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Here it is. For the first time ever not by me! The art is from Steven Emil Steve Esteban Etienne y Stefan de la Cruz of The Sleepover at Invisible College (a non-man band) alias Amake alias The Artist Formerly known as Invisible Queen and it looks much better than my other two attempts, which were probably a cool idea (well, my idea) but poorly executed. Sadly the artist “disappeared” over night and could not be interviewed on subject of the deep layered symbolism that lies behind the seemingly random shapes, colors and shades. Will we ever know? The only way to find out is to stare at it all day.

If you want to compare the songs that’s fine, in that case either download the albums from the above link or simply follow the links below, which refer to the Last.fm pages of the songs (for streaming purposes just click the tiny icon next to “play direct from Krachfabrik”). The Last.fm pages also have some additional info on the songs in some cases. If I what’s here contradicts Last.fm, what I wrote here is true. Or not. Who knows.

On the production: Usually I prefer a quieter production, with little to no clipping, but in this case I thought I’ll just amp it up and see what happens.

By the way, if anyone is sick enough to actually want to play some of my songs with real instruments I’ll be happy to provide anyone with my *.tg files *.pdf tabs or scores. I can’t really vouch for the quality of the tabs and scores because I don’t use them myself. And errr. I can’t read notes at all.

Original album: Look, mom! I made music!
Based on the enhanced version of “Dream Turning to Nightmare. But I like it that way baby” called “A Dream Comes True (Eclipse)“

It’s probably the most metal song from the first album, most of my earlier compositions were more metal-ish. I only started to try being a little less metal with the third album. This track is made slightly different by replacing the first guitar with a synth. The song titles were inspired by events in the Manga Berserk (in-universe and by fans as “The Eclipse” which I wont spoil)

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Original album: Look, mom! I made music!
Original title: Heavy Metal Gunfight

Oh damn, what do we have here? Three versions of the very first song I’ve written! The difference between the original and the first remake is, that I replaced the first guitar with a piano that got all kindsa shit stuck between the strings, or something and I used a synth for bass. The second one is ALL noise, while the third one is ALL guitar, making it essentially the original but with better production. I just had to do that.

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Orignal album: Musik für Hörgeschädigte
Original title: Lighthouse for the Blind, Houston, Texas 77019

When I made the original I was completely overwhelmed by the fact that my music doesn’t have to be loud, it was that moment I noticed that I’ve become better than when I started. I wrote a calm song, with a nice intro. The new version is almost the same as the original, the first guitar has been swapped with a piano, because it was supposed to be a piano anyway, originally. The midi jazz guitar just made for a slightly better sound. But now I have soundfonts and VST instruments, so I’ll have no excuse for using midi ever again.

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Original album: Musik für Hörgeschädigte
Based on Scenery for a Doomsday which was an extended version of Johan is a Name

This was the first song I got praise for. Also, when I made it it was the best thing ever. And after that I made Lighthosue for the Blind… soooooo. Anyway. I stayed close to the original. It lacks the rainy outro for some reason… (I forgot). The titles of all versions are inspired by Naoki Uarasawa’s suspense Manga “Monster” I’d have to spoil again to make much sense of that, but it won’t hurt to let you know that the main villain in the story is called Johan.

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Original album: Crimes Against Music
Original title: Anti-Music

I remember when I started writing this I said to myself I’ll roll with whatever comes, and I remember I believed the intro is the most cacophonous thing I ever created (I already forgot about Heavy Metal Gunfight apparently). It didn’t even sound so bad, but to my ears then for some reason it sounded like that. So I called it Anti-Music. At the end it’s pretty much the boring ol’ metal-ish stuff.

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Original album: Crimes Against Music
Original title: Love, Hate, Clouds.

The track title of the original alludes to a certain strip of the webcomic 8-Bit Theater. Go ahead and read that, you’ll eventually find the strip I mean. Some minor adjustments to the score have been made, plus it’s all synths now instead of the rock/metal instrument setup I still clinged to more or less at the time.

