CEE - Tape 2008-2018

It took me a while to release a proper solo album. As the title might suggest, this is not a “best of CEE 2008-2018”, but a very personal collection of unreleased music that tells the story of my journey, one filled with adventures, as well as the everyday life – how I lived over the last decade.

About 10 years ago, I left Al-Haca. Until then, the project had opened the world for me, made me move from
a small city called Greifswald, at the German Baltic Sea, to Vienna. I teamed up with my homie Stereotyp and together we released a bunch of music, which, in my opinion, really changed the sound of bass music back then. Looking back, I know our twist on the genre was way ahead of the game – more eclectic, less bpm- bound and truly genre bending. We played with a league of projects which also didn’t believe in making music in any genre constraints. But after almost a decade of touring with Al-Haca, our crew hit a cross road – bookings slowed down, life caught up with all of us and a break was due. I packed my things and moved to Asia. I followed my heart, got married, had kids and slowed down my musical output. Just for a second.

Together with Darren Ashley I started a music project called Bass Sekolah and released “Lighthouse” & “The Dusun Sessions” which featured artist friends such as Perera Elsewhere, Daedelus, Skinnerbox & Phon.o. Bass Sekolah died at the beginning of 2016 and I was ready to go solo. DJing became more important to me again and I started touring all by myself. Wherever I went, I recorded my surrounding, archived the sound bites and this is the archive that I tapped into when I was putting together this release. This is literally the soundtrack of my life.

This album is a cleanser for me. It tells the story of a musician questioning his artistic relevance. Is this good enough? Good for whom? How much noise do I need to make in order for this to break through the constant noise that others make? In the end, I realised I just need to let go and put it out and let people decide what to make of it.

This album is honest. Life is full of uncertainties. Bright and dark ones. I marked the songs with the year I composed them. The physical release of this album is an analog cassette tape. Maybe you will never unwrap it (since you will receive the more convenient digital version along with it anyway) and just like me you will keep this copy somewhere safe, so that you can remember bits of this last decade physically manifested in this cassette that you bought. Thats what it is to me, at least. My sound diary. When I think of the years that birthed these songs I can see when I was quiet or busy doing other things, other than music. In 2011, our twins were born. What’s supposed have been pure bliss in the life of young parents was, for my wife and I, also a time of loss, as one of the twins had passed away. His identical twin, Hannes, on the other hand, is life in full force. He just turned 7 and is an amazing, funny, articulate, loving and healthy boy. And now we have a third boy full of bouncy laughter and baby’s tears. Through these years of the mundane everyday, of adventures of love, bliss and loss, music became therapeutic for me. It’s also a way to reflect on my life and archive my memories.

Much love, CEE

“The jungle is a shape shifter, a survivor, it knows no boundaries,
it has infinite faces, and speaks in infinite tongues.” – RQM aka Mr.Are.Dot