We're currently very busy with finishing the last few songs for the soon-to-be-released Antichrisis-album which we will be distributing by ourselves as a download only-version via Bandcamp. There is no official release date yet, but as we're getting on really well with all the stuff like mixing, mastering, cover-layout and so on, I guess everything's going to be ready by February 2012 -- but as always we'll keep you informed on this website and via Twitter about further developments (and due to some requests there will also be a solution for those of you living in areas with no proper Internet connection).

This forthcoming album is also the reason why we haven't released any new song on SoundCloud recently, as we'd like to have some exclusive tracks for those of you who are willing to spend a few bucks on the album -- but of course there will be a preview of those exclusive tracks as soon as they're
finished.

So until then Ayuma and me (as well as our cats Sheela & Whisky) are wishing all of you -- with a quotation of John Lennon -- “A very happy Xmas and a happy New Year, let's hope it's a good one without any fear".

Sid & Ayuma

Ayuma and me are back from our holidays in Cornwall: unfortunately we had to return much earlier than planned due to the fact that yours truly had managed to get hold of an awful inflammation on his foot which made further walkings on the Coast Path definitely impossible: such calamities surely never happened to me when I was younger — bugger!

Nevertheless we would like to thank all the kind people that we’ve met on our short but nevertheless wonderful journey — especially Rob Lloyd & his wife Teresa from Boscastle as well as Mrs. Watson who runs the lovely St. Christopher’s B&B (next to the Napoleon Inn, which is a highly recommendable pub in this little village with its outstanding coastline and the amazing Museum of Witchcraft).

Nevertheless we’re using our remaining days of vacation to work sedulously on new tracks -- and so Ayuma and me managed to finish “Walking With Angels” which you’ll hopefully be enjoying: it’s another lighthearted piece of pop music by your heretofore rather sepulchral gloomsters!

As all you keen readers of Antichrisis’ blog might have already noticed, releasing a new album is a very unsteady operation these days: plans for releasing “The Legacy remains” went down the drain when Reartone Records called it a day a few years ago, and now that Tunguska Records also kicked the bucket it seems that Antichrisis’ scheduled album releases do stand just the same chance as a mayfly in a thunderstorm.

But as so many of you out there have requested an album, Ayuma and me were asking ourselves how we could accomplish an album release on sensible terms.

One good thing is that we wouldn’t need a studio as we’re able to record and produce all our songs at home -- and even if our technical standards might not come close to those of let’s say Bob Rock or Rick Rubin, we’re still achieving something that doesn’t sound too bad for an autodidactic independent production.

Now getting these self-produced tracks on CD is a different story: compact disc manufacturing and printing of booklets ain’t something that I’d call dirt cheap, but thanks to the blessings of the Internet it is nowadays within the bounds of possibility to distribute a downloadable version of an album on decent conditions.

So we decided to release a download-only version of the new Antichrisis album by the beginning of next year: you’ll get all tracks in highest possible quality (i. e. without any bit-rate reduction just as you’d expect it from any standard CD) as well as specially designed artwork (front cover and back cover) - and it goes without saying that all this will be reasonably priced.

All that’s left for you to do then is buying the album, download its tracks and artwork, burn the songs on CD (if desired), print the cover and off you go: a brand new Antichrisis album, directly acquired from the artists without being charged for any kind of intermediate trade or stock-keeping: of course we’ll keep you informed about further details concerning track list, release date, pricing and source of supply on this blog.

This also means that availability for free downloads of Antichrisis’ songs from SoundCloud will be stopped by 23 October 2011. Of course you will still be able to listen to all tracks in full length via streaming audio, but with the forthcoming release of the new album we’ll have to draw the line somewhere eventually.

But enough of that for now: we’re hoping that you’ll like the idea of a self-distributed downloadable Antichrisis-album, and in the meantime Ayuma and me hope that you’re going to enjoy our new track “Creatures of a Jade Lagoon” that we’ve just uploaded to the music section of this website.

By the way: thanks to Rüdiger Abend there is now some live footage from Antichrisis’ performance at the Markthalle Hamburg in 1999. Of course not the best audio quality, but nevertheless a nice remembrance of Antichrisis’ first stage appearance ever (although with a completely different line-up than today): Watch it on the video section on this Website or on YouTube.

A few days ago we received a sad email by our label Tunguska Records: unfortunately Tunguska had to close down due to the fact that it’s almost impossible these days for a small ambitious independent record company with low budget but much better taste in music to make ends meet.

