FATWIRES – THE WICKED PATH
depth of field music, 2020

In ever new combinations of organic beatscapes with live and raw bass guitar playing, John Eckhardt explores the possibilities of his instrument in sound system culture to arrive at his own brand of trippy stone age futurism. Fatwires’ „The Wicked Path“ is like a book of dubwise mediations about patterns in bass, time and space that owes as much to Aston Barrett or Digital Mystikz as to  Ash Ra Temple and György Ligeti.

The vibration of bass strings and the swing and poetry of the live musician shaped the roots of dub and soul. Here it gives rise to rich bottom end and spectral soundscapes, embedded in deep and rugged percussion that won't settle for a single style. Hands on his instrument, John Eckhardt spreads out in time and frequency while keeping the funk alive. In addition, he is now working on a complementing series of special music video clips.


Over two decades and four solo releases, John Eckhardt has unfolded an unusual cosmos of bass music. In a large variety of collaborations and a number of different solo projects from hyper-acoustic double bass to bottom-heavy sound system music, installations and even photography, he keeps on reiterating the overarching theme: bass, space and time.

The vital diversity of his approaches draws the listener into the ongoing underlying quest. Like a hunter gatherer, John Eckhardt navigates in his work a wondrous, branching bass forest that is always and never the same, until he ends up facing actual wilderness: archaic patterns slowly emerge in hypnotic detail, and begin to lead a life of their own.

www.johneckhardt.de/fatwires



The big bang must have been a low sound. (Rhein Neckar Zeitung)

John Eckhardt’s performance is absolutely stunning. (Paris Transatlantic)

Truly exceptional. (Mannheimer Morgen)

John Eckhardt, a bassist of stature. (Gramophone)

Stupéfiant et monumental! (Octopus)

John Eckhardt est vraiment vraiment deep. (CISM 89,3FM, Montréal)

Eckhardt explores that space where sound and its organization show themselves to be a natural phenomenon. (Dusted Magazine)

No written explanation will get you prepared for the tremendous incisiveness of Eckhardt’s razor-sharp playing. (Touching Extremes)

Eckhardt’s masterful and mesmerizing performances create a sense of total immersion in this deep-toned trip. (All about jazz)

The sound quality of the instrument in the hands of John Eckhardt is striking. (Improjazz)

FATWIRES - THE WICKED PATH

John Eckhardt – Taffel, Tramp Orgel, Mbira, Alto Recorder, Harpeleik

The material, the musical instrument in front of me, represents all that is not me. It is my environment, and together we form a living organism. We rely on each other, and live and die together. Our behavior and responses to each other are existential and express a balance of power between us.

I wish to restore some of this mutuality with a collection of instruments that literally came to me over the years. I am looking for these instruments to play me as much as I play them. I would like them to explore me, tell me something about who and where I am in the moment of action. I invite them to have the same physical, cultural and magical powers over me as I have over them. 

Their varying, unchanged degrees of decay tell about their previous lives, and their cultures and applications ring through their material, build and sonic characteristics. The musical substance emerges from the elementary gestures countless others have performed before me - touch a key or string, breathe through a flute, make air flow from a bellows with my feet.

I work in three time zones simultaneously. Part real, part imaginary, they constantly overlap each other, and make up a fragile landscape that I explore. To be granted access to this wondrous landscape, I commit to being mortal, naked and ultimately edible as everything else in the world around me - a world that becomes invisible when I reach a certain degree of familiarisation and control that overwrite more archaic states of discovery.

The first of these time spans lies before agriculture, urban life and writing. Viewed from today, it represents a primal mindset that relies on sensory awareness, intuition and practical experience. Material, reasoning and actions seem simple, but are enmeshed in complex relations to the environment and to small, nomadically living groups.

