ECCENTRIC MUSIC FROM CONCEALED CHAMBERS

RostMondOrchestra presents second album »you didn‘t show up yesterday«

REGENSBURG. »Comfortable brittleness«, a favourite musical feature of Rainer J. Hofmann, 34 year old musician and side-line pharmacists from Regensburg. The paraphrase stands for life‘s drapery, mood, sensation, or simply tales to be told. Tom Waits‘ music appears to be »comfortably brittle« and thus beautiful in its gloomy and somehow lost character. Nevertheless critics are about to discuss whether Tom Waits ist still pathetically creative or merely a well-known family father. Any way, he has gone through some development. And so has the RostMondOrchestra whose debut album »sleeping on stones again« from 1997 delighted Waits fans with relationship in sound and matter. Therefore the group‘s new album which will be presented 9, Feb 2001 in the »Leerer Beutel« in Regensburg does not completely break up with Tom Waits but it is much more distant to him. »You didn‘t show up yesterday« is the title of the quintet‘s second album containing the musical work of Hofmann (accordeon, pumporgan, piano, clarinet), Sepp Fischer (vocals), Tom Eyiip (guitar), Peter Eichhammer (bass) and Markus Hierl (guitar). In comparison to 1997 there are among others no drums. According to Hofmann »…it had after all a challenging effect on playing skills and quality…«. Each musician comes out more clearly, there is no more space for a lack of musical precision. In fact there is no loss in rhythm. And finally there still are a few percussion like beating sounds on the CD, played by Roland HH Biswurm on pieces of junk and hubcaps - whatever you may trip over out in the countryside.
Hofmann who - together with Peter Eichhammer - wrote all the songs tried to find convenient places to do the recording, e.g. in Wildenberg Castle at Roland HH Biswurm‘s place, in an empty room above the JazzClub, in »Hesperidengarten« or in the lonely farm house at Wolfred Zierl‘s place close to Lanquaid. According to Hofmann who by dealing with radio plays or the »NOSTRADIM« project developed a sensuality for rooms and sounds, the places and the music should mutually »engage«, should be »inhalable«. The unusual environments brought along some surprises - an impulsive attempt to play on an oddly silent trombone ended in finding a wasps‘ nest inside -, they brought together musicians »beyond the polite but resultless hellos in the street«. Therefore we find Norbert Vollath (bassclarinet) as well as Andy Scheffel (trumpet) and Bertl Wenzl (saxophone) on the record. The debut album of the RostMondOrchestra delighted both critics and audience, deservedly. Fortunately the second CD is different in character but as successful. Where there were pop elements clearing the way for the Waits-like singing of Sepp Fischer before, we now hear a dominating influence of jazz and folk sometimes playfully ensnaring Fischers heavy sound in the middle. »Regarding our skills at that time the first album was a good success« resumes Hofmann. Now the band has gone through some years, its music has become more obstinate and therefore more colourful, it now is beyond pop and »closer to chamber music«. But don‘t imagine the chambers to be neat and comfortable. We talk about the chambers in the very back, down, beside, gloomy, choked in smoke, cranky. It is those chambers in which the shiny surface of beauty finds its brittle truth.

mario kunzendorf