FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
Music in the Time of Pandemic: Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt and Completely Gone Recordings

Sean_by_Mildred_Klaus.jpg
Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt by Mildred Klaus.
 
Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt makes music that is right for our time. Challenging. Difficult. Powerful. Brilliant. That kinda thing.

Plague covers the planet. Cities shut down. Rioters loot and burn. Welcome to the New Normal. Put on your mask and shop this way.

There’s gotta be a way out. Maybe Marquardt’s music offers one?

I was supposed to talk with Marquardt sometime in June. Or was it July? The days merge. One day is much the same as the next—under a lockdown that gave me one hour-a-day outside (for exercise) and one trip (only if really, really, really necessary) to the store for essentials. Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt could be one of those essentials. He’s not to everyone’s taste I know but his music is important and relevant. Especially today.

We should have spoken together in June or July but then his nephew was shot dead on the streets. An horrific tragedy. What can you say? I sent condolences. Waited. Waited. Didn’t know what else to do. Looked back on what I’d once written:

Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt is an American musician who lives in Germany. He has been making music since he was six-years-old. He started by writing songs or “texts” and “melodies” as he describes it before taking an interest in House Music in his teens. Sean began DJing, before moving from Chicago to Berlin, where he started singing and playing guitar with metal bands. It was in Europe that he began his interest in electronic music.

With a desire to balance both his love of electronic with metal, Sean produced drone, ambient and noise recordings, developing his own distinct form of “Accidental Guitar Music.”

“Accidental Guitar” is a holistic and grounded concept that includes three main aspects. The first of these is the creation of sounds and sound worlds by combining the guitar with distortion effects – a type of “routing” or “mapping” technique where the musician does not lose himself, however, but instead works in a deliberate manner with the tools available to him. The second dimension of “Accidental Guitar” is improvisation—an approach that Cooper Marquardt has chosen, systematically rejecting predetermined choreographies and all forms of rehearsal or planning. This applies not only to live performances, but also when making recordings in his studio. Finally, the third dimension to this concept is the specific situation that the musician encounters when playing: the atmosphere and setting, the persons, conditions and moods present in the space in question lead to a contextualisation of his music.

Sean has released over 500 recordings as solo artist, collaborative artist, or just playing on someone else’s tracks. He has performed across the world. Gigged. Toured. Played the festivals. When I approached him before to ask some Q&A he preferred to “create [an] article without using the question and answers normal modus of operation.”

Yeah, I know.

He wrote and said he wanted to do the same again and I should contact a guy called Nicholus. It’s a bit like speaking through an agent, or maybe a medium, or just selling myself to do PR—which ain’t what my job entails. If you push to be interviewed then you should be available to be interviewed—it’s a business—otherwise you’re just playing games and after all this was the second time Marquardt had opted out.

Who knows? Maybe it’s me? I wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t even talk to me…and I promised to write myself every week too…
 
Sean_by_Bert_Loewenherz.jpg
Photograph by Bert Loewenherz.
 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.12.2020
01:46 pm
|
‘For Chelsea Manning’: New album release from Elizabeth Veldon & Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt

gninnamaeslehc.jpg
 
Musicians and Noise Artists, Elizabeth Veldon and Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt have recorded and released For Chelsea Manning, a 40-minute experimental, Avant-Garde album, in support of the recently convicted soldier.

Chelsea Manning is a queer hero, she is a role model for socially and politically engaged queer people.

The album is the first release from Veldon‘s new, political label Queering the Black Circle:

A record label for and by queer artists. Sometimes the music may be about queer issues, sometimes it may not but the motto of the label stands: queer artists, queer music.

For Chelsea Manning is available for download here.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
An introduction to the world of Noise Artist: Elizabeth Veldon

The ‘Accidental Guitar Music’ of Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.24.2013
08:21 pm
|
The ‘Accidental Guitar Music’ of Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt
08.09.2013
04:32 pm
Topics:
Tags:

aaaaagvcftrdufyghvkbgcfgxd.jpg
Portrait of Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt by Sig Waller.
 
Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt has been making music since he was six-years-old. He started off writing songs, or “texts” and “melodies” as he describes it, before taking an interest in House Music in his teens. Sean began DJing, before moving from Chicago to Berlin, where he started singing and playing guitar with Metal bands. It was in Europe that he began his interest in Electronic Music.

With a desire to balance both his love of Electronic with Metal, Sean produced Drone, Ambient and Noise music, developing his own distinct form of “Accidental Guitar Music.”

Accidental Guitar” is a holistic and grounded concept that includes three main aspects. The first of these is the creation of sounds and sound worlds by combining the guitar with distortion effects – a type of “routing” or “mapping” technique where the musician does not lose himself, however, but instead works in a deliberate manner with the tools available to him. The second dimension of “Accidental Guitar” is improvisation – an approach that Cooper Marquardt has chosen, systematically rejecting predetermined choreographies and all forms of rehearsal or planning. This applies not only to live performances, but also when making recordings in his studio. Finally, the third dimension to this concept is the specific situation that the musician encounters when playing: the atmosphere and setting, the persons, conditions and moods present in the space in question lead to a contextualisation of his music.

Sean has released over 200 recordings on digital format and CD. He performs across the world, and has recently finished a tour of France. I had hoped to interview Sean for Dangerous Minds, but he preferred to “create a article without using the question and answers normal modus of operation.”

I once interviewed Phil Collins for a documentary I was making on the Carry On team. I had been told (on very good authority) that Mr. Collins was major fan of those saucy, innuendo-laden Carry On films of the 1950s and ‘60s. When it came to filming the interview (in an hotel room near Earls Court in London) and I asked the former-Genesis drummer what it was that he most remembered about these films? Mr. Collins replied that it was the lack of traffic on the city center roads that he best recalled form those classic comedy movies.

For some artists it is perhaps best to allow their work to speak for them. So, without much further ado, here is a selection of Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt‘s Accidental Guitar Music, for your delectation and delight.
 

 

 

 
Bonus tracks by Sean plus video, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.09.2013
04:32 pm
|