1 – Can you resume the history of Soniq Theater in a few words?After my demise from my previous band Rachel’s Birthday in 1997 I decided to continue making music on my own. So far I released 8 albums in 8 years, from 2000 to 2008, and as I do it all alone the music is never played live but through the years reviewed in numerous magazines and played in about 80 radios.
2 – Are you satisfied with this new album “Life Seeker”, the songs, the recording process, production, final product?
As on every Soniq Theater album, the songs are written in different years, the oldest is from 1989 and the newest from 2008. The most of the old songs are produced in the recent time, but there are also some original recordings from 1998. The recording process and the production is like on the previous albums as I didn’t change my system. More to that topic see below at the 4th question. I think it’s once again a good blend of songs, and may the listeners decide if this one is a strong or a weaker Soniq Theater album.
3 – Your music is a blend of several styles, from Progressive to Symphonic, from Electronic to Classical, and even some Hard Rock. Which bands do you listen to and influence you to write music for Soniq Theater? And books? And movies?
Far too many bands and artists to mention them all here, but the most known and important: Kansas, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Dream Theater, Rick Wakeman, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, classical music of Bach, Händel, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Bruckner. I’m open-minded to other music genres, like fusion, world music, folk, film-music, soundscape music…Books: of course the Lord of the Rings and other fantasy stories…science fictions, esoteric and spiritual books (not very known). I like documentary films of all regions of the earth (and universe), you may have noticed that I have also cosmic and geographical themes in my songs.
4 – All the music released so far under the moniker Soniq Theater was composed, performed, produced, mixed, mastered and self-released by yourself. Can you explain this one-man-band and do-it-yourself process?
First of all, the music is not programmed on computer but really played on the keys and then edited. I have a MIDI-setup of a masterkeyboard, including a sequencer, and some keyboards and soundmodules connected via MIDI. If I have finished a song, I store it on discette and record it on DAT-tapes. And from that DAT-tapes, I record the songs for an album on a master-CD-R, and from that CD-R I burn all the copies.
5 – Can you explain some of the subjects explored in the lyrics in “Life Seeker”?There are only three songs with a few lyrics, the title track “Life Seeker” is about a man who survived a bad illness, and is looking for new experiences, the second one “Hot House” is a tribute to the beauties of the man-magazine Penthouse, the third “Odd times and strange days”, if I wrote this, I really was in a strange mood, and I thought that this one is gonna be really very progressive.
6 – The cover artworks in your CDs are always very simple and the CDs are released in CD-R format. Are you trying to keep it as simple as possible without spending too much money and avoid working with a label?
Well, I have my experiences with labels, not the best ones I admit. Apparently, no label that I contacted was willing to release the Soniq Theater music, I understand their reasons, one-man band, too artificial sound, no natural instruments, too diverse styles of music, and so on…
So I decided to do it all alone. I admit, that I’m no designer and the artwork is really simple, but through the years I found out, that most people simply want to hear music, and don’t care too much about the artwork.
And yes, the releases are only on CD-R, because in the opposite of the labels, who want to sell a perfect product, my intention is, to spread my music as far as possible, and the best way is through radios. So reality proved, that it was good enough to be played on about 80 radios. All radio-DJs that I send my music accept the CD-R format and play the music. So what…
7 – How do you see the Progressive and Symphonic Rock scenes nowadays? Which bands, labels, festivals, magazines do you look up to and recommend?
Well, I’m only connected to the scene by the web. I don’t go to festivals or watch bands live. In the web there are really some great websites and webzines for progressive rock (of course yours)
I watch and listen sometimes webradios playing prog all day, for example Delicious Agony and Aural Moon. So I get a good impression about what’s going on in the scene. And I can say much is going on through the web, my whole Soniq Theater project would have been lost without the internet.
8 – You can leave now a final message or say something important we forgot.
Music was my first love and it will be my last,
the music of the future, the music of the past
(John Miles)
Questions: RDS
Answers: Alfred Mueller
Soniq Theater – Life Seeker (CD-R 2008) – Self ReleasedNovo trabalho a solo do Alemão Alfred Mueller. São 10 novos temas, em cerca de 50 minutos e meio, de fusão Progressivo, Sinfónico e Electrónico com alguns toques clássicos, world music e Rock. Nomes a apontar como influências poderão ser Vangelis, John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Yes, Kraftwerk, Rick Wakeman, Mike Oldfield, Mark Snow e bandas sonoras de sintetizador dos 80s (lembram-se daqueles filmes de terror e sci-fi dos 80s?). A primeira parte do disco é muito boa, mas depois a meio começa a perder alguma qualidade, passando a soar a banda sonora de sintetizador do mais kitsch possível. Estão aqui alguns dos melhores temas alguma vez gravados por este músico Alemão, mas também estão aqui alguns dos piores! Tirando alguns sons mais kitsch que lhe dão um ar mais “pindérico”, a maioria deste material é de alta qualidade. Se não vos incomodar a vertente electrónica do Progressivo, ou até, se for mesmo essa a vossa predilecção, então esta é uma excelente aposta.
70% http://www.soniqtheater.de/ RDS