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Original album: Crimes Against Music
Original title: Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe (Poor Dog)

Phoebe is back to fuck your shit up. And this time it’s personal. Well, it pretty much already was last time, but this is part 2, right? Same old song though, with some minor adjustments. Well, of course I got rid of the midi instruments too. But I don’t even have to mention that.

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Original album: Unmusik
Original title: Unhip Monkey Comparison

Sounds pretty different from the original. Even though I made no changes to the actual scores at all. Save for the intro we have different instruments, what stands out most is the lead though. Not only did I use a synth that sounds very different from the guitar I originally used, I also changed it’s pitch. That way it sounds rather dissonant in the middle, which was accidental but in this case I think it’s a nice touch. Still fits perfectly at the parts where it really matters.

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Original album: Unmusik
Original title: Banishment / The End (though, there’s also an extended version called The End / The End (The End))

I stayed fairly close to the original here again (except I left out one guitar) until the end. When I improvise. I chopped up bits played by the piano and sped them up, kinda sounded like chiptunes and I liked the effect, I also added some new percussive parts. Then I decided maybe, if it was a good idea to speed up the piano bits, I could also slow them down. And it was, sounded a little like strings. Happy little accidents right there.

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Original album: Look, mom! I made music!
Original title: I’ll devote a shrine to 4chan just so I can desecrate it

This is a weird one. Always was. I tried to make it sound as different as possible while still using instruments similar to the ones from the original. I think I’ve succeeded. I especially like when it starts again at the end myself.

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Original album: Crimes Against Music
Original title: Ramblings of a Drunken Madman

This one has a nice rock-ish build-up intro. Other than that I never liked it too much, still, it’s pretty close to the original. The most noticeable change is that I used synths that would otherwise be good for ambient songs and see what random stuff can happen with them.

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Original album: Crimes Against Music
Original title: Disco Incarnate (other versions: Disco Incarnate (Instrumental)) and Disco Unleashed)

Sooooo, this version doesn’t have vocals other than that it completely lacks the original metal drum track. The song is not metal at all, unlike all three original versions. I decided to go crazy experimenting  and created a really dark sounding song with an oppressive mood. I produced it REALLY LOUD with instruments that usually sound quiet to achieve that. Another happy little accident: I accidentally inserted a note near the end of the song, the instrument that plays it couldn’t be heard under the wall of sound in the older versions (only later when it was soloing), but here It’s heavily distorted and creates a really forceful effect when that single note plays. I really liked that, so I kept it.

That’s it. That was my little trip to the past. Now I’ll have to look on ahead and create new things instead of playing around with  the old. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish one of the many started songs I have laying around. I mean, I already started a second album in case the songs I’m working on just wouldn’t fit into the concept of the first one I’m working on. I can basically do what I want. Even start work on a THIRD album. But fuck, I’m not that crazy. Or am I?

Anyway, now I feel like writing a little to kill some time. Back when I finally uploaded Cacophonous Event Horizon to Bandcamp I wrote a little bit about every song and the album as a whole. Guess what this is gonna be! Listen to the entire thing here or just use the players below. Or just don’t. Up to you.

While Cacophonous Event Horizon was a very transitional album Klangverschmutzung was more a try to crystallize that a little. In the end I experimented a little more, else making it would have been boring. But I like the result.

In fact, the very first track implies a new direction. So far Krachfabrik was more violent and abrasive but Erinnerungen eines Toten is slow, quiet and melancholic. It’s also the so far latest installment in the great Zombie Knigge saga. This song is about how he remembers witnessing  his first funeral during his second one (a fully conscious zombie who just wants to rest again can do that). In the end he just bursts out of the grave again (Which is the story of this song) and presumably goes to a disco and parties afterwards. By the way, my personal favorite part is how the distortion fades in at the end.

