MELANCHOLIA – Heiko Maile and Julian Demarre, pop musicians turned film composers, have been collaborating since Camouflage’s ‘MEANWHILE’ album in the mid 90s.
With some esoteric 1970s keyboards from Japan designed for the sound of tomorrow they have now made an album for all the days after tomorrow.
Shortly before the world turned upside down, Julian had luggage waiting in the hallway… he was recording a demo, when all he wanted to do was cover up his YAMAHA CS60 synth and get in a taxi. Later when Heiko received the track, he went straight to the attic to add percussive rhythm drops, alien sounds from Mars, with his “polyphonic ensemble”, a KORG PE-1000 from 1976.
It made him think of Krautrock and Jaki Liebezeit and so they called Torsten Kamps (vocoder/flute), Ran Levari (drums) and Ingo Ito (flanger guitars). The piece MELANCHOLIA was born.
“As we were finishing MELANCHOLIA, we loved the idea of an intro so much, we crafted an intro to the introduction itself,” says Julian.
MELANCHOLIA as a longing for the known and the unknown, the past and the future, was essential to creating the album NEOSTALGIA.
“Once we finished MELANCHOLIA, our first single, it became the soul for the entire album,” says Heiko. “Using instruments and recording techniques in a way that felt different is what sets this one apart from all our other projects. Without MELANCHOLIA the album wouldn’t have come into existence.”