Handing over the mic to artists/musicians who break down their new albums track by track/share the thought process behind the creation. Today we’ll hear from Chorchill aka Matthias Cingoez, a prolific German producer/musician whose releases appeared on Muteant Sound, Wormhole World and Binaural Space.
Matthias lives in Goettingen and his vast amount of influences include indie rock (Pavement), hip-hop (Beastie Boys), soundtracks (Hal Hartley/John Carpenter) and electronic music/krautrock (Notwist). He describes his approach to music creation as being largely based on improvisation with no room for overthinking or perfectionism. Antalya is his fifth album, an homage to a Turkish restaurant that he went to with his parents in the mid 90s.
Browse our archives to hear/read more stories!
I like to start things slow. After all, this is about a visit to a restaurant during a time when fast food hasn’t conquered
all of Europe yet. Before you enter restaurant in the evening, there is this view from the outside. The light from
the restaurant shines outside and you get a glimpse of the warmth that awaits you. I love that short period where you are not part of the crowd inside yet (but you’re going to be soon).
As a child, I loved to browse through the menu. You could only choose a single meal, so caution was advised. What if you made the wrong choice? In a really good restaurant this happens rather rarely, of course. I use clear bass tracks on this album more often than I used to. And on this track I just let it disappear in the middle. When the bass comes back it looks for the rest of the tracks the same way I look for the right food.
The musical heart of the album. My parents are Armenians from Istanbul and we have friends who have not only an Armenian but a Greek background too. I admire Greeks for a lot of things (one of them being their admiration for basketball). This track is about a group of people who seem very beautiful to me, have a lot of smiles and yet such sad eyes (and who know how to play Backgammon real good!).
Tavuk is the Turkish word for chicken. The chicken skewer was the first thing I ever ate in the Antalya restaurant. But what‘s more crucial is that it used to take way longer back then until the food came. Nowadays you get your order within fifteen minutes. Maybe this one is about the distorted perception of time between adults and children. Shit, I should have called it something else other than “chicken”!
Another track that fits the theme of the album – it’s all about food and belly dance of course, but both are oriental. And that’s why, for this track, I used rhythms that were still in my head from the hours my mother prepared her belly dance lessons. It is my first real danceable piece of music. So I kept it as minimalistic as possible. I used a lot more beats and percussion on this album than usual. Also the way I put the rhythm tracks together was completely new, at least for me.
This was supposed to be the second danceable track, but I didn’t quite get there. It might be about the amazement I felt when I saw a male belly dancer in action. My mother claimed that men were the best belly dancers, which left me a bit startled back then. This piece is a belated apology to my mom and homage to male dancers.
The title translates to “Your Belly” which could very well have used been by DAF. It describes the phase of the evening after all guests were full but continued to drink. They all started to take part in the dancing, because that’s what Antalya was all about. The belly dancers were inviting us to join in, but I was too shy and just watched.
Last but not least….an homage to the city of Paderborn where the restaurant was located. I come from a small town nearby and Paderborn was the next big town. During my childhood people used to go shopping there on Saturdays. My first experience with McDonalds took place there as well. But much more important were the CD shops. In order to get a larger selection of albums I had to go to Paderborn at that time. This is a good track to listen to during a drive back home.
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