Pre-order of Sonic Behaviour. You get 2 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Purchasable with gift card
releases May 3, 2024
€7EUR or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Edition of 300 copies
Includes digital pre-order of Sonic Behaviour.
You get 2 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
Sonic Behavior by Driftmachine & Ammer is an album exploring the origins of sound, noise, and various music genres. Alongside lyrical declarations of love for noise (“Song to Noise”), the album delves into sonic reflections on how beauty and emotion emerge from mundane vibrations in the air ("A Siren Is A Simple Device"). For the first time, the analog sound researchers of Driftmachine (Andreas Gerth, Florian Zimmer) incorporate spoken language and noise into their sound research. They have collaborated with word and sound artist Andreas Ammer, renowned for his radio plays with Acid Pauli, aka Console (“Spaceman 85”), or FM Einheit (“Radio Inferno”, “Symphony of Sirens”).
In “A Siren is a Simple Device”, the words are spoken by 81-year-old musician and poet legend Ted Milton (Blurt, Loopspool). Despite its simplicity and obvious ability to produce high volumes, the siren has led a marginal existence as a musical instrument. Yet, it is capable of evoking the most intense emotional states in the listener in the shortest possible time, like almost no other sound-producing mechanism. “Sonic Behavior” capitalizes on this fact. The familiar hypnotic sounds of Driftmachine are accompanied by a siren organ inspired by the revolutionary Russian futurist Arsenij Avranov and built by Andreas Ammer, while the lyrics talk about the simple physical reasons behind the sound chaos that has just been unleashed: A siren ... chops the air into sound.
The core of the album is “Song to Noise,” an electro-acoustic mini-symphony about the beauties of noise and all its producers, which is based on a poem by the British poet Deryn Rees-Jones and spoken by the poet herself and Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten, Hackedepicciotto). Driftmachine & Ammer develop a soundtrack that is as powerful as it is loud and danceable (which is why the LP also includes a textless version of the composition).
“Sonic Sculpture” is the zenith of the work: a text/music track spoken by Ted Milton, which creates the possibility of a sound sculpture that encompasses the universe: What if one could imagine the infernal sound that encompasses all conceivable harmonies at the same time? A piano does when you throw it down an earthly staircase (the epitome of music is a piano falling down the stairs) through silent space to the next theoretically life-filled, Earth-like planet, Proxima Centauri B. The radio makes it possible. Driftmachine & Ammer tried it. The result will be heard there in 4.24 light-years. On planet Earth, the time has come on May 2, 2024. On this day, Sonic Behavior will be released, a conceptual album by Driftmachine & Ammer exploring sound, its creation, and its power.
All music composed by Andreas Ammer, Andreas Gerth,
Florian Zimmer; Berlin & Berg 2022—2023.
Andreas Gerth / Florian Zimmer: electronics
Andreas Ammer: sirens.
“Song to Noise” words by Deryn Rees-Jones, taken from Signs Round a Dead Body (Seren) 1998; german translation by Birgit Kreipe; voices: Deryn Rees-Jones & Alexander Hacke. “The Siren is a simple device” & “Sonic sculpture” words by Andreas Ammer; voice: Ted Milton.
Artwork by Daniel Castrejón.
Mastered by John Tejada.
Modular synth duo Driftmachine started as workshop where Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer, producers of an extensive back-catalog of records and projects, focused on synth exploration and searched for a new approach for groove and bass-driven music.
supported by 4 fans who also own “Sonic Behaviour”
I discovered Caterina in a friend's car when we were driving home from a weekend, and I was out of my mind listening to this album. It touched me and still touches me in a very special way. Bahka