The second lies in the near future. We have all the tools and knowledge we have ever dreamed of, but our quest for individual and economical progress has led us full circle back into our caves. The overpowering natural forces outside seem very similar to those we have tried so hard to overcome during the last 10.000 years. Labour and innovation are taken over by machines we created, while we are forced to accept our evolutional heritage, potential, limits and obligations. We are challenged to restore degenerated hunter-gatherer sensibilities: to understand and connect with whatever it is that we find before us or in our environment - people, animals, spirits, things such as musical instruments - and the fateful nature of our connections to them.

The third point in time lies anywhere within the 40 milliseconds between a sensual perception and the onset of its intellectual processing. Hearing serves as one of the most direct gateways into this zone in which instinct precedes rationality. It is full of evolutionary dispositions shared over millions of years, and particularly vital whenever we encounter the unknown. Mostly subconscious circuits, such as curiosity, desire or fear, are both universal and individual, as their distribution characterizes personality and also culture.

Rather than improvisations or compositions, my musical activities are audio-manual strategies that allow or even require me to inhabit these zones. I am looking for specific feedback loops between what I hear and what my next move is. Ideally, the succession and interweaving of listening and action are so dense that they turn into a constant stream that starts to form a larger organism, leading a life of its own.

The findings I bring from the zone are fed into the echo chamber - a mixing desk of culture, memory and imagination. Through repeated deep listening and experimentation with overdubs, structures and stories are allowed to emerge and coagulate around each instrument. In the end, I feel more like a witness to how works come into existence from ephemeral, unexpected synergies.

PALAEODUBFOLK

113 minutes of music for four double basses, recorded as played by John Eckhardt; 100% acoustic with no amplification, electronics or other preparations

Wooden USB memory stick with 24bit/96khZ audio (incl. mp3 download), 200 original forest photographies (JPG) with slide show app, several texts on music & making

Polystyrol box with moss, lichens, bark, twigs and other organic material from the forest of Staksund, Sweden; wall mounting

Limited, signed & numbered

In special unity of form and content, „Forests“ presents John Eckhardt’s latest ventures into a secret realm of bass, space & time.
After his pioneering, widely acclaimed solo-bass CD „Xylobiont“ on Evan Parker’s PSI imprint, on „Forests“ John Eckhardt perpetuates his passionate contemplation of the manifold physical and musical nature of his 120 year old sound device.
In nearly two hours of music for four double basses, developed by means of overdubbing, he takes the listener to unknown sounding forests and woodlands. In extended, organically branching and often dramatic pieces, he keeps seeking out places where smallest fluctuations in perception and in the connection of body and instrument are crucial. As in other projects of Eckhardt’s, polarities of observation and action, intuition and planning, atmosphere and detail are combined so continuously and intensely until something else emerges, and starts a life of its own…
Together with two hundred of John Eckhardt’s forest photographies and texts about music and making, the music is provided on a wooden USB memory stick. It is lying in a transparent box with moss, lichens, bark and other forest material. As the photography, it comes from Staksund, the Swedish forest land of the Eckhardt family, which John frequently visits.

forests (excerpts) - www.johneckhardt.de/forests

John Eckhardt - Xylobiont (Excerpts)

loads of newer jungle music around! but can you keep it real AND fresh unruly? nice up the sound!

1. Sophia Loizou
2. Rognvald
3. Havelock
4. Aquarian
5. Zuli
6. ASC
7. Yally
8. Pinch
9. smog
10. Loft
11. LSDXOXO
12. Lastrack
13. The Duke Of Juke
14. Cocktail Party Effect, Isabassi
15. Homemade Weapons
16. DLX
17. Lewis James, DanDansK
18. Smyla
19. Moresounds
20. Neve, Was A Be
21. ZULI (Lee Gamble Remix)
22. Special Request
23. Eprom
24. Norfik

Basswald #21: Advanced Forestry

05 Harpeleik Kraut

04 Harpeleik Pulse

03 Mbira Bow

02 Taffel Cloud

01 Taffel Prolog

Fatwires' first album The wicked path was hailed as one of the heaviest industrial dub albums of 2020 and acclaimed for its contributions to past and future sound system culture. After two recent EPs with the Osaka-based Atsushi Izumi, Book of Riddims unfolds a hefty volume of industrialesque beats, organic dubs and spectral soundscapes around the voices and lyrics brought in by recent international acquaintances from John Eckhardt's Hamburg hood, speaking diverse mother tongues.