Originally this was called Giygas, but then I decided that was a boring song title and renamed it. While it is inspired by Earthbound’s main villain it is more of an alternate interpretation which I just found fun to contemplate for a second there. I said Krachfabrik used to be more violent and abrasive. Well. This is that pumped up to eleven. Supposed to sound like what the inside of the head of a traumatized rape victim might be. Not a nice sound, mind you. Originally I wanted to reverse the midi convert it to wav and play it backwards to create a more creepy sound. But I could not do that back then. All the vocals, though, are my amplified, distorted, reversed backwards whispers. That’s how I would record Chthulu.

The Rainbow was Paul leaves the realms of most horrible sounds again. I called it a Rock song only with a piano instead of guitars. It still has a guitar, though. Wonder how accurate of a description that is. After the previous song I simply wanted make something that creates a more positive mood. I may have succeeded or not.

This one… what the hell Mr. Krachfabrik?! I like this one. It’s one of my personal favorites, even though I would try make the vocals a little better by now. But their mediocrity was kinda the point. I never wanted full blown death growls, just this half-assed shit here. Though, I’d like to know how it sounds if done proper. I don’t have the vocal talent myself, though. It’s kind of a mockery of abstract art. Do not get me wrong, I LOVE the abstract. I’m an abstract thinker after all. I just don’t like seeing it as an excuse to be bad unless a certain level of badness/lack of polish is the point for some reason.

One day I sat in my dark and cold room and was really angry at some random, probably rather minor, act of censorship in entertainment I found. So I made this. I said older Krachfabrik was violent and abrasive. Well, it was also just constantly building tension ever two or three measures. This is kind of like that. It’s a constant build up towards awesome pay-off. Only the pay-off is censoredWHAT!!??? What did I just say about abstract art? Anyway. It was easier to write this way. The vocals are german for stuff like “banned”, “de-sensitizing” and “immoral”.

Zerstören means to Destroy. While there’s plenty of “omigosh the world is on fire and what the fuck why did bob ross do it” in this song it’s… well okay. Theres not much more to it. Melodically probably the best song I made so far (How To Overdose On Sanity may be better or close). At first I wanted the harp to remain the sole instrument. But I couldn’t resist adding in other stuff. In the end I just decided to metal it up. I also made a new version. I like the original better, though.

Loopable music that might fit into a video game. For a grassy field maybe or a mountain trek. Something like that. Want a midi? Find a way to contact me and you’re go. Of course you can also just cut the MP3 or whichever format you download from Bandcamp a little to make it loop seamlessly.

Translucent is an abandoned thought. No, the song is finished. It’s the thought that’s not. And the thought is the song but… oh fuck. Okay. Just think about that for a second. It’s one of my best I think. Originally I wanted to create a deliberately monotonous experience, I mean. I managed to do it before, just not on purpose. And but I failed. Oh, I failed so horribly. Shame on me. Listen to it.

The world is dead and everything in it is dead. There are only two people left and no matter what happens one is going to kill the other. And, no matter what happens,  the survivor will be the same. Based on a story I once… started writing but my hard drive exploded and took it with it. This made me sad. Here’s at least some of it in the form of music.

Some time last year the german job office put me into some seminar that didn’t make any sense for me to attend. To get there I had to walk the most confusing streets ever. I got there. And I found my way home. And I will never go there again. I hope.

Out of all the songs on this album, that one may create the darkest mood. The title is not necessarily related to the music, it’s simply the observation that often lies can be perceived as the truth as long as enough people believe in them. I’d like to say something clever, like it’s about 1984 or something, but it isn’t.

I wanted to create a song about Homestuck for a while when I made this. But I didn’t want to make a song that sounds just like music from Homestuck, I wanted it to be something of my own. The title is a line from a programming language in Homestuck and it’s supposedly used to terminate a program. It’s also 4:13 long. 413 is a a pretty important number in Homestuck. It started on 4/13 (which to the civilized world is 13.04) but that’s not all. 413 shows up in various forms throughout the story.

And that’s basically it. My sixth and so far best album. But why not take a look ahead and listen to my seventh album? Or at least the six tracks that are out so far. Do it! DOOO EEEET! CLICK THE SHIT OUT OF THIS SHIT!

