philip sherburne

They say to allow one day for every time zone crossed when sloughing off one's jetlag. Home now a week from my trip to Montreal, though, my clock seems subtly but permanently rejiggered. We've moved up our alarm clock from 7am to 6:30, and I'm still occasionally getting out of bed before that. But I'm wondering if inspiration flows in cycles as well. The weeks before MUTEK were a mad dash of deadlines and errands, MUTEK itself an enjoyable blur; since getting home, sleeping early and relatively stress-free, I'm having a hard time getting excited about much of anything related to music or writing. (Also, is it just me, or do the house and techno offerings of 2009 seem a little blah? Some scattered individual triumphs, or at least worthy showings, sure—but there still seems to be precious little in the form of an overarching narrative, or even competing narratives. Where's the surprise? Whither the WTF?)

In any case, the May's labors finally bear fruit. The new issue of The Wire features my cover story on Moritz von Oswald, in which the Berlin techno icon talks about dub, Basic Channel, his mixing and mastering work with Honest Jon's, the Recomposed project with Carl Craig, and, of course, the Moritz von Oswald Trio, featuring Max Loderbauer (NSI., Chica and the Folder, Sun Electric) and Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay, Luomo, Uusitalo). I highly recommend their new album, Vertical Ascent, which translates the energy of their live performances to disc in four spontaneous, evolving tracks recorded live in the studio (and mixed live as well).

It was an honor to be asked to do the piece, and a daunting undertaking, but I'm quite happy with it. Many thanks to Max, Sasu, and Honest Jon's Mark Ainley for all their help, and many, many, many thanks to Moritz, who turned out to be one of the most generous artists I've ever had the pleasure to interview.