This means that there won’t be any new Antichrisis album for now, which is a shame as our collaboration with Tunguska Records was a really pleasant experience -- hence we’re wishing Julia Dobberstein all the best for her future plans!

Good news is that this drawback won’t stop Antichrisis in any way: we’re going to release all the songs that were planned for the aforementioned album on our website within the next few months and we will also carry on with continuously writing and producing new songs, because in the end Ayuma and me are in it for the music and not for business purposes.

As long as we’re still loving, dancing and dreaming, there will also be new songs!

I often receive mails asking me about the equipment I’m using for creating Antichrisis’ tracks, so I thought I’d better answer that question here and now for anyone who might need some recommendation concerning musical equipment.

Me and Ayuma are both working on iMacs, and while Ayuma’s recording her vocals in Garageband I’m completely addicted to Logic Studio as my favourite digital audio workstation instead.

When creating a track I usually start with the drums - and for me there’s no better software for creating awesome sounding drums than Toontrack’s Superior Drummer: easy to use, great sounding kits and lots of expansion packs and producer presets for all kind of purposes. If more “non-natural” sounding drum sounds are required I’m always turning to Spectrasonics’ Stylus RMX which offers an almost insane flexibility and gazillions of stirring drums and percussions.

There are two different ways for creating bass tracks for Antichrisis: Either I’m playing my good old balky Vantage Avenger 4-string bass through IK Multimedia’s Ampeg SVX amp simulation or I’m using Spectrasonics’ magnificent bass module Trilian via MIDI-keyboard instead.

When it comes to guitars, I’m usually using our Takamines for acoustic sounds and my Epiphone Tom Delonge model for that certain electric twang. Again I’m playing those guitars through another amp simulation by IK Multimedia called Amplitube 3 which I prefer over Native Instrument’s Guitar Rig 4 Pro especially when it comes to crunchy and distorted guitar sounds.

But let’s move on to the keyboards: I’m using a plain simple MIDI-keyboard by M-Audio as my master-keyboard and I’m preferring the following plug-ins for creating great and outstanding arpeggios, leads, pads and all other kinds of strange noises:

Omnisphere by Spectrasonics and Alchemy by Camel Audio are definitely my favourite workhorses as they provide lots of inspiration, clean user interfaces and mind-blowing sound quality - but M-Tron Pro and Virtual String Machine by GForce as well as Miroslav Philharmonik by IK Multimedia are also providing great additional sounds.

So all that’s left is sound processing itself: For these purposes I’m always coming back to IK Multimedia’s T-Racks for engineering and mastering, and if it comes to FX I’m quite often making use of Uhbik and Toontrack’s EZmix, but Logic’s own implemented FX-section is also highly recommendable.

But always keep in mind that it’s not the equipment that counts but your own creativity and skills instead!

We’ve just finished two new Antichrisis tracks: Find them here - and while you’re listening to them don’t forget to vote for your favourite Antichrisis song in this sidebar as well as for the title of Antichrisis’ forthcoming album (just scroll down on this page to the preceeding blog entry where you’ll find the album title poll).

So the Tunisian protests did light the beacon for more Middle Eastern Nations: protests have started in Egypt and Yemen, too, and as always there are massive police forces trying to oppress those people demonstrating for freedom and democracy. Egyptian authorities even shut down internet access and mobile phone networks, curfew is also in place, but the protests continue.

Secret US embassy cables sent from Cairo in the past two years reveal that the Obama administration wanted to maintain a close political and military relationship with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, who is now facing a popular uprising.

I guess the same goes for Germany, too: satisfactory trade relations always require fraternisation with the respective rulers, hence there’s no support for the protesters neither from the US nor from German State Department, but nevertheless I do hope that their fight for social justice and Human Rights in their countries will prevail.

Seems that the Tunisians are really getting rid off Zine el Abidine ben Ali’s corrupt and brutal political regime. The Tunisian uprising is the first time in recent history in which an Arab public rather than a political rival or foreign invader has managed to oust a dictator. I just hope that what happened in Tunisia will hopefully be a domino for other countries, too.

All my respect goes to the brave and dignified people of Tunisia who are standing against ben Ali’s regime and its henchmen!

Dear Devotees,

A new year is lurking curiously round the corner and so I’m jumping at the opportunity to introduce a new design for Antichrisis’ website which I hope you’ll going to like. And please don’t worry: New Antichrisis songs are already on the way, too, but it’ll take some time until I get around producing and mastering them.