I finally got around to uploading Cacophonous Event Horizon to my Bandcamp. That is my fifth album, the one before the last one. So it’s been a while. Cacophonous Event Horizon has been on Jamendo for quite some time now, in fact it was the first album I uploaded there. So I guess it’s about time this album is made available on Bandcamp.

Cacophonous Event Horizon was a pretty transitional album for me. You could say I crossed the Event Horizon, which way and what that even means is completely up to you. It was the first time I went away from the mostly horrible metal-style songs in Midi and I was kinda trying to find a style of my own and I actually still am but this, and especially the first song influenced everything that came after to a great degree even though it is still as mean as the older stuffs. This album is also the precise point where I don’t think of my music as bad anymore.

I mean, the first track is actually called I Think I Finally Snapped (The Rainbow’s Neck). And that’s true in a way, you know. Before that I kinda tried to get somewhat of a metal or rock sound, not anymore here. This track is a complete subversion of that. And the last track of the album is a complete subversion of this one even though it’s pretty much the same song.

In A World Of Black And White is based on the melody of Requiem for TheJunner, which I also wrote. Requiem for TheJunner was the first song I got praise for, even though it was released way back during my intentionally lo-fi times. You could say this is a remix, a remake or just a song using similar melodies.

The one song that’s pretty much like old Krachfabrik but sounds somewhat better because It’s not a Midi is The Crazy Old Man Attacks.

After writing that it took me about two or three months before I made something again, and I think you can hear that I was in a different state of mind when I wrote Untot Begraben (Fauxpas II). Once again, I reuse melodies. This time even older ones, from my second album (Defiler Of Knigge Part II – Fauxpas beim anstoßen /Defiler Of Knigge Part III – Gesundheit!).

Most People Think Showing Emotions Means To Be Happy followed soon after and was received rather well. For some reason Decaying Organic Matter / Near-Life Experience is the most played and thus most popular song I made.

Also on the album is Vittu Saatana Perkele. Goddamn, Vittu Saatana Perkele. It’s glossolalia finnish for… I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean, I only know it’s something very mean to say. And oh hey, on this one I pretended to sing. The voice clip that can be heard in the beginning and throughout (basically holds the song together) is my brother, though.

Crimson Conductor‘s name is inspired by the anime Baccano, in which one character basically becomes this. Originally this was not the plan, but if you listen closely the rhythm almost sounds like a train later on in the song.

Requiem For A Dream, named after the most depressing movie I’ve ever seen (I didn’t even like it much) because this was at the time the most depressing sounding song I had written. I like it because Its climax, for me, is exactly the point in the song at which only one instrument plays. I decided it’s about suicidal depression.

Blue Sky And Laundry From Beyond The Grave has a very special story. Halfway through making that song I asked publicly what I should do with it, as I had hit a “brick wall” (I do that often). The response was to add a breakdown. I decided to add my own kind of breakdown (which you can still hear at the end of the song) and in addition broke down the whole song about 50 semitones which deleted two thirds of all notes. I basically finished writing the song and was going to call it Blue Sky And Laundry. Then I noticed I accidentally toned the whole song so far down the program I used could not play them back anymore, to make it worse, I saved immediately before I noticed. The song was pretty much lost forever. Only not forever. I decided to reconstruct it from what little was left as long as it was still fresh in my brain. And that’s what I did, so yeah. The name of the song was inspired by Gungrave, the sound and voice clips are from that anime too.

After that experience I wanted to write something a little more positive, the result was Upward Spiral.

The last song, though, forgets all about this positive thingie going on in the song before. Am entweihten Grab des Regenbogens (Letzte Sicherung) (in English: At the desecrated grave of the rainbow (last fuse)) was originally supposed to be called Krachfabrik, because it basically sounded like what I would imagine if I heard the word Krachfabrik. Instead I decided to gave it a long German title to make sure as few people as possible would be able to pronounce it. Yeah, I’m an ass like that. At least that way people had a chance to understand that it belongs to the first song. Which becomes rather obvious if you listen to it anyway. But so few people did.