Just a handful of short first encounters with a mic on one side and his beats/bass on the other inspired a clash of spontaneous story-telling and primal song-writing procedures: a poetry lab for building diverse worlds amidst the unpredictable fields of vibration that are created together on the fly. What began as an intimate experimental refuge now turns into a celebration of the unfamiliar, and of the rewards of interacting in creative resonance with the unknown wealth we always find around and right in front of us. Essential skills for survival.

All post-production preserved the original vocals, beats and drones created spontaneously during each session.

Music played, recorded and mixed by John Eckhardt. Vocals by Shimo, Emol, Mai-Linh Dang and Dennis Robert - John Eckhardt'S deepest thanks for coming out despite not knowing what they were in for, and contributing raw, striking and honest performances.

John Eckhardt is a hunter-gatherer of all things bass and one of the most versatile bass artists in a wide field of today's music. As a bass player, he features on over 40 recordings and in solo and group performances around the globe. He works us a sound artist, DJ and photographer.

www.johneckhardt.de
www.depthoffieldmusic.com
www.instagram.com/basswald

Fatwires - Money  Riddim feat. Dennis Robert

Fatwires - Exhausted Riddim feat. Shimo

Fatwires - Cove Riddim feat. Mai-Linh Dang

trippy new ruffidge from africa!

1. Rian Treanor & Ocen James
2. Ennanga Vision
3. Metal Preyers
4. Rian Treanor & Ocen James
5. Metal Preyers
6. Ecko Bazz
7. Nakibembe Embaire Group with Gabber Modus Operandi & Wahono
8. Po
9. Toya Delazy
10. Ennanga Vision
11. Authentically Plastic
12. Mc Yallah feat Ratigan Era
13. Afrorack
14. Lila Tirando a Violeta & Sueuga Kamau
15. Dj Skothan
16 Phelimuncasi (Prod by DJ Scoturn)
17. MaRiiO
18. Makossiri
19. Toya Delazy
20. Makossiri
21. Authentically Plastic
22. Nakibembe Embaire Group with Gabber Modus Operandi & Wahono
23. Slikback
24. Ecko Bazz, Biga Yut (Ekhe Rework)
25. Slikback

Basswald #27: Afrodelic

Fatwires - Now Riddim feat. Mai-Linh Dang

exquisite matriarchal experimentalism! our best way out is more feminist men, so get it together guys.

1. Ann Eysermans
2. Mariam Rezaei
3. Jenny Hval
4. Amy Cutler
5. Klein
6. Ziúr
7. Hannah Silva
8. Jenny Hval
9. Aviva Endean
10. Azu Tiwaline
11. Laura Cannell
12. Dis Fig
13. Lemna
14. Anna Homler
15. Amy Cutler
16. Moor Mother
17. Mariam Rezaei
18. Aisha Devi
19. Martina Bertoni

Basswald #30: Femmes Fractales

a terrestrial, dark ambient selection meditating on both the elemental might and
ultimate indifference of what we refer to as „nature“, as well as on the
inescapable presence of ecological principles even in late-industrialism.

1. Francesco Fabris & Ben Frost
2. Eric Holm
3. Devika
4. Mønic
5. Amby Downs
6. Christina Giannone
7. Basic House
8. Mariam Rezaei ft. Teresa Winter & Bobby Glew
9. Stave
10. Bliss Detention Center
11. PureData
12. SELM
13. Inner8, Koichi Shikmizu, Franz Rosati, Lifecutter, Scald
14. Cleared
15. Shakali

Basswald #32: Aeons

A new mixtale of krauted avant folk, outernational tape loops and magnetic field recordings!

