on:stop:off – The Lodger, A Story of the London Fog
on:stop:off is a three-piece ensemble from Hamburg, Germany that has evolved from electrifying club sets to creating immersive live scores for classic silent cinema. Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, Alexander Blancke, Andreas Fritzsche and Christoph Lohse present a contemporary, experimental sound journey in which acoustic and electronic instruments merge into a dynamic soundtrack that amplifies the film’s suspense. By weaving distorted samples of 1920s music into their compositions, they create a distinctive atmosphere that seamlessly connects past and present. The timeless story of The Lodger is reimagined through an innovative musical approach that expands the film’s magic with rich, cinematic soundscapes.
Me Succeeds – Projection of Light on Water (Arp Aubert Remix)
Me Succeeds – It’s Tough But It’s Worth It
The two projects Me Succeeds and Arp Aubert share a long-standing friendship – marked by joint performances, releases, and an ongoing musical exchange. From the very beginning, Arp Aubert has been something of the “remix court supplier” for Me Succeeds. For the 2021 album We Wait for You in the Whirlpool, Stephan Lorenz aka Arp Aubert once again contributed a reinterpretation of the track Projection of Light on Water.
His remix picks up the quirky, off-kilter bassline of the original, carefully develops it further, and layer by layer unfolds a dreamy sonic landscape. Driven by shuffling percussion and Arp Aubert’s unmistakably melancholic sound signature, the track builds and pushes forward only to end abruptly at the very moment it threatens to drift apart. A piece you wish it would never end to begin.
Experimental pop duo Me Succeeds add their own track, whose first half is defined by a slow bassline, spoken words, and a reduced synthesizer arrangement that almost lulls the listener into a trance. Then the track breaks open, transforming into a distorted rave anthem just to evaporate into nothingness right at its climax: “It’s tough but it’s worth it, we wait for you in the whirlpool.”
Me Succeeds – Projection of Light on Water (Arp Aubert Remix)
Me Succeeds – It’s Tough But It’s Worth It
The two projects Me Succeeds and Arp Aubert share a long-standing friendship – marked by joint performances, releases, and an ongoing musical exchange. From the very beginning, Arp Aubert has been something of the “remix court supplier” for Me Succeeds. For the 2021 album We Wait for You in the Whirlpool, Stephan Lorenz aka Arp Aubert once again contributed a reinterpretation of the track Projection of Light on Water.
His remix picks up the quirky, off-kilter bassline of the original, carefully develops it further, and layer by layer unfolds a dreamy sonic landscape. Driven by shuffling percussion and Arp Aubert’s unmistakably melancholic sound signature, the track builds and pushes forward only to end abruptly at the very moment it threatens to drift apart. A piece you wish it would never end to begin.
Experimental pop duo Me Succeeds add their own track, whose first half is defined by a slow bassline, spoken words, and a reduced synthesizer arrangement that almost lulls the listener into a trance. Then the track breaks open, transforming into a distorted rave anthem just to evaporate into nothingness right at its climax: “It’s tough but it’s worth it, we wait for you in the whirlpool.”
Museum of No Art – Drip
Despite the usual outcome of compounding synthesizer, clarinet, percussion and her voice to mesmerizing and complex songs Mona Steinwidder aka Museum of No Art gets straight to the point with the simple yet prepossessing house track „Drip“ produced during a improvisation session with no further editing.
Philipp Dittmar aka Red On of Verydeeprecords and Mona Steinwidder’s long time band partner at Me Succeeds Lorin Strohm set hands on „Drip“ and made their very own vision of the track: one even more ambient than the original the other a collage between movie soundtrack and industrial techno references.
Me Succeeds – We wait for you in the whirlpool (Soundtrack for a universe)
With their new album „We wait for you in the whirlpool (Soundtrack for a universe)“ Me Succeeds enter an experimental and ambient cosmos based on their own parameters. Unknown universes, unseen constellations and non-existing worlds are explored in nine tracks that leave space for various interpretation and wide imagination. By the abdication of beats and percussion the band breaks with their rhythm based tradition of former releases and fully focuses on their synthesizers, samples, bass and clarinet. The unique leading voice of singer Mona Steinwidder is set pointed on just two tracks of the album, making its appearance feel like a rare sight of a singular phenomenon. The album is released digital on the band’s own run label ststst and as a limited cassette edition with golden print on transparent body in a retro yet timeless design.
Museum of No Art – Improvisations on clarinet and time-stretched space
Museum of No Art’s two track Ep is the outcome of a clarinet live improvisation session the artist Mona Steinwidder recorded in her studio in Hamburg. The basic idea for each piece was to fill a 15 minute space spontaneously starting with a solo clarinet instrumentation and letting it expand through building up meditating loops and overdubs. Accompanied by extended, transformed and pitched field recordings taken out of their natural context a very own undefined time is created. With the approach of an Impressionist the focus is not the landscape itself, it is the light and the colours that create the surrounding.
The Ep is also available as limited tape edition in various design and colour. The upcoming Museum of No Art debut album will be released via Seance Centre in July 2020.
Me Succeeds – Beauty Comes From Strange Places (Commissioned Work)
For this commissioned work fashion design innovators of "University of Applied Science Bielefeld" and experimental pop duo Me Succeeds teamed up to curate a unique live experience of a fashion show. Composing the soundtrack Mona Steinwidder and Lorin Strohm adapted the moods and design of each collection in order to generate a modular self-contained live set. The vision was to break free the rules of a classic fashion walk vibe and end up remixing the show and the proposition of each collection: emotional fragments in combination with a strong, energetic rhythm section – consistently blurring the lines between art, technology and wildly experimental, boundary-pushing fashion design.
Iron Curtis – Mt Gordon
(Me Succeeds The Drama of Mt Gordon Remix)
In this case the individual bits and pieces are greater than just one sum. After Johannes Paluka aka Iron Curtis has been creating several remixes for Hamburg experimental pop duo Me Succeeds, now Mona Steinwidder und Lorin Strohm turned it the other way around and reworked the track »Mt Gordon« of the Berlin based dj and producer. The progress started in the summer of 2018 and by improvising and adding more and more layers to the original stems they ended up with loads of pretty interesting material. Mona und Lorin decided to open up the one remix widely and to let it tell its very own dramatic story of »Mt Gordon«. With five possibly connected directions of the origin track the remixes are built on the precept of classical drama waiting for the climax and the inevitable ranting end. Still every part stands independently and the five tracks vary between clean and minimal soundscape to warmly loaded vocal tunes and pushing dark break beats.