Tomorrow One In A Googolplex’s ‘The Dropout Cats‘ will be officially out on numbered ltd. cd, cassette and digitally. To celebrate we’re giving away one of the album’s stand out tracks ‘Monolith’ for free (see link at the bottom of this post). For any one left wondering who is One In A Googolplex and why should I care, here is an updated biography of the man and music behind the name:
One In A Googolplex, the music project of German artist Sebastian Zimmer, is named after a line from “Back to the Future III.” His music transgresses boundaries between genres with gleeful abandon, calling on bleeps, whirs, and Contra laser blasts to adorn furiously strummed acoustic guitars, or tribal drums to drive along Latin-tinged organs and bubbly synths.
“The Dropout Cats” is the new record from OIAG, released in October 2010 on CD, cassette, and MP3. This latest batch of sonic treasures from OIAG finds Sebastian reaching deeper into affective space, capturing and intertwining complex emotional textures in ways that come out as forward-looking pop music, in the best sense of the term. Sebastian’s voice, and the songs themselves are weightier here, more urgent and maybe darker at times than some of OIAG’s previous work, but this deepening ends up adding force to the perennial life-affirming heart of Sebastian’s music. Best to let some beautiful lines from stand-out track ‘Monolith’ illustrate the point:
“your head is low, although you starve you still say no
you’re stuck inside this feeling, try to let it go
your bones ached for all those years
mine too, that is why i know this overwhelming force
that you cannot let go”
Still, Sebastian asks, “Why are we so sure that this is what it seems to be, with all these ‘I’ve told you so’s’ and all these ‘I’ve got to go’s,’ when chemicals connect with all their great symmetry?” It’s his commitment to exploring the resonance of this great symmetry that makes listening to OIAG such a bracing experience, helping us lucky listeners to vibrate higher.
After a short intermezzo as a singer in a teenage band, and after extrapolating the properties of good audio from old Beach Boys cassettes, Coldplay records, and Nick Drake’s singing, OIAG started writing on a ukulele and a very cheap guitar. Two years of recording, experimenting, looking into space with a telescope, singing and mixing later, “The Proclaimer” was born. This splendid debut includes the opener “Every Star Is A Thought,” a sublime, modern hymn about the influence of our beautiful celestial sphere on us.
Driven by an altruistic motive to bring joy into peoples’ lives, OIAG went quickly back to work on another record, 2009′s “Hands,” a release that is nothing less than an ode to life itself. With all its ups and downs, “Hands” invokes with every track the miracle of life, reminding you to celebrate your existence. Thus it tells us in a sophisticated way that optimism is cool again.
OIAG is constantly trying to compose his songs as universally as possible in order to be able to enjoy the music even some thousand years from now or on a different planet, where there is no money, no television and no heartache anymore. That is why the lyrics are mostly cosmic and timeless and often of a philosophical nature. The sounds of OIAG records suggests that the first music ever played was the attempt to echo the sonic patters of nature, piercing holes in bones to make a flute. It is cool but lovely at the same time. It is forward-looking but warm.
OIAG’s songs are aurorae for your ears.
Listen to ‘Monolith’ here with download link below:
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