guitar & gear: Fender Jaguar, Vox AC 15 Heritage, BSM Spectrum fuzzbooster

guitar & gear: Fender Jaguar, Vox AC 15 Heritage, BSM Spectrum fuzzbooster, Tube Reverb

While listening, stick to it after 1:20! The real mystery only begins there. Guess what it is you’re looking at?

guitar & gear: Fender Jaguar, Fender Tweed Champ, Cry Baby Classic Wah (fixed), Roland Space Echo

mikes: Electro Voice RE-20, Neumann KMS 105

What a splendid season! Short-lived, as it is some melancholic undertones creep in, but the overall image is pure beauty…

guitar & gear: Fender Jaguar, 1967 Vox AC 30 (brilliant channel), BSM treble booster (model DM-T), Tube Reverb

mikes: Electro Voice RE-20, Neumann KMS 105

It’s a monument. This “august” tree I photographed last August has lost none of its dignity, which I guess is the reason why the farmers in the area have saved it.

guitar & gear: Stratocaster, Vox AC 15 Heritage, Cry Baby Classic Wah

But death is the source of new life:

Max Ernst (1891 – 1976) was an exponent of Dadaism and Surrealism. Trees and the woods were essential to his imagination. His recollections of walks with his father gave him a mystic approach to this subject.

That’s what I always liked about his art: it resonates with my own childhood memories. And for me “psychedelic” is very similar to “surrealistic” – only the two belong to different decades of the 20th century.

So, when I “met” this really surrealistic tree, I decided to compose a fitting music. This time I cut the recordings into pieces and made them into a collage.

guitar & gear: Fender Jaguar, Fender Stratocaster, Gibson EB3 Bass, Tweed Champ, Tube Trem, Big Muff, Tube Reverb

Would it be possible to improvise on just one and the same note? That’s a challenge I imposed on myself one day. Like in meditation, sometimes it’s good to restrict your field of action. When actually trying it, I found out it would be better to add the octave. Is an octave a different note?

I don’t know. But to be one with yourself like this tree, amidst all weathers and despite the loss of some branches – that’s a virtue.

guitar & gear: ’67 Stratocaster, Vox ToneLab SE, Tube Trem

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you: Rufus. He is my favorite tree. I know him since I was a child, he knows me, and I know there’s magic to him. Never have I met such an elephant- (or moose-) like vegetable creature in any other place than his, and his place is rather close to my home. So we meet regularly, I hug him, and we exchange opinions.

Near the end of the soundtrack you are being invited to join me and all the other creatures who adore Rufus and dance around the trunk together.

guitar & gear: Gibson EB-3 bass guitar, SWR SM 400 amplifier, tube reverb