1. Angus MacLise
2. Aeson Zervas
3. Christopher Trapani, Zwerm
4. Rat Heart Ensemble
5. Garth Erasmus
6. Angus MacLise
7. Gaister
8. Das Ende der Liebe x su dance110
9. Gosheven
10. Symposium Musicum
11. Sandy Chamoun / Anthony Sahyoun / Jad Atoui
12. Inre Kretsen Grupp & Prins Emanuel
13. A Taut Line
14. Aly Eissa & Ayman Asfour
15. Gaister
16. Laura Cannell & Andre Bosman

Basswald #33: Witchtape

Fatwires - Kinetic Riddim feat. Emol

sharing a special passion for the poetic pleasures of languages i don’t understand, for voices that sound unfamiliar and sometimes otherworldly - embedded in sprawling textures and a branching jungle of original, sometimes weird, sometimes outright bouncy beats...

1 Yikii
2 Howie Lee
3 Violence Gratuite
4 Dijit
5 Sockethead
6 DJ Anderson Do Paraiso feat Sarah Guedes, Mc Code, Mc Paulin do G
7 IFS MA
8 Violence Gratuite
9 Yokel x D.Ham x Franco Franco
10 Phelimuncasi & Metal Preyers
11 Kamohelo, E-Unity
12 King Midas Sound
13 Zuli ft. Mado $am, Abanob, Abyusif
14 Howie Lee
15 Dijit
16 The Maghreban, Nah Eeto
17 DJ Anderson do Paraíso Feat. MC's Laranjinha & Laureta

Basswald #31: Tonguez

a highly unlikely pixel breeze of shoe-gazing ambient-trap, bound to
massage your eardrums, subs and your brain cells, too!

1. nueen
2. Aethek
3. Iceboy Violet
4. Yungwebster
5. 990x
6. Bianca Scout
7. Haji
8. Jessicnt
9. Loraine James
10. Time Cow
11. Kim Gordon
12. Sockethead 
13. Klein
14. nueen
15. URA
16. 990x
17. Loraine James

Basswald #34: Byte Fog

a free-flying book of songs touching on indy, folk, krautrock and more experimental storytelling.

1. Civilistjävel! x Mayssa Jallad
2. james K
3. Jabu feat. Daniela Dyson & memotone
4. Perila and Ulla
5. Any
6. Jenny Hval
7. Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, Hahn Rowe
8. Meril Wubslin
9. Any
10. Jabu
11. Lou Venturini
12. Meril Wubslin
13. Wu-Lu
14. Joe Lally
15. Anika
16. Kim Gordon
17. Violence Gratuite
18. Lou Venturini

Basswald #35: Strum

my next collaboration for an audiovisual environment with katrin bethge will take place as part of the alte opera nights festival, alte oper frankfurt. in resonance with the festival's urban, cosmopolitan theme, we create a multi-sensory atmospheric charging of the hertie foyer for festival visitors to hang out between concerts.
amidst a light installation refracting and liquifying frankfurt’s unique architectural vibe, dubtechnoesque structures slowly emerge from engulfing abstract soundscapes.

Stalagmite City Dub

finding deep and thrilling techno tracks has always been a challenge to me. but since even the last humans will for sure be raving to it, i never stopped trying: here’s a banging selection of some of my favourite, industrial-leaning tracks from the past twelve years.

