Reaching for the stars - COUNTER-WORLD EXPERIENCE kidnap foreign galaxies on "Pulsar

The musicians of the progressive jazz metal trio Counter-World Experience are avowed science fiction fans. According to guitarist Benjamin Schwenen, who also composes for groups such as Eisbrecher and Tanzwut, "Star Wars", "Star Trek", the film "Abyss - Abyss of Death" and the soundtracks of John Williams were formative for the development of the band members.

In the fifth studio work entitled "Pulsar" they now take up this Sci-Fi enthusiasm when the individual compositions are named after constellations. "The last album ,Music For Kingsʻ was mainly about historical people", Schwenen explains, "but because of the wars in the Near and Middle East I rather turned away from the world" In this respect, for the studied guitarist "the flight into the vastness of space was a turning away from the problems in the world". At the same time Schwenen emphasizes that "abstract constellations have always been attributed human traits, hence titles such as "Heliosʻ (the sun god) or "Bellatrixʻ (the warrioress)". The idea behind "Pulsar", on the other hand, was "the idea of a star that radiates radio waves - a rocking or musical star, so to speak"

With this and other tracks one could assume that Counter-World Experience almost makes program music in the classical sense - which Benjamin Schwenen confirms at least in some cases: "At Pulsarʻ there are no surfaces that remain lying, but all harmonies are created by the fast sequence of the individual tones. This also applies to the program music at Heliosʻ, because the piece is in C major, which is highly criminal in the metal genre! I just wanted to write a piece with special luminosity." Other titles like "Nebula", on the other hand, literally sound more "foggy", Schwenen adding: "Sometimes I pick up words whose meaning I don't even know yet, but whose sound I like. Richard Wagner also paid attention to such things by using many Uh and Oh sounds in dark passages of the text."

If you would like to get a closer look at the music of Counter-World Experience, we recommend "Pulsar" as well as the earlier albums, which will be released on the MiG label in the next few months.

More about the band
www.counterworldexperience.de
www.facebook.com/counter-world-experience

* * Matthias Bergert