(image courtesy of Audiofanzine.com)
Over this past year I have got to know and become friends with a certain German chap called Jörg Schaaf. He is one of Germany’s great synthesiser designers having been integral in the creation of many of Quasimidi’s highly regarded 90’s instruments but following that companies demise in the year 2000 he started the successful Radikal Technologies who have released many innovative musical devices since. The most recent product is the upcoming Delta CEP A synthesiser that he brought over to show Nick Batt over at Sonicstate in October just after he exhibited at the third annual Synthfest in Sheffield:
Having met Jörg at Superbooth in Berlin back in May it was great to see him again at Synthfest but knowing he was going to be filming with Nick on the Tuesday, I had arranged for a jam session in Bristol to be sandwiched between. As well as being a talented instrument designer, Jörg is also an accomplished musician in his own right having made several albums with the synth legend Klaus Schulze back in the 1990s.
I called a bunch of friends up who were more than happy to come to the jam and the date was set! Attending were drummer James Phillips and guitarist Andy Taylor (both members of my space rock band Asteroid Deluxe), highly accomplished jazz musician Kevin Figes brought along soprano sax and flute, synth player Robbie Bronnimann who plays with Howard Jones (and Sonicstate Sonictalk contributor), experimental percussionist and Samba band leader Simon Presto plus my old buddy and Steve Winwood accomplice Jason Jervis who brought along his MFB synth which he recently made a video about. I named this temporary band Micrometeor.
The resulting freeform jam was great fun with all the musicians keenly listening and reacting spontaneously to each other. I managed to get a decent recording of the jam and at some point plan to put it up online but we also managed to get a bit of video too which I have cobbled together to give a flavour of what happened. The video is not particularly high quality and was patched together from various phones and go pros with limited light but it serves as a nice reminder of this most fun get together. Look out for some blatant continuity errors too! Here is the video which features an extract of the jam that I named Monsignor:
Gaz Williams 