In the meantime -- and because now is just the right time for this -- here are my TFCOATs (Top Five Christmas Songs of all times):

“Christmas Day” - Dido
“Stop The Cavalry” - Jona Lewie
“Harlem Country” - Kirk Brandon
“The Christmas Song” - The Raveonettes
“Fairytale of New York” - The Pogues

Best Wishes and a Happy New Year to all of you - and let me know what you think of the new website design.

I sometimes receive emails asking me for an autograph -- and I have to say that I haven’t got the faintest idea why some people are so set on getting something so ordinary like my signature; in fact there’s nothing special about my signature (the only thing that distinguishes a signature from an autograph is simply the fact that a signature is written on an ordinary piece of paper whereas an autograph usually comes on a glossy photograph).

If truth be told there are myriads of people possessing a signature of me: my employer, the guy at the cashier’s desk, my health insurance company, the communist party, the credit card company -- my signature is so bloody widespread amongst all those authorities, companies and institutions that it cannot possibly be considered as something special.

But what all these aforementioned institutions and authorities assumedly don’t have is one of my songs: unlike my signature these songs are part of my personality, they contain a great deal of my spirit and soul, my creativity and my feelings. They are so much more personal than any autograph; actually they are something really special and the best thing about them is that you’re all welcome to download them for free here. As Steve Jobs would have said “Isn’t that awesome?”

Just two things to think about: in the past painters didn’t sign their artworks. Why the heck should they? A signature out of the blue would have spoiled the whole painting, and besides it was more important that the painting spoke for itself than its creatorship. Try to spot an autograph on one of Rembrandt’s portraits and you’ll see what I mean -- in fact that’s the reason why it’s sometimes so difficult for art historians to allocate certain pictures to certain artists.

And here’s another one: I once had the chance to attend one of Terry Pratchett’s excellent readings, and I’ll have to admit that even I was tempted to get a signature of my favourite author at the end of the event -- but then I saw the mind-bogglingly long queue of fans waiting for him to sign their books, and a considerable amount of them was not only handing over just one paperback to sign but their complete collection of discworld novels instead.

I really admired Terry for his braveness and friendliness, although one could easily see that he had severe pains in his right hand (mind you, the poor chap was doing lots of readings in these days). So I thought it would suit him better if he would not have to sign my book, too, and went off without an autograph -- because his spirit and his genius is in his novels, not in his signature.

So this is the understanding of politics of Germany’s conservatives: police violence against peaceful protesters in Stuttgart.

What’s happening there is simply a disgrace for every democratic society: citizens are protesting peacefully against a megalomaniac and sumptuous project that’s going to destroy a beautiful part of the city, and all of sudden children, old people and harmless campaigners get beaten up and violated by teargas and water cannons. Seems that Thatcherism is raising its ugly head again -- this time in Germany’s South.

I do hope that the people of Baden-Württemberg will remember that treatment of citizen concerns at the next federal state elections!

Just finished mixing and mastering “Adrenalin” which can be downloaded for free here. It’s the very last song that I’ve produced in our old tenancy in Zirndorf, because we’ll be moving to Renzenhof next week. This means also that I don’t know yet when we’re going to be connected to the internet again (dealing with german Telekom in such cases is never exactly what one would call a pleasant user experience), so there possibly won’t be any news from Antichrisis for quite some time. But as soon as we’ve sorted everything out we’ll be working on new tracks again.

In the meantime we hope you’re going to enjoy “Adrenalin” as much as we did when we were working on that song - and we also hope to be back on the track real soon!

By the way: New Antichrisis Interviews at www.hardharderheavy.de (in German only, also includes a very profound review of A Legacy of Love Mark II) and at www.lagrosseradio.com (in French only).

Awesome news: Antichrisis’ renowned demo “Missa Depositum Custodi” is finally available for free download at Tunguska’s website (and coincidentally you can also order the re-issue of “Cantara Anachoreta” - remastered by Harris Johns - there). Once you have registered you’ll be able to download all tracks of the original demo tape as well as some unreleased tracks from these early years for free from Tunguska’s website. Don’t miss it!

A few months ago Holger Warschkow of Dark Feather asked me for a contribution to his zine’s 10th anniversary edition, and I was more than glad to agree to provide a remix of “Crossing The Line” that I was working on at that time.

Maybe a lot of you might think something like “Duh - does the world really need another dispensable remix? Aren’t remixes just a bad case of flogging a dead horse with making some extra money from an already released song?” - and of course I can’t completely deny that attitude.

