soporifilms
I have recently discovered 'ramp alias Stephen Parsick and bought this work. I think it is an intense symphonic trip for the mind to be listened to as a whole, with no pause between tracks. Same remark about his other work "the putney" which I also bought. It is a rare and rewarding thing to meet and appreciate in this musical "niche" .
Erwin Vrijvogel
This one is a beauty! Mellotron heaven.
Off course it isn't happy music at all 😄. But in this dark music there's a strong sense of hope.
it's been a little while since i released the last ['ramp] album, and frankly i wouldn't have thought any new recording would ever see the light of day. hard to imagine that this world was a slightly different one when "no sleep 'til wilmersdorf" was released four years ago, and no one would seriously have guessed our world would take such a massive nosedive, right?
it is not only the dire prospects of future we are facing -- in some way or other, i also had to deal with the passing of one of the most crucial figures in my personal and musical evolution, cosmic hoffmann. in fact, it took me almost three years to come to grips with the fact klaus isn't around any longer. much of this cathartic mourning process is to be found on "happy days", and sometimes it even feels as if klaus was intervening from beyond (or elsewhere), screaming bloody murder.
come to think of it, i am even happier i managed to finalise a string of recordings made between the summer of 2017 and april 2022 -- and arrange them in a more or less meaningful way as an album of entirely new (and at the same time very old) music. in some regard it might be seen as a continuation of what was already present on "wilmersdorf". on the other hand, though, the music presented here took on a life of its own thanks to the recent events, and i must admit that i haven't made anything *that* doombient since my own "hoellenengel" album from 2004/05 (even though "happy days" is nowhere near as bleak, but that's only me, of course). honestly, i wasn't all too keen on taking that dark turn again, and i was perfectly happy to have left the gloomy reaches of electronic music behind a bit.
well, it wasn't meant to be for long, was it?
thanks for your ongoing support -- i hope you will enjoy "happy days" as much as i enjoyed creating it.
credits
released August 29, 2022
all music composed, arranged, and performed by stephen parsick at dachgeschoss borgholzhausen between june 2017 and april 2022.
recorded, mixed, engineered, mastered to basf sm 900, and produced by stephen parsick in june and july 2022.
stephen parsick: analogue synthesisers, keyboards, and sequencers; electric piano; mellotron; tapes, loops, and treatments. no midi used.
no synthesisers were harmed in the production of this album.
sleeve photographs and concept by stephen parsick.
sleeve design by bernhard woestheinrich / studioflokati.
Originally founded in the spring of 1996. The name refers to the Dutch word "de ramp" which means "disaster" or
"catastrophe".
Between 1997 and 2003, ['ramp] released a string of albums and played a couple of concerts in the Netherlands, the UK, and Germany before Parsick went entirely solo in 2009.
supported by 51 fans who also own “happy days are here to stay”
The whole album is pure Berlin School bliss. What wonderful pieces of music!
@Ian Black: Binary 0110 is equal to decimal 6, probably because it is Cosmic Ground’s 6th studio album. cyriaxx
supported by 51 fans who also own “happy days are here to stay”
I think Cosmic Ground is a exciting band. Old fashioned and with nice vibes and rhytms. But I miss something. Many compare with TD. Maybe, but I lack the crescendo at the end of the songs. It becomes boring when the end lacks a Froeselike guitarsolo. Something is missing, the crescendo is missing, the songs just exit out with no proper end explosion. Roger Adler
A personal, poignant record from the Belfast DJ and producer, dedicated to a close friend of his who passed away last year. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 10, 2019