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Frank Rothkamm [ just 3 organs ] CD $12.99
MP3 $ 5.99
[just 3 organs] Specifications
[just 3 organs] 3D Image
[just 3 organs] Art Work

The Story

In the Swiss mountain town of Sils, sometime around Easter 1979, the 13 year old Frank Rothkamm played an organ for the first time.

He was not in Sils to marvel at the location where Friedrich Nietzsche spent his summers, but to engage in some cross-country skiing with his family. It was there, halfway between the mountains and the frozen lake below, where he spotted a small village chapel. Intrigued, he knocked on the door 3 times and to his surprise it was open. Inside he found a reed organ which was unlocked, so he commenced to play J.S. Bach's "Toccata & Fugue in D-minor". It was cold, his hands were cold, and the old organ was out of tune. But, he was able to play the piece from memory and gladly held the last chord an extra long time.

As he got back on his skis to make the descent from the mountain, a different kind of organ music was racing through his mind - impressions of idiosyncratic, differently tuned, pure "Tongestalten" (tone shapes) in a reverberated space between heaven and earth.

For the next 23 years on his odyssey through Germany, Canada and the United States of America he would never play an organ keyboard again. Then on a sunny day sometime around Easter in 2002, he spotted a Yamaha Electone organ, model 205D, in a thrift store near Hollywood. Frank finally found his organ. It had been built in Japan 9 months after he played the organ for the first time in Switzerland. In an act of "Zeitgeist" his thoughts gave birth to the rise of a machine which could now materialize the impossible.

It would take another 5 years, from 2003 to 2008, of playing with 6 hands, utopian-scientific composition, and the development of a new tuning system, until he was finished with his gold record.

The Album

just 3 organs (2003-2008) is 33 minutes and 33 seconds or a 3 times 3 tracks long long-player played with 3 times 2 hands and feet on the 3 times 2 manuals and 3 pedals of 3 vintage Yamaha 205D Electone home organs each assigned a primary color and tuned a micro-tonal 33 cents apart then amplified with 3 speakers for each organ suspended in mid-air in a triangle just in front of the observer with a monophonic reverberation phantom channel circling at 3 rotations per minute between all speaker triangles.


Tracklisting: play album:
[01] Frank Rothkamm Kris Kristofferson of the Avant-Garde 3:31
[02] Frank Rothkamm The Irvine Master Plan 1:43
[03] Frank Rothkamm California Pink-A-Pades 7:00
[04] Frank Rothkamm Half Man, Half Amazing 6:04
[05] Frank Rothkamm Grand Ducal 3:07
[06] Frank Rothkamm Sleepy Bullet 6:57
[07] Frank Rothkamm Encounter with Remarkable Trees 3:25
[08] Frank Rothkamm Younger Critics of New York 0:40
[09] Frank Rothkamm B and B plus 33 1:01


Reviews:
[+] Very organised - Good for the ear
Chris Cutler RER
[+] Synthetic feelings - Schizoid polyphonies - Appreciably hybrid electronica
Aurelio Cianciotta NEURAL
[+] Enigmatically unpigeonholeable. Is this an allusion to Steve Reich “Four Organs”? Is three really the perfect number?
MASSIMO RICCI TOUCHING EXTREMES
[+] Charmingly eccentric - Endearingly retro - in a unsettling, Luminescent glow.
Susanna Bolle WZBC
[+] Limits of madness stained by a touch of genius!
Michele Viali DARKROOM
[+] Masterfully-rendered work - Compelling album filled with odd shapes, bold movement, and a wide range of unusual technique
Dave X WDBX
[+] Very skillfully achieved - Isao Tomita dropped into a “Saucerful of Secrets” Pink Floyd session - Clearly not a po-faced beard stroker!
John Cavanagh FOXY DIGITALIS
[+] I tried playing it on my turntable but it sounded like all my other CDs
ken montgomery ART IS THROWING MONEY OUT THE WINDOW
[+] At times it's highly challenging and experimental - At times it's simply beautiful and emotional.
Eric Besnard BASKARU
[+] A hypernumerally-obsessed series of mind-bending compositions frightening not only for their mathematical bent, but the strikingly natural way Rothkamm approaches this sort of layering.
Dave X WDBX
[+] Rothkamm plays it like a modern classic master
Frans de Waard VITAL WEEKLY


Radio:
[+]   Encounter With Remarkable Trees - US
 Jay Eychaner WEFT
[+]   "just 3 organs" No 10 in Vancouver Charts - CAN
  CJSF
[+]   "just 3 organs" No 22 in New York Charts - USA
  FREE103POINT9
[+]   Half Man, Half Amazing - BE
 Nico Bogaerts EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC FOR EXPERIMENTAL PEOPLE
[+]   "Kris Kristofferson of the Avant-Garde" + "The Irvine Master Plan" - USA
 Canary Burton WOMR
[+]   "just 3 organs" No 15 in Montreal Charts - CAN
  CKUT
[+]   "just 3 organs" No 10 in Edmonton Jazz Charts - CAN
  CJSR
[+]   Half Man, Half Amazing - US
 Justin Outlier KJFC
[+]   Encounter With Remarkable Trees - CAN
  CJSR
[+]   California Pink-A-Pades - BE
 Bruno & Peggy RADIO CENTRAAL
[+]   Half Man, Half Amazing - US
 Tom Lopez WOBC
[+]   Encounter with Remarkable Trees - UK
 Ed Pinsent RESONANCE FM
[+]   Sleepy Bullet - BE
 Bruno & Peggy RADIO CENTRAAL
[+]   California Pink-A-Pades - AUS
 Bryce Moore RTR FM
[+]   The Complete "just 3 organs" Album Broadcast - CAN
 James Bailey & Ron McFarlan CKLN


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