Gute Reise!
Gestern kamen Steve Tibbetts‘ Antworten auf meine Fragen an. Vier O-Töne werde ich um zwei Muskstücke seines am 16. Oktober erscheinenden Albums „Close“ „herumwickeln“, und einmal mehr entpuppt er sich als einer meiner geschätztesten Geschichtenerzähler, der mit Humor und Selbsironie zu fesseln weiss – und en passant sowie ohne Prätention Baudelaire und einen Song von Jefferson Airplane einfliessen lässt. Herrlich. Ich sprach ihn darauf an, dass „Close“ etwas Finales ausstrahle, die Schwingungen eines womöglich letzten Werkes. Und er antwortete mir darauf so:
Oh well, what a long time ago! Ich kenne all seine Alben, und das erste kam zu mir in den Bayerischen Wald anno 1982, „Northern Song“. Dann kam „Safe Journey“, und ich wusste, dieser Gitarrist und Komponist aus Minneapolis würde lebensbegleitend sein. Am 25. September geht es ja, in den Klanghorizonten um 21.05 Uhr, neben den Necks, Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe, neben Ludwig Berger, Lucrecia Dalt, Robert Wyatt, Phillip Jeck sowie Jan Bang und Arve Henriksen, auch, und ganz besonders, um Steves „Close“. Es ist ja nicht so, dass er Platten wie warme Brötchen oder Al Di Meola verkauft. Ich freue mich über und für jeden, der seine Musik für sich entdeckt. „Close“ ist grosses Abenteuer mit ungewissem Ausgang: safe journey!
Und in meinem Porträt am 22. Januar 2026 wird es vor allem um seine ECM-Alben gehen (von seinen anderen Werken mit anderen Künstlern, ausserhalb des legendären, nun auch schon der Geschichte angehörenden Studios in St. Paul werde ich eines auswählen, als Zwischenspiel im Zentrum, das mit den wunderbaren Frauenstimmen aus dem Fernen Osten), und die Reihenfolge fällt mir im Schlaf ein: Northern Song, Safe Journey, Exploded View, The Fall Of Us All, A Man About A Horse, Natural Causes, Life Of, Close.
Wer sich die Wartezeit auf „Close“ verkürzen möchte, hat hier freie Auswahl! Also bin ich ein Steve Tibbetts-Experte!? Zum Glück nicht – denn seine Arbeiten machen mich, wenn ich mich wieder und wieder auf sie einlasse, ein ums andere Mal sprachlos. Wenn ich darüber schreibe, ist das nur ein Abglanz, eine stets fehlerhafte Übermittlung unmitttelbaren Staunens und Gefesseltseins: unspeakable messages to decode in decent numbers!
5 Kommentare
Michael Engelbrecht
Transkript:
„Close“ or close. Yes, there is some sense of finality or ending in this. The cover, the titles, the music itself. But musicians and artists are always thinking like this. They’re always thinking that they’re about to have their James Dean moment. And quite honestly, I’ve had this feeling before. I had it back in 1983 with Safe Journey. I had my way with that record. I made the music, mixed it with Manfred in Oslo. A friend of mine shot the cover photo, and it was to be released on one of the world’s coolest labels. What more could you want? Game over. The end.“
Michael Engelbrecht
Gerade bekomme ich die Nachricht, dass Robert Oschatz (Schauspieler, Sprecher im DLF) Steve Tibbetts spricht, wunderbar!
Michael Engelbrecht
Translation
Yesterday, Steve Tibbetts‘ answers to my questions arrived. I will “wrap” four sound bites around two tracks from his album “Close,” which will be released on October 16, and once again he proves to be one of my most esteemed storytellers, who knows how to captivate with humor and self-irony—and en passant, without pretension, incorporates Baudelaire and a song by Jefferson Airplane. Wonderful. I mentioned to him that “Close” radiates something final, the vibrations of what may be his last work. And he replied as follows:
…
Oh well, what a long time ago! I know all his albums, and the first one came to me in the Bavarian Forest in 1982, “Northern Song.” Then came “Safe Journey,” and I knew that this guitarist and composer from Minneapolis would be a lifelong companion. On September 25, at 9:05 p.m. on Klanghorizonte, alongside the Necks, Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe, Ludwig Berger, Robert Wyatt, Phillip Jeck, Jan Bang, and Arve Henriksen, there will also be a special focus on Steve’s Close. It’s not as if he sells records like hotcakes or Al Di Meola. I am happy for everyone who discovers his music for themselves. “Close” is a great adventure with an uncertain outcome: safe journey!
And my portrait on January 22, 2026, will focus primarily on his ECM albums (from his other works with other artists, outside the legendary studio in St. Paul, which is now part of history, I will choose one as an interlude in the middle, the one with the wonderful female voices from the Far East), and the order comes to me in my sleep: Northern Song, Safe Journey, Exploded View, The Fall Of Us All, A Year About A Horse, Natural Causes, Life Of, Close. If you want to shorten the wait for “Close,” you have free choice here! So am I a Steve Tibbetts expert? Fortunately not—because his works leave me speechless time and again when I engage with them over and over. When I write about them, it is only a reflection, an invariably flawed transmission of immediate amazement and fascination: secret messages to decode in decent numbers!
Michael Engelbrecht
Another translation:
It’s been a few years since Steve Tibbetts released “Life Of,” as calm and introspective as “Northern Song” once was, but woven and crafted in a completely different way. “Even the silences were different.” I was just able to restrain myself from uttering the infamous phrase (or did I actually blurt it out?!): “He has painted his masterpiece.” Well, after my first few trips through his album Close, which will be released at the end of October, that cliché came back to mind, and once again I would have good reasons for it.
Since “Safe Journey,” I have been waiting for Steve Tibbetts‘ works with the same anticipation as I once did, or still do, for albums by Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, or Scott Walker. I can dwell, live, and roam in many of the guitarist’s works, as if in a great adventure. None of his albums have ever worn thin, and each new opus opens up new horizons. So this time, too, I waited for “Close,” growing more and more impatient as the release date approached. When it became possible to listen to the music in advance as a journalist, I was on my way to the Rursee, where I love to swim, deep in the Eifel region. Of course, I wanted to listen to it in peace and quiet.
We had a great time at the lake, and at some point it got really hot. I grabbed a Coke and thought, hey, I’ll listen to the first few tracks in the parking lot. No sooner said than done. I listened to “We Begin – Part 1,” “We Begin – Part 2,” and “We Begin, Part 3.” Not because our foster daughter had been stung by a wasp (I only found out about that a few minutes later): no, I pressed the “stop” button because the music gripped me so much that I wanted to crawl into the sounds, like Jules Verne once did when he entered a cave on his “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” I wanted to lose myself in the unique fabric of these quiet yet wild sounds. There is also the slight shock of being moved, and after all, I still had to function properly that afternoon, get some ice packs, and stop Marjan’s mild hypoglycemia. I’m writing cheerfully here, but in those minutes I was strangely speechless. I caught up on the great journey at home late in the evening, from the first note to the last. And then there’s the cover with all its darkness and specially lit angles – “fairytale-like” – probably an even more uplifting invitation to get to know “Close” than all my rambling words!
Jan Reetze
Oh je, wie soll man nach so einer Ankündigung die nächsten sechs Wochen überstehen?