Lasse Marhaug / Jérôme Noetinger – Top

Label:    Erstwhile Records – Erstwhile 093
Format:     CD, Album
Country:    US
Released:    8 Apr 2022
Genre:    Electronic
Style:    Experimental, Noise

I still haven't come to accept that we're living in a world with no Peter Rehberg. His passing last summer was an absolute shock. It hit us all so hard. His music, the labels he ran, how he ran them, his knowledge and love for electronic music, his attitude, approach and work ethic. His influence in the three decades he performed, recorded and released music can not be overrated. He often tried to downplay it, but we all knew how much he meant. But most of all we'll miss his persona - that dry British sardonic humour mixed with genuine enthusiasm and endless generosity.

The last time I met him in Vienna he was appalled that I didn't bring records to trade and didn't have time to come visit his office ("What?? No product exchange??") He truly was a parameter for how electronic music was doing at any time. Now he has stepped out of time, and I don't know quite where that leaves us. My guess is he'd want us to keep making weird new music, so when Erstwhile asked if me and Jérôme would be up for recording a duo album in his memory it seemed the way to make sense of the way forward.

We discussed the qualities of Peter's music – his love for rhythmic pulse-oriented materal, icy drones, his anti-musician approach (which often results in the most interesting music, just stripped of vanity), his love for abrupt jump cuts and odd album sequencing. We decided to make the album in the same way he worked, to not multi-track or overly polish the material, just try to capture the ideas in their raw state and trust in them.
On my end I decided to use several old Macbooks, which all worked but had moody SuperCollider patches that only worked on those OS systems, with idiosyncrasies I had to relearn. I remember Peter saying he stopped working with laptops when they became too stable and reliable, and trying to create music on a nearly 20 year old Macbook in his honour, I understand what he meant. That the unpredictable element is crucial to the creative process. Now we suddenly have no Peter Rehberg, which seems like the hardest jump cut of all.

Lasse Marhaug, February 2022

Tracklist
1        004 + Fade    1:50
2        005    2:43
3        009    1:44
4        Acid Tape    5:12
5        SP///TOP    5:39
6        Croissant With Ham    7:46
7        A1181 A1370    2:00
8        Kebab CD    5:46
9        Get Up Early    4:33
10        Trk3_GS_GO    7:03