1. Michal Wolski
2. Pris
3. SNTS
4. Pause
5. Flaminia
6. Torn
7. Ducerey Ada Nexino
8. Avatism, Clockwork (C/W), CW/A
9. Pause
10. Zisko, ArchivOne, Lacchesi, Sina XX
11. 6SISS, Positive Centre
12. In Half Light
13. Pfirter
14. Yuji Kondo

Basswald #36: Primal Transmit

john eckhardt - solo double bass




recording: ocnm archive 2011

brian ferneyhough "trittico per g.s." for solo double bass- live @ ostrava days for new music

the revolutionary bass sound whose vibrations have been spreading from past time, inner city kingston across the globe today, and whose studio experiments and song deconstructions have led the way for so much of today's music that has drums and bass in it or gets remixed.

www.johneckhardt.de/basswald

1. Basswald Intro
2. King Babylon Dub - Impact All-stars
3. Cool This Dub - Tappa Zukie
4. Jammy a shine - Prince Jammy
5. Herb Vendor - Leroy 'Horsemouth' Wallace
6. Jah Jah Dub - Herman Chin Loy
7. Sneak Invasion Dub - Johnny Clarke & The Aggrovators
8. Ordinary Version Dub - Impact All-stars
9. Beng come down Dub - The Congos
10. Freedom - Tappa Zukie
11. King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo
12. Dub Trap - Yabby You
13. Use This Dub - Horace Andy
14. Heavenless Dub - Scientist
15. The rightful Organizer - Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters
16. African Roots (extended)- Johnny Clarke
17. Kojak - Lee Perry & The Upsetters
18. Concrete Jungle - Big Youth
19. Chim Cherie Rock (Melodica cut)- The Upsetters
20. 1 Rutland Close - Augustus Pablo
21. From Dub Four - Clive Hylton & The Upsetters
22. Lovers Serenade - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
23. Dub Babylon Dub - Impact All-stars
24. Freedom (dub) - King Tubby

Basswald Podcast #2 - Foundation

http://www.johneckhardt.de/solo

excerpts from john eckhardt's PSI records album.

XYLOBIONT - ear to the wood

Among biologists, the term “Xylobiont” means “living with / by / through wood” and hints at the organic qualities of this music, which is neither strict composition nor free improvisation. In part, it builds upon Eckhardt’s personal instrumental technique, which is informed by his frequent encounters with the music of composers such as Feldman, Ligeti or Xenakis, as well as by his long lasting practice of improvisation. His approach is however not an end in itself: he developed organic systems, whose focused observation, careful influencing and sensuous development form the substance of his contemplative music - an expedition into sounding forests and woodlands unknown.

Matthew Wuethrich, Dusted Magazine:
"John Eckhardt mobilizes technique along with imagination to create pieces that are neither compositions nor improvisations; they are organic systems capable of taking on a mind of their own. (…) He explores that space where sound and its organization show themselves to be a natural phenomenon, and taps into a whole world of moods beyond the one of human emotion."

This music was first released in 2008 as CD on Evan Parker’s imprint PSI records - as recorded, with no edits, electronics, preparations or further processing.

It has since grown into one of John Eckhardt’s most prominent and widely performed recital programs (with over 20 performances e.g. in Prague, Zürich, Helsinki, Berlin, Edinburgh, New York City). Faithful to the nature of this approach, it is under constant development.

http://www.johneckhardt.de/solo

xylobiont: bäck (PSI rec.)

xylobiont: noo bag (PSI rec.)

https://johneckhardt.bandcamp.com/album/fatwires-the-wicked-path

www.johneckhardt.de

FATWIRES Boreal Riddim

FATWIRES Equinox

FATWIRES Strings Of Dread

FATWIRES Tools That We'll Be Swinging

all basses played & processed live by john eckhardt

www.johneckhardt.de/fatwires

Nice up the bass. In a spacious breakbeat architecture, Fatwires (ex Funksteppa) brings to you what made dub, funk and soul what they are: the hand picked bass guitar line. John Eckhardt carefully interweaves playing, live processing and production with a special focus on the physical as well as the biological qualities of live bass playing.

On the basis of a raw live bass guitar sound, Fatwires explores what club music has done for the formerly sole habitat of bass instruments, while bringing real time imagination as well as original rhythmic feel and motion to the floor - another project of John Eckhardt’s revolving entirely around space, bass and time.

