Earth Mantra celebrates the addition of another new artist to our roster of contributors, this time German analog synthesist Guenter Schlienz and his delectable new album "The Sardinian Tapes".
And what an engaging collection of music this album contains. Distantly evoking the melodic analog synth grooves of Saul Stokes, though with a much slower, more mellow aesthetic, we think "The Sardinian Tapes" will put a smile on your face and add a bit of peace to your heart.
Guenter recorded the basic tracks in this collection between March and June of 2008 with nothing but a home made (DIY) modular synthesizer in Pula on the isle of Sardinia. He captured the field recordings you hear with a dictaphone at various locations throughout the island during his three month stay there. Guenter believes the environment exerts a strong effect on one's state of mind, therefore the peaceful environment he found in this lovely place directly influenced the kind of sounds he produced while improvising his work, resulting in "... island sounds, very special, very relaxed and open minded, at least in my opinion".
Interestingly, he designed the field-recordings to intermix and interplay with similar synthetic sounds that pretend to be realistic. For example, some of the bird sounds you hear may be real, and some may be synthesized. As Guenter says: "You never know, is this real or the dreamlike picture of reality? And that’s the perfect description for the state of mind I was in during those days".
The artist states that the concept for his solo efforts is a very personal one, like a sonic diary for the different states of mind he experiences. He likes to record under different circumstances and “mind sets”, not just in the familiar studio. For this reason, he constructs his modular synthesizers to be as compact and portable as possible, to enable creativity in whatever situation and location he might find himself, whether outdoors under the stars, at peace on a beautiful meadow, at the beach at sunset, or even just in a hotel room when he works abroad. Certainly the tranquil calmness of the Sardinian atmosphere permeates this album, extending a state of solace to all who listen to it. Simply gorgeous.
So it is with great pleasure that we welcome Guenter Schlienz to Earth Mantra. We are exceptionally proud of "The Sardinian Tapes", his debut release with us, and we hope that he will have much more for us to bring to our audience in the future.
As always, all Earth Mantra releases are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license. For commercial use, please contact us.
![[earman147] Guenter Schlienz - The Sardinian Tapes](/img/work/nomencl/m_3134.jpg "[earman147] Guenter Schlienz - The Sardinian Tapes")
