Does a simple minor-third in the bass-line make up an entire Holland-Dozier-Holland-composition? Certainly not! But after enjoying the most part of this album at a party, our good old friend Michael Frank quoted "this one almost sounds like ?" that 1968 Marvin Gaye anthem. Naturally this association never was our intention, but nevertheless a useful hint for the entitling of the track. And since that track (collaged versions appearing in several interludes) makes up a leitmotif of this collection, the entire podcast happened to be baptised like the track.

"Blues" is not too much to be taken as a stylistic tag (who will deny an deep root influence anyway) but rather the attitude of "laid-back improvising" and a clue to a certain melancholic mood. Light melancholy I'd say, fitting perfect to the mood of the declining summer: grape-harvest-season! That's why you hear this one now. (Recordings actually were made in autumn and springtime, but don't mind.)

Once again this is a group's favourite, probably the most accessible thing we ever did and maybe a recommendation to neophytes. By the way this is the very first collection from the podcast-series to be finished. It could have become the group's third web-album, if it wasn't recorded by the guitar-based power-trio in the first case and if the podcast-idea didn't emerge anyway.

s aforementioned, this could have been the group's third online-album after Electric Gentry. But that would have meant the return of the trio line-up from our debut. It would have seemed like our occasionally absent keyboard man had left. And that exactly wasn't the case. Anyway, we were seeking for the next step in development artistically. And here we had something pleasant, but was there any progress musically?

Considerations like this led to the idea of offering minor-level albums, using our own podcast as the publishing medium.

"Grapevine Blues" took shape parallel to Les Suites du Hertz, but appeared easier to work out and thus was the first to be finished. Contrary to the latter, materials from two sessions were processed, which also means less conceptual obligations compared to the latter. No need to simulate a live-set here, but the opportunity to pick out the gems from the sessions, get them into shape and get the right sequence. The only goal was, it should become something enjoyable.

Free from any claim of authenticity some more daring edits were made, creating musical shifts that hardly could have emerged from sheer improvisation. While working great musically, several of those edits were much too obvious aurally. So a certain acoustic "glue" was needed and created: taking the advantages of digital editing and effects, snippets of sound were stretched, reversed, twisted, merged and altered however it seemed opportune and patched to a supporting track of the edit in order to smoothen down the clumsy shifts. And it worked out great!

So in the end I had a nice collection of these glue-snippets, along with some "extremely wet" remixes which were a sort of interim results for the snippets actually. Some of these seemed like musical pieces of their own right. Others offered a perfect "dramatic glue" for the transition from one track to another. Thus several of those collages were used in the final edit of the album. All in all they added a lot of atmosphere to our humble practice-room sound and helped the impression of "made in one casting" for the album. Not quite as smooth as on Idden Planet. But that one was build on the experiences made here.

To be honest, we hadn't been enthusiastic about the raw session recordings. It all appeared much too simple, too average, somewhat old-fashioned and partly even stuffy. I remember me and Wolli mocking about ourselves at first playback. But that just demonstrates how musicians easily are mistaken, when becoming pretentious. Often enough the "laid-back way" is the most effective.

Originally this album was called the "Spacerock Podcast" (trying to be unpretentious). So people lucky enough to own a CD looking like the one pictured here above on this page, may keep a true rarity in their collection, from the hands of artists themselves! ;-)

Enjoy!
Guido