Minute software programming extracts small filtered portions of lively, bottom heavy bass line playing, and unfolds them into ever new expanding spaces of drones and loops. Like playing through a prism, even the most distant, twisted and echoing chords represent a facet of the bass string as it is vibrating in real time.

John Eckhardt’s beatscapes express these ideas in their own right. They consist as much of a vital set of percussion sounds as of constant dubwise morphing of their spatial and spectral properties. Each track is part of a greater contemplation on a certain rhythmic feel and developed in close connection to the bass playing. Tracks are grouped and mixed into sets at consistent tempi in respect to the flow of the DJ mix.

fatwires: krauthouse

CEDRI: a gate to the sound world of FORESTS, this piece extensively probes the physics and spectrum of the lowest, open bass string.

first excerpt from FORESTS, a new 113 minute album of music for four double basses, recorded as played by john eckhardt. 

(100% acoustic, no electronics, amplification or other preparations used.)

COMING SOON ON NEW LABEL!

www.johneckhardt.de

forests: cedri (excerpt) OUT NOW: www.johneckhardt.de/forests

XYLOTOPE stochastic voodoo.

second excerpt from FORESTS, a new 113 minute album of music for four double basses, recorded as played by john eckhardt.

every physical copy will be handcrafted with care and absolutely unique - stay tuned for details!

(100% acoustic, no electronics, amplification or other preparations used.)

COMING SOON ON NEW LABEL!

www.johneckhardt.de

forests: xylotope (excerpt) OUT NOW: www.johneckhardt.de/forests

NEMORA the many mechanical parts of the double bass sing the ballad of holy forests.

third excerpt from john eckhardts 113 minute album of music for four double basses.

every physical copy will be handcrafted with care and absolutely unique - touchable, biological, revivable...

the sound will arrive in 96khz/24bit (mp3 for download) - stay tuned for details!

(100% acoustic, no electronics, amplification or other preparations used.)

COMING SOON ON NEW LABEL!

www.johneckhardt.de

forests: nemora (excerpt) OUT NOW: www.johneckhardt.de/forests

FUNGI pizzicato styles

fourth excerpt from an upcoming 113 minute album of music for four double basses, played as recorded by john eckhardt.
every physical copy will be handcrafted with care and absolutely unique - touchable, biological, revivable...
the sound will arrive in 96khz/24bit (mp3 for download), with several texts, john eckhardt's forest photography and a custom mobile application.

(100% acoustic, no electronics, amplification or other preparations used.)

COMING SOON ON NEW LABEL!

www.johneckhardt.de

forests: fungi (excerpt) OUT NOW: www.johneckhardt.de/forests

SVARTÄLVEN harmonic osmosis

fifth excerpt from an upcoming 113 minute album of music for four double basses, played as recorded by john eckhardt.
every physical copy of a limited edition will be handcrafted with care and absolutely unique - touchable, biological, revivable!
the sound will arrive in 96khz/24bit (mp3 for download), with several texts (including one by barre phillips), john eckhardt's forest photography and a custom mobile application.

(100% acoustic, no electronics, amplification or other preparations used.)

COMING SOON ON NEW LABEL!

www.johneckhardt.de

forests: svartälven (excerpt) OUT NOW: www.johneckhardt.de/forests

www.johneckhardt.de

John Eckhardt is a hunter-gatherer of all things bass and one of the most versatile bass artists in a wide field of today's music. As acoustic and electric bass player, he features on over 40 recordings and in solo and ensemble performances around the globe. He has published a series of internationally acclaimed solo releases as one of a kind art editions, and employs bass instruments to probe room acoustics, landscapes and histories in sound installations. His Basswald DJ podcast is dedicated to experimental sound system culture. In addition, his passion for photography has fed into his work as well.

john eckhardt

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