Monolake - Gobi. The Desert EP

The complex textures on this record are based on extremely slowed down and granulated rhythmical loops; percussive sounds scattered and mirrored, transients repeat and decay. Complex asynchronous washes of colors, like dunes shaped and transformed the by wind.

Monolake - Gobi 2020 album cover

1999 | imbalance | ML 003
2020 | imbalance | ML 034
2021 | astral industires | AI 23

01 Gobi. The Desert

Produced 1999 by Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke at Studio Charlottenburg.

The source loops were made from sections of the 1997 Hongkong album, stretched out and manipulated in real-time in MaxMSP and Reaktor, mixed with slowly moving chords and drones provided from other sources. The result was recorded in a two hour long jam session.

The most difficult decision was finding the right overall duration and choice of excerpts. In 1999 we ended up with a 36 minute edit.

When listening to the original session again in April 2020, I decided to make a longer edit, since there is so much beauty in the material.

Monolake - Gobi album cover

Editions:

Gobi. The desert EP
imbalance computer music, CD, 1999
duration: 36:54

Gobi. The Long Edit 2020
imbalance computer music, digital, 2020
duration: 53min 09sec

Gobi. The Vinyl Edit 2021
Astral Industries, vinyl, 2021

Monolake - Gobi vinyl edit

Equipment used in 1999: Granular sampler module for Reaktor, programmed by Gerhard Behles, granular synthesis stuff in MaxMSP by Robert Henke. Source material for granulation included a loop from the Monolake track 'Occam'.

Other instruments: SCI Prophet VS, Yamaha SY77, Ensoniq ASR-10, Alesis Quadraverb, Lexicon PCM 80, Speck Filterbank, Roland Juno-6. PX18 step sequencer written in MaxMSP by Robert Henke.

Performed live and mixed together on a Mackie 24 track console onto DAT tape. Editing of the 1999 version in Pro Tools.

Edit and mastering of the 2020 version in Ableton Live 10 Suite, using the built-in EQ8, multi-band compression, and a Weiss DS-1 plugin.