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Andreas O. Hirsch
Summe 1
Makiphon - Cat No: Makiphon 002
- updated:2025-08-19
The landmark 2015 debut album "Summe 1" by ANDREAS O. HIRSCH — the maverick member of THE KNOB, THE FINGER & THE IT, known for "Row" (a documentary field recording of a Dutch lifeboat rowing team in training), the electroacoustic masterpiece "Astro Camping" (natural-science field recordings paired with homemade synths), and "Early Carbophonics" (created on the Carbophone, his self-built instrument based on the African thumb piano, i.e. kalimba/mbira) — is repressed for the first time in ten years!!!
Track List
After numerous concerts and performances throughout the last years, Summe 1 is Andreas O. Hirsch‘s first release on makiphon. The album concentrates on peculiar soundscapes and drony pieces, carefully inter- woven by means of pitched harmonicas, electric guitars, mini fans, de- lays and the electric palm leaf, an electroacoustic invention of the artist. The eight titles evoke a space somewhere between interstellar geography (Maxwell Mountains - a plateau on planet Venus), abstract physics (Teilchenbeschleuniger), botanical scenery and animality: Kemeri 5 am features nocturnal crane calls that Hirsch recorded on a bike trip in a swamp near Riga while he was busy with decoding bird messages via morse code. Opossum Pravda is dedicated to the tenacious marsupial that likes to wander around at night and which is able to hang from trees by its tail. Kautschukwaage seems to suggest an exotic setting and provides a link to the rubber bands which one hears resonating in the miniature. Sleeve designed by the artist. 300 copies. Mastered by Joseph Suchy.
"Summe 1" was the first album Cologne, Germany-based artist Andreas O. Hirsch released on Makiphon. The record weaves together singular soundscapes and drones built from pitched harmonica, electric guitar, a mini fan, delay, and The Electrified Palm Leaf — his own invented plucked instrument, akin to the African kalimba or mbira, which he runs through effects and loops into a wholly original homemade electronic instrument. Interstellar geography (Maxwell Montes — the highlands of Venus), abstract physics (Teilchenbeschleuniger), and recordings of night-calling cranes captured while cycling through the marshes near Riga, back when he was obsessed with decoding birds' messages in Morse code. There is also a piece dedicated to the legendary creatures known as the Rhinogradentia — in all, eight exotic, orientalist, wondrously strange and experimental psychedelic sound spaces.
The artwork, by Hirsch himself, is charming too. Mastered by Joseph Suchy. Limited to 300 copies. Heavyweight-style LP with download code. (Original Japanese text by COMPUMA)