Album of the Week: Superpitcher, ‘Kilimanjaro’

Album of the Week: Superpitcher, ‘Kilimanjaro’

10 September, 2010 | 5.24AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, kompakt, superpitcher

It’s been six years since Superpitcher released his debut album (and only one, until now), ‘Here Comes Love’; it’s been three years since he and fellow techno dandy provocateur, Michael Mayer, unleashed Supermayer’s rather odd ‘Save The World’ upon an unsuspecting public. Now, with little advance notice, Superpitcher (Cologne’s Aksel Schaufler) brings us ‘Kilimanjaro’, a masterful long-player by turns seductive and bizarre.

Despite Kompakt’s reputation for punchy tech house, Superpitcher has always chafed at dancefloor constraints—remember his version of ‘Fever’?—folding elements of ‘60s and ‘70s pop into his Cologne techno oom-pah structures. ‘Kilimanjaro’, with aims as ambitiously high as its title, goes even further in its transgressions, expanding Superpitcher’s range without losing sight of fundamentals.

It’s not hard to figure out what Schaufler was listening to while he made the record; there are echoes of Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Grace Jones, and even Pink Floyd (!) in his instrumentation, structures, and lyrical citations. Still, highlights like ‘Voodoo’, ‘Country Boy’, ‘Black Magic’, ‘Joanna’, and particularly ‘Rabbits in a Hurry’ hit with plenty of force, with muscular bass lines and clean, functional percussion pushing forward through colorful, inspired arrangements; the synthetic core of the tracks is fleshed out in guitars, electric bass, acoustic percussion and even flute.

Beyond Superpitcher’s keen sense of craft, what stands out most is his unusual sense of humor, which runs through lyrics, oddball vocal inflections, and kitsch-inspired arrangements (like the haunted dub of ‘Voodoo’).

We caught up with Schaufler to find out what prospective alpinists should prepare to encounter in the delirious thin air of ‘Kilimanjaro’.

First of all, a very basic question. It’s been six years since ‘Here Comes Love’. What took so long in recording the followup? Did you record the album in one sustained effort, or are these tracks taken from different points in the last few years?

Time is just flying. I was madly busy with touring all these years, a lot of remixing, and also, we did Supermayer. The fact is, I’m always working, I need to, otherwise I’d go crazy. So I started to work on ‘Kilimanjaro’ about four or five years ago, and then on and off all the time and everywhere. The final recordings, mixing, and production were all done in the last year in a very intense phase of work. In that time it was evolving into an album. It became ‘Kilimanjaro’… I feel like it’s really the summary of the last six years.

Generally speaking, how did you make the record? I hear guitars, organs, live drums, bells, piano… Are a lot of those sounds from “real” instruments? Did you have collaborators on the album?

Many of the songs I started while being on the road somewhere, or at home with a very simple setup. Many times, something happens when you don’t really think about it. Whenever I had time in Cologne I’d continue to work on it in the studio I share with Michael [Mayer]. It was always my idea to have a very “organic” and warm sound, and I always used everything that came into my hands. So it was kind of a layering technique, recording instruments on top of each other, and then re-editing again.

Most of them are really “real,” and there are also a few samples. I played most of them myself, and the other contributions on the album are friends who more or less just dropped by and then ended up playing instruments and singing choruses, etc. That’s exactly the way I like it, because most of the time it just happens out of a magical moment, and then you just need to push the record button fast enough. So there was Jorg Burger (the Modernist), who has a studio next door; he would play bass and flute sometimes. He also helped with the recordings sometimes. Rebolledo was there a lot, singing and recording handclaps, chanting and being a great spirit in general. Also Tobias Thomas, Michael Mayer, and other girls and boys…

I’m really impressed with the range of the sound here—stylistically and sonically. It’s so rich and enveloping. What were your inspirations in terms of the kind of sound you were trying to achieve? (I can hear, for instance, Grace Jones, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd…) And did the record generally turn out like you hoped it to? Was there anything you wanted to do with it that didn’t work?

Since I started doing music, I’ve been trying to get closer to that certain aesthetics in sound that I’m dreaming of. It’s just so very difficult… Of course, that is really inspired by many of my favorite artists and albums. The thing is, that this issue generally drives me very crazy, and of course it is never perfect and I’m never completely satisfied. Which is ok, because that keeps me going.

Why “Kilimanjaro”? What does the title mean to you?

It sounds so beautiful…

Where did the inspiration for the lyrics come from? I’m thinking particularly of “Voodoo,” “Country Boy,” “Rabbits in a Hurry,” “Friday Night"… Are there stories behind all of these?

All the psychotics in my building… It’s pretty much all inspired by stories and situations I’ve experienced, some of them very personal and totally fictional at the same time. Half poetry, half comedy!

How important is humor in your music? I thought there was a subtly comic edge to Supermayer (at the very least, in the cover art), and there’s a humorous quality to the new album as well. I don’t mean that it’s “funny” music—you’re not Weird Aksel Yankovic, thank goodness—but there is a real lightness of spirit to it.

I’m a great fan of good humor. Did you watch ‘30 Rock’? I’ve got this feeling that the older I get, the less I think about certain things—especially myself, which is really nice. I’m definitely no fan of “funny” music, but a certain lightness is never wrong, especially if everything is so dramatic all the time.

I’m curious about the line that divides Superpitcher from Aksel Schaufler… When you’re making records, how much of what comes across is a kind of character?

It’s a very fine line.

Will you be doing live performances, and if so, how?

I’m working on it, and honestly, I don’t know how.

Finally, how is Cologne these days?

Sunny.

Superpitcher, ‘Kilimanjaro’ [Kompakt]

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