Sometimes, you just need to imagine yourself as being made of boulders, on a mental trip that has you wandering a surreal landscape.
I am a rock, I am an island. Or… I am a bunch of rocks.
So, we’re pleased to premiere “Flake,” the gorgeous single and music video. With sweetly melancholy violin and modal synth pads drifting atop a gentle groove, it perfectly fits its ambling main character through a hyperreal rendered world, in a film directed and animated by Benjamin Muzzin. (Thanks to creative director Lukasz Polowczyk for sending this our way.)
Silky-smooth as this production is, what’s wonderful about Egopusher is, they’re equally tight live. That relaxed vibe in the music comes from a duo whose playing meshes easily in spontaneous, effortless improvisation.
Egopusher is a Swiss instrumental electronica duo, with two musicians who started out doing sessions with Dieter Meier (half of YELLO). That’s Tobias Preisig (violin, synths) and Alessandro Giannelli (drums, synths).
Photo Nuel Schoch
Here’s the basic gear used for instrumentation:
Tobias:
Violin, through EQ and reverb [think that’s a Strymon Big Sky]
Moog Minitaur (little cousin of the mighty Taurus), triggered by MIDI organ foot pedal controller
Alessandro:
Acoustic drum kit
Arturia MiniBrute synthesizer (yep, one hand on kit, one on synth!)
plus for additional electronic instrumentation:
Computer running Ableton Live, triggering effects and additional MIDI
MFB Tanzbär Lite drum machine
They’ve got some terrific live performances for you to take in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv24-iQCRLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH_XKeeGOTI
Check out the full album on Bandcamp – beautiful, hypnotic stuff:
https://egopusher.bandcamp.com/album/blood-red
It’s wonderful sometimes how much fine quality music is out there, some of it very much without lots of press hype. And nice when it shows up in the inbox, so keep it coming (even if I can’t respond to it all).