But now YOU can listen too. Isn’t that just great? By the way, could someone tell me how to label my music for the people who need a label to listen to stuff? It would be easier to just tell someone that I have this Electrometalambientcore thing going on, (even though I have no idea what that means). Instead of going all “Yo, peeps. I made music, check it out, it has sound.”

On second thought, that latter option seems so much better now that I wrote it down.

Note: I don’t think I’ll be uploading older releases. They were originally released as 128kbps mp3s. Hate me for that. But really, it’s not like that hurt the music or anything.

New

Old

Not too long ago I decided to update the cover of my current work in progress, Songs about the Ends of a Universe. The reason for this was, quite frankly, the old one looked pretty shitty, even for Krachfabrik’s low standards. Basically that old one was made in the same vein as older Krachfabrik covers: “Just doing it, not caring whether it looks good or not”. At least I’ve somewhat tried to make the new one a little visually appealing. Anyway,  the imagery has changed a little, but the symbolism is still the same. Although if you wanted to you could say the new cover depicts the process of achieving the album’s theme/concept/whatever at a later stage.

That theme, by the way, is to expand one’s horizon, to find new things and see old things in a new light. I think I only told about two or three people before.  How did I even get to that theme? Easy. I thought: “Why not try something new?” The end. So far none of my albums had real themes. The Albums were theme named, of course. There was always a reference to music, sound and/or noise and how it sounded pretty much like shit. But other than that there was nothing much. Besides that, I think I’m beyond the point where I have to point out how bad my music is. I still do, but hey. It’s not like it’s objectively bad anymore, I’ve improved a lot since those early days and while I don’t write great music yet at least my stuff appeals to a certain audience, which consists solely of three people and my mom. Just kidding, my mom thinks it sucks.

I’ll now go on to explain the meaning behind those covers and compare them a little, so if you want to be all clever and find stuff out for yourself you should not read beyond this paragraph. If you’re unable to you just might run into some random guy on the internet who tells you about that totally deep shit going on in the covers of that crack fabric, man. But no, I’m far from famous enough to have random people rambling about possible meanings behind a pile of shade and color I made to visually underline my musical works.

If you know the theme and have seen the covers you should really be able to figure it out yourself. But maybe I’m just saying that because I made these things. So, what we see on the covers is basically a human (or any) self extending it’s petals (consciousness)  towards the borders (the ends) of its individual universe (mind). By that expanding it further towards the borders of the album cover, which sadly is only 900 by 900 pixels big. What kinda two dimensional, shallow being allows itself to get imprisoned by the dimensions of an album cover? I feel the need to point out that you should not take that last bit seriously. I know some people would.

There are twelve of those “petals”, one for each of the twelve songs I traditionally put on each album. Not like I’m going meta and add a thirteenth song which I’ll claim isn’t even on the album, right? Err. So. One petal for each song. The flower motif is a little more obvious on the old cover, but I figured the petals shouldn’t all have the same shape. And the random patterns, while serving a point, just looked really really bad. So I went with random shapes and the color spectrum in the new one. Which serves the same point, although in a different way. The grey petals on the old cover don’t really have much of  a meaning. They just were the one’s without words on them.

I tried to make both of those look different. The first one had the album’s title written on the colored petals, basically written in a half circle and the logo blended with the rest of the cover and almost turned invisible. With the new, rather random shape of the petals I couldn’t write the title on them anymore, not the way I wanted. So what I did was to cram the words in the lower left corner turned around by a random multiple of 90°. The logo just kinda sits there, doesn’t care which way it looks. You might just flip the whole cover upside down and still think it’s right.

