“A Masterful Demonstration of Creative Capacity”

Interview with Thorsten Sudler-Mainz

By Sergio Vilar

Hello Thorsten, is a pleasure to interview. Do you find well to begin making a small summary of your career and to speak of your main musical influences?
Hello Sergio, it’s pleasure for me too. Well, I started my musical career in the early 80ties, first as a drummer, later as guitar player and singer. In the 90ties I began to discover the possibilities of electronic music in using a Kurzweil K 2000 synthesizer. At this time I started my main project Art Of Infinity together with my friend and partner Thorsten Rentsch, in which we realize a combination of electronic music, real played instruments and vocals. In 2005 I released my first solo work, the album “Scapes” with a new project called Deep Imagination. My musical influences are various, I like artrock, electronic and many other music styles, my favourite band ever is Pink Floyd.

Well, now speak some “Scapes”. Could you give us a brief impression of the songs of this album? How did the inspiration arise to write them?
I have had the idea for “Scapes” for a long time and now I realized it. The idea was to produce an ambient album only by the use of electronic sounds. The concept is to create pictures and landscapes in sound. For example when you listen to “Moonscape” you can easily imagine to be on the moon. Another inspiration for me was to play live on stage at the German electronic music festival Satzvey Castle 2005 in April this year. This annual festival is organized by the German label Syngate. They invited me to play live with Deep Imagination and they released my album at the same time. I performed live with my guests Thorsten Rentsch and the Art Of Infinity sax-player Stefan Höllering, who played electronic sax on “Scapes”. At this concert we performed some tracks of Art Of Infinity too.

What message do you want to transmit with your music?
I think the music itself is the message. Music is a special kind of language. If someone understands when listening to my music it makes me very satisfied.

When you are recording, you look more the feelings or the perfection of the sound?
Only the feeling and the expression counts in the moment when I’m writing songs. But it’s also very important for me to obtain a high quality in sound, so I use high quality equipment, especially for the end mix of my works.

Then, how would you define Deep Imagination music? How would you introduce it to people that doesn't know it?
“Scapes” is a very self-contained work. Imagine open, electronic soundscapes, vast plains and close meditative bass grooves. But maybe the best way to find it out is to listen to the music.

Musically speaking, which are the main differences between Deep Imagination and Art Of Infinity? Which is the concept of each one of them?
This is a very good question. Deep Imagination is my new solo project, it’s some kind of a playground for me and it gives me the possibility to make experiences in playing live. My main project is Art Of Infinity since 1996. Together with my friend Thorsten Rentsch we compose and produce concept albums, we collaborate with a lot of guest musicians and singers.

Thorsten, I know that you are a very active artist. Besides your participation in Deep Imagination and Art Of Infinity, do you have some other project in which you are working at the moment?
There is a little Ambient/Jazz project with the Art Of Infinity sax player Stefan Höllering, it is called Whitebirds. Further I will have a guest appearance as a singer on the next album of the German electronic band Realtime. But actually we are working on the forthcoming Art Of Infinity album “Endless Future”. On this album we collaborate with Mexican singer and composer Alquimia, she sings two songs on the album, I’m very happy about this collaboration.

What music type do you usually listen? Can you be that you have been listening lately?
That’s very different, usually I love to listen to ambient music with female vocals like Achillea but I love also atmospheric artrock like Porcupine Tree.

What do you say about today's progressive rock in day? There are more bands publishing disks that never, some of which are making a great work, others continue making more than the same thing...
That’s right, I think it’s a very good thing that art- and progressive rock came back these times. Although some bands forget to create their own style and so sometimes the old bands are very much better.

What current bands do you find interesting?
Every band who creates successful it’s own style in atmospheric music. Porcupine Tree is one of them.

A final question… do you believe that the music can change the feelings of people?
Yes of course, I think it’s the reason why people listen to music.

Thank you Thorsten. Do you have some final message?
Please visit www.art-of-infinity.com and listen to the sound examples of Deep Imagination and Art Of Infinity to find out my music. Thanks to everyone who is interested in my music, to the readers of Nucleus and very special thanks to you, Sergio!

www.art-of-infinity.com

Nucleus interview: 29/10/05