Infinity”, “Herbst in Berlin” and “Movements in Love” it belongs to those tracks which were already clearly developed before going into the studio. All that remained was to finalize the details of the mix to create the final version from the raw material.

b) A lot of the sketches that I made between April and July were not pursued in the studio. In the layout of “Pohadka” (“Fairy-tale”) it is easy to hear that I was trying to combine a “spacetrack” kind of piece in Part A and a new kind of sequencing in Part B which didn’t really work out as you can hear in this piece. Nevertheless this B-part supplied the direct inspiration for the musical idea behind “Fantasia” which I composed and produced in the studio a few weeks later.

c) “Power, corruption and lies” originated completely in the studio, but in the end I thought it was too much “well-produced run of the mill stuff” so I left it off the album. Somehow it sounds fascinatingly like Robert Miles and other British and German artists who all came along later and sold millions of records with a perplexing similar sound…

REVIEWS:

Personally speaking, “Thinking About Myself” blew me away.

Dark Angel, May 1994

… his most recent album is based in the world of classical piano as much as it is in ambient techno. .. It gives you a feeling of contemplation even though the background’s racing. And lets his piano solos fit in perfectly. Cosmic Baby’s off swimming with the dolphins. Follow him if you please.

Sandie Don in: 3-D-World No. 193, May 1994

… it sets Cosmic Baby up as the new wunderkid of melodic German electro-pop.

Sarah Champion in: Melody Maker, 16 April 1994

Cosmic Baby combines vivid, shimmering piano tones with a trance-house kick. Cyber classicism or cosmic muzak? Who cares: enjoy the beauty.

I-D, No. 127, April 1994

… a masterful listening piece that does in fact get you thinking. This album really does tug at your emotions and makes a play at controlling your moods, as you realise there are things equally as powerful as the mind.

Joanne Wain in: JOCKEYSLUT, May/June 1994

… a magical and mystical compilation of downtempo ambient movements and uptempo galloping trance tunes all gently linked together.

Dimitri in: 24 seven, April 1994

… with intuitive, extraordinary charm and affecting melancholy. In many ways, Cosmic is trying to tease the soul out of the machine.

Andy Shih in: UndergroundNews No. 21 / 1994

… delves perhaps a bit too far into the pop realm and falls somewhat short of what Cosmic’s fans would expect.

NET MAGAZINE No. 18, July / Aug. 1994

It’s a good listening experience but the ambient tracks are rather too derivative an the fast tracks a little samey. It’s better than most instrumental things but we were expecting a little more from the self styled ‘Mozart of Techno’.

DJ, 14 April 1994

A classically-trained musician who has both had a “cyberspace opera” broadcast on national radio and performed at the infamous Love Parade, Cosmic Baby has forged an album of the purest, home-listenable electronica – hardly dance hit-heavy, but utterly brilliant.

SKY Magazine, May 1994

Cosmic Baby is clearly a talented bloke, drawing on a huge (and unusually genuine) spiritual energy to devise a unique version of trance. … This is likely to piss off your techno purists… While it’d be sad for this emotional, vulnerable, honest music to be commoditised, in an ideal world ‘Thinking About Myself’ should be heard by millions now, not just in 20 years’ time. In days like these, we need music this good.

Andrew Perry in SELECT No 47, May 1994

While many of his other releases rely chiefly on the sounds of new technology, this places the focus on the piano, with looped synthesizer progressions falling subordinate to the organic melodies. Almost a Cosmic Baby Unplugged, if you will. It plays like a living diary, evoking people, places and personal history.

Tamara Palmer in: URB Magazine, July 1994

Cosmic Baby: “Loops of Infinity”

Cosmic Baby is more than just another rebel with a computer. Delve into either the “Expressionistic” or “Impressionistic” versions of the track, and you will discover a well-studied musician who is apparently not content to simply follow the fold. Rather, this is miles ahead of the electronic music you are used to.

Larry Flick in: Billboard, 29 January 1994

Cos is about to resurface on Logic – stardom is inevitable.

Kris Needs, in: Echoes, January 1994

Slide into those serene strings as ethereal electronics envelope you soul. Mighty majestic movements of magical music mesmerize your mind until that classikal plinky-plonky cosmic baby piano pierces into action. … Superb stuff!

Choci in: Mixmag Update, January 1994

Cosmic Baby: “Fantasia”

In a mellow, contemplative mood, sitting at home all by yourself, it’s guaranteed to move you.

Dark Angel, May 1994

Another awesome, elegaic work from Germany’s master of classical techno. … Another masterpiece…

Brad Beatnik in: music week, 1 October 1994

There is a simple beauty and uplifting power to his music that is impossible to resist, and which has made his LP a regular fixture on my stereo for months. … Class.

Nick Gordon Brown in: Mixmag Update, October 1994

Moody and deep, with a distinctive little piano loop. A great track.

Laurent Garnier in: DJ 29.Sept. 1994

More electronic genius for your head to feed upon. … Do yourself a great big favor and find this single.

Haus of Chris in: URB, Mai 95