Stephen Malkmus is a world musician in the best sense of the word, because he is constantly on the move. After years in Berlin he returned to the USA to Portland, Oregon. Musically, too, he opens the focus towards global music experience. His new album "Traditional Techniques" describes a whole range of places on this planet. It sounds like a journey with many stops. "It could be," Malkmus confirms somewhat embarrassed. "I haven't psychoanalyzed my lyrics. The sound of the album is based on the contributions of different musicians, and everyone brings their own story, which is never heard in the interviews, because I give all the interviews
The stylistic palette of the album ranges from Americana to the Carnaby Street of the Mid-Sixties to Arabia, India and China. The way he still makes a stringent musical statement from all these stylistic elements in one piece at first seems like magic. For Malkmus, there is a very simple explanation for this: "Everything always starts with my record collection and my favourite albums. We had imposed a few rules on ourselves for the creation of this record. All musicians were to play together in one room, and apart from a few guitar solos and some e-piano, only acoustic instruments were allowed to be involved. I hear a lot of that mystical folk stuff from the sixties that's similar to my style..."