The most obvious and also greatest change I made is right there in the center. In the old one we just see a galaxy. The new one has a caleidoscope of Poussini’s painting Et in Arcadia ego. The intended meaning of that phrase is not known, and it can be interpreted in many ways. Personally, I like Grant Morrison’s idea in The Invisibles, where several characters think it means “In paradise I am” also suggesting that paradise is in one’s mind. I chose to put it in the middle because I think that if you truly want to expand your mind you’ll have to move a little away from that safe haven, the paradise in your mind. Why else would you ask a brave, progressive and open-minded thinker whether he’s out of his mind? NAAAAAH. It’s a little darkened, that is supposed to show, that while the paradise might always be in us, we may not be able to see or accept that “fact”. It certainly is one way to see things, and I thought it gave the cover a nice finishing touch.

Mileage may vary to ridiculous degrees, of course. As always. But I like the my little cover. And now I wrote ten thousand paragraphs no one will ever care about, but at least I passed some time.

A song about order, paradoxes and the end of a universe.

I experimented a lot making this one. By “I experimented” I mean I went into territory unknown to myself, not something new to your whole universe. I’m just gradually expanding mine, okay? Until I can’t see all these ends anymore.

So yeah, it’s a song about hearing the inaudible, flowers and the end of a universe. There’s not much more to say about it at the moment.

I’ve been working on this relatively long. For my standards. Most of the time I was struggling with the last one or two minutes. It took me a while to find a way that sounded suitably strange and still wasn’t too sudden. Anyway, the song is about a dream I had two weeks ago. I wrote about it in a chatroom before I went to bed on the day after I had the dream. Lemme quote:

So I’ll tell you what I dreamed yesterday. It’s funny, because usually I don’t remember them too well, and this one was very vivid, although trippy. Possibly brain-bending.

I was in this psychedelic endlessness. There were all colors of the rainbow, mostly yellow, green and purple, though. Sometimes, only for instants, there would be shapes, which my mind could translate into concepts, somehow. Then I found stairs downwards, even though there was no ground and no walls [no ceiling either, duh].

I went downstairs and reached a black room, with only one round table with a sheet of paper on it. On that paper was written one word. But I couldn’t make it out because my vision was blurry (it was all this time, that’s important). Somehow I was drawn into that paper. I was now completely engulfed in white. The only thing that wasn’t white was a tiny black dot far away. I went to that black dot, and as I came closer and closer, eventually I was surrounded by that black. There were many small lights though. I wandered (floated?) around for a bit…

Now I saw that my vision was blurrier than before. I came close to one of the lights, and circling around that light was a familiar looking sphere, which I thought to be the planet earth. I decided to go there. I went through the clouds and saw the continents. Europe, Africa, parts of Asia and even a bit of America. They were subtly different I think. but I might not remember that too clearly [something was definitely off, though]. So I went closer and reached the piece of land that is known as Germany. I went even closer and saw a small village, then I saw a house. I went into that house and there was a sleeping man. I believed that was me, but my vision had become even blurrier by this point. But it had to be me. I entered that man (not via any orifices, to be clear) And once again I was in this psychedelic world. The colors were slightly different, that I could tell. I found the stairs again, I went down the stairs and reached the black room with the round table and the paper again. I couldn’t read the word. Again.

Suddenly I felt a pull. It’s hard to describe. But I was drawn away, back through all this. Back through funny color land, out of the man, leaving earth, the universe, the white, the room with the word. I could see the word again at this point, but I couldn’t make it out, as my vision was still blurry. However I got drawn out further. Or maybe what I saw was pushed away from me? It went on like this. Psychedelic, man, planet, universe, beyond, psychedelic. On and on, and each time I went through that circle my vision became a bit clearer, but I also went faster, so I couldn’t read the word. I went through that circle so many times I lost count. All of a sudden I became slower though, until I came to a halt, only for an instant. In that instant I was in that black room with the word. And my vision was crystal clear, clearer than in real life [???].

I could see the word. But I could not understand it. They were all familiar symbols, but none of our regular latin alphabet, and they didn’t look much like anything I knew, but still familiar. Anyway, that instant was now over. It was like I got slingshot back into the white, into the black with the many white lights, onto planet earth into the house and, lastly, the man. The next thing I remember was the ringing of my alarm clock.