The LOOP Movements

[Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>]

I am very exited about what is going on, I cannot think of anything 
else right now and put this down without even reading the latest 
posts:

Mark asked:
>So Matthais, do you want to market "loop music" or your looping device?

My first reaction was like: "you should know me better, my friend!"
But then, thinking about the answer I found a clue:

A movement is a cozmic thing. Its not created by the humans, its 
arround, and some humans pick it up an put it into emotions and 
matter and so on.

For example: I did not get high on dope until the day I crossed the 
Golden Gate bridge and settled in a flat in Height street, where a 
bunch of people were coming from a Greatful Dead concert... (yes, 
thats the truth!). I was about 22 by then.
But all my youth, I was together with the group of smoking friends 
and was afraid of it and said that the music made me high enough. 
Later I realized I was with those same people even before *they* 
smoked, so the movement was first, and the "tool" dope joined in 
later!

I was longing for some free music long before I knew about looping.
In April 85 I became fascinated by a new use of the digital delay 
with FeedBack pedal, and Walter Schmid, a Fripp fan and PCM42 owner, 
told me that what I was doing was called looping.
But my sound was only similar to the tape loops until I discovered 
the grace of rhythmic loops in August 85 and tap tempo became 
essential. I used to say it was not music, not even art, just sound 
textures.
Then in Rio, 86, after a jam with Marcio Miranda (samples on my 
site), I broke out in tears when I realized that two musicians in an 
afternoon can create a full hour of fat orchestral *music* in decent 
quality with a much more free, unified, powerful and pleasant 
expression than most of the week long productions!
This was still with the 2290 and those experiences gave me the kick 
to plan what 5 years later turned into the Loop Delay and made the 
same idea simpler, richer and more brother-like!
Later I realized, that Marcio was not of that movement, but he is an 
incredibly professional and flexible musician and felt what I wanted 
and put music around it...

On the LOOP delay prospect you can read that I had the vision of a 
movement, I wanted to create a "loop group" or "loop pool" community 
as we have it here, but there was no internet.
When I met Kim in 92, because he had to adapt the LOOP delay for 
Gibson, he felt a wave and ended up creating LD, which we are so 
thankfull for!

Now that we are finally analyzing and defining this wave, we feel 
there are many aspects to it and there may be several movements that 
use the same loop tools!

Interesting enough, Kim was one of the first on the list to express 
he got bored by the ambient kind of music I liked to do and came up 
with the SUSInsert real time editing method that Andre drives to the 
extreme... so this may be a next movement I ended up implementing the 
tools functions for, without using them myself...

So all I can really speak about here is my perception of the movement 
I make part of:
Its about the multiplication and mirroring of ourselves in the loops, 
usually through "natural" instruments, until we can filter out our 
own thing and phantasticly this mostly leads to some A A' A''... 
structured music containing all kinds of known styles and archetypes 
from classic to african. Its rather free than precise. There is 
something "worldy" to it and usually something "ambienty" and "cozmy" 
and "techny", but none of those drawers hold, and I feel we are 
strong enough now to create a new one!

I feel its high time to put out this my thing. I have been working 
hard on it for almost 20 years, not only when I was programming LOOP!
When I meet friends like Rick, Max, Steve, Andy, Jon, Ljubo, Stefan, 
Willy, Mich, Claude,,, even Andre ;-),  I have a special feeling and 
I can easily play with them and although the style palette is very 
broad, there is something any non musician can easily identify as 
similar. So that is the movement I am participating and I want to 
promote!
I have recordings with about 30 different musicians to illustrate that.

If some dont feel they make part of this or want to form their own 
movement, thats ok!
LD is not the space for it, because it must stay open for all kinds 
of application of loops, as defined on its first page - and makes a 
lot of sense.

The new site can contain several pages for several movements. Or we 
tell Kevin that it takes several sites to accomplish this, or 
whatever...

I selected a bad time to discuss this, because Andy and Claude are in 
holiday, Steve on tour and: where the hell is Rick? He has been the 
most important actor of this movement!

The fact that I finally can make a living now and probably another 
while from the loop tools instead of the music is of little 
importance for all of this - is that an answer, Mark?
-- 


          ---> http://Matthias.Grob.org