But there’s something else about remixes: In the older days (yes, I was born in the sixties, so I should know all about those good ol’ times!) a band recorded a song on tape and once it had been mixed and produced that song could not been altered any more - it was on tape, it was done, and the only thing you could do was a bit of remastering when you felt the need for it.

But these days are gone: Nowadays with all those hard disc recording-prospects there is no such thing like a “finished” track any more. Thanks to your software sequencer’s total recall-capabilities one can work on a project, finish it - and re-open it again 12 months later with all the proper settings just for adding an idea for a new guitar line. And me, I surely love that kind operation method.

Besides, since I’ve released the first version of “Crossing The Line” I couldn’t help but notice that this track needed a more powerful Techno beat to make it work - maybe there are some things that you’ll only find out after having “lived” with a song for a couple of weeks.

Anyway, that’s the reason why I picked up “Crossing The Line” again and revised it for Dark Feather No. 10 (by the way: you can still get the entire double-album here): the groove’s emphasis is now focused completely on danceability and there’s also a more aggressive midsection as well as additional vocals by Ayuma. You may download or listen to “Crossing The Line (Dark Feather Remix)” here. Enjoy!

Just uploaded a new song called “No Going Back”: Some of you may remember this track because its demo version appeared on this website long time ago. “No Going Back” was written during the time I wrote lots of other stuff for “The Legacy Remains” (i. e. the album that never was), but I wasn’t really satisfied with the original version.

But when Ayuma started singing that song I instantly knew that we were working on the real thing. I also noticed that my primal scintillation of recording “No Going Back” as a plain vanilla ballad without any drums and bass was a flop, as the song seemed to lack the sparkling brilliance that is now added by the rhythm section (thanks to Toontrack’s Superior Drummer and Spectrasonic’s Trilian).

I’m really proud of this version because Ayuma’s vocals bear that special kind of melancholy airiness that emphasizes the overall feeling of that song: the battle is over and you have lost - and there’s absolutely no way of ever going back. But at the same time this means that there’s no more burden on your shoulder: though you’ve been bereaved of something that once was so precious to you, you are now free from a situation that was only causing pain in the end. Let your tears flow for the past, but the future’s promise lies already ahead and it’s sounding like a sparkling waterfall from afar.

Maybe this is one of Antichrisis’ most catchy tracks so far - but don’t get fooled by the song’s overall easiness: still a deep sense of valediction is lurking under its surface.

Although I’m pretty occupied with watching the Football World Cup in South Africa these days, I’ve anyway found the time to upload a new Antichrisis track called “The Point of No Return” (click here to listen or download).

This song has seen quite a few transformations since I’ve written it sometime in 2002; at first it was called “The Way”, but I could never get my head around finishing it - until I played the demo version of that song to Ayuma last January: As soon as she heard the track she was instantly hooked to it - and after rehearsing a couple of times she came up with those great vocal lines you’re now hearing on that recording. Besides, “The Point Of No Return” contains also great performances by Frank J. Hennig and Näx, so thanks a lot for your contribution, guys!

But after I had finished mixing the 78 tracks that “The Point of No Return” consists of I swore to myself that I would never be recording as many tracks for just one song again - possibly!

You may have already noticed the new Flattr-badges at the end of every blog entry and behind every song on this website, hence here’s an explanation for that in a nutshell.

Working on Antichrisis’ music and on this website is a very time-consuming mission. Of course I do it simply because I love making music and fortunately many of you out there seem to like Antichrisis’ musical output. Nevertheless I’m doing all this in my spare time, and believe me: it really is a lot of work.

The songs you find on this website are distributed online for non-commercial purposes, but quite a few of you have asked again and again in the past for an easy way of contributing at least a little bit of money for Antichrisis’ songs - and this is where Flattr kicks in.

Though currently still closed beta (but you can already sign up for an invitation code), Flattr is a micropayment project started by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. Users will be able to pay a small monthly amount and then click buttons on sites to share out the money they paid in among those sites, sort of like an Internet tip jar. The minimum users will have to pay is 2 euros. Sunde said, "the money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month. We want to encourage people to share money as well as content.”

The following video gives you an idea of how Flattr works - and the very first moment I heard about this project I thought “This is the future for content payment on the internet: a fair spreading between users and content providers - and in the end it breaks down the barriers between these two groups. Now isn’t that exactly what Punk was all about in its early days?”

So if you want to be part of this new movement, sign up at Flattr and start the revolution now - and don't forget to click on any of the Flattr-badges on this website to get Antichrisis flattred, too.