The Observatory with Colin Hacklander on drums / The Realistic Micro Dwarf: The Duo of Burkhard Beins & Clayton Thomas
The Observatory are an independent avant rock band and an experimental music group based in Singapore, consisting largely of alumni from significant 1990s Singaporean bands.
Founded in 2001, the group’s main tenet is to push individual and collective boundaries farther. The goal isn’t just about creating music that contains universal themes or writing about life from a distinctly Singaporean perspective. It’s about breaking down inhibition, convention and the mechanical way of commercial music-making.
The group draws inspiration from their Southeast Asian roots and an unavoidable post-colonial musical diet. The Observatory fuse unconventional structures, Asian rhythms, bold arrangements, improvisation, thought and expression, while borrowing from random music styles to stir up a potent concoction of emotionally powerful extremes, disturbed and angry on one end, haunting and melancholic on the other.
The heart and soul of The Observatory is in its constant reinvention. With each release, the members have persisted in their experimental take on the song form. This frequently takes their music to the outer limits, creating a rich musical repertoire that’s texturally complex in a sonic tour de force of songs that are viscerally emotional and splintering in its bleakness. A study in delusion, insanity and obsession, Catacombs, their latest album, provokes and inspires in a deeply enigmatic way. Even at its coldest and most abstract, it is human to the core.
Album Music Trailer:
http://vimeo.com/39565111
“Out of The Furrow” (Excerpt):
https://vimeo.com/41332165
“Anger & Futility” (Live Studio Performance):
$$Colin Hacklander$$ is a self-taught drummer/percussionist and artist who tours, organizes events, and works with various artist organizations in Berlin, Minneapolis, NYC and now in Den Haag. See Mica Moca, NK, Salon Bruit, OpenSound, GH, Tacheles Kunsthaus, Dystopia, Minneapolis Free Music Society, Capillary Action, Contemporary Music Workshop, The Sound Gallery, Consortium of Symphonic Transients, and also Institute of Sonology Shared bills with Lightning Bolt, Wolf Eyes, Deerhoof, Joke Lanz, Japanther, Jim Black, toured with Charles Hayward, performed with Doudou N’diaye Rose, performed under James Dillon. Currently performing/developing solo set with drums/electronics as GOOD GOD…
http://www.goodgod.biz
http://soundcloud.com/goodgodd
“The Realistic Micro Dwarf”
Duo Synthesizer Project of Clayton Thomas & Burkhard Beins –
http://www.soundcloud.com/clayton-thomas
http://www.burkhardbeins.de