F.S. Blumm

Frank Schültge "Blumm" was born in 1968 in Bremen and lives in Berlin now where he is working as a musician and a producer for radioplays. He has previously released albums with Cologne's Staubgold, Tomlab, and Berlin's Morr Music and with Lichten presents his first stateside release. Besides his contributions to the Sack & Blumm project (together with Harald "Sack" Ziegler) he is involved in the production of radioplays with Rininat Rebresch ("Rebresch & Blumm") and with an instrumental chamber-postrock trio from Berlin called KINN. Though his music often finds a welcome ear with adventurous electronic listeners his songs are spun entirely with live instruments in real-time. The sound is naturalistic and free in a way that often leaves people hard pressed to find modern comparisons.

F.S. BLUMM "Lichten"

“The german word 'Lichten' means not only 'Lighten' but also to clear, to thin, to weigh, to lift... For this album I wanted to do less: to use less words and say more, to use less sounds and use only the voices which are really needed, the ones which have a meaning, which have soul. Clarity and simplicity. Compact and compressed, To be more direct and get to the point of having said everything earlier, that I wanted to say, without any distractions or decorations, without sound-design-babbling. Still, I think, that my music can be at the same time 'musique d?ameublement' and 'Attentive-Listening'. 'Lighten' (in the sense of 'to weigh' is also an answer to the title of my last album 'Ankern' (to anchor'), which includes another private reference: last year I dropped an anchor in Italy, I lived there for half a year,then things didn't work out and problems were faced ('lightened') and now I'm back in Berlin, able to go anywhere again, in other words: I'm looking for simplicity, because clarity is simple and clarity is 'The Best': All One! Clarity is often sad, because it arises when you part with something. When you decide! When you part with a connection to which you committed your heart to: you quit because it became clear, that everything became knotted, became complicated. You cut off the knot and everything gets light and simple, because everything is clear, clear and beautiful, sad and beautiful. The songs are mainly written on the guitar while staying in the countryside during this long summer in Italy not listening to music, not listening to noises. During my life as a musician/guitar-player I mainly used to do Noise-Rock I'm quiet shure that this is not audible anymore in F.S.Blumm-Music, but for me there is no sense of making music, if there isn't this pressure, urgency, hunger and need which I used to express by being loud, by screaming. I'm not screaming anymore but I hope that I always kept this tension, that this urgency is still audible. So, I think that quiet-careful-shy-sensitive-music must not be equal to low tension, must not be flabby.”
Longing to explain something you can't explain and go on trying to explain it forever. F.S.Blumm (August 2003)