Sinularia - Subwater Beats (2022)

Since hyper:individualism with all its singularities has made us realize, how important it will be to (re)find common interfaces through concepts of multicollectivity or community lifestyles, the band members are increasingly questioning the obsessive or imposed postulation of uniqueness (what every creature is anyway) or a seeming detachment from the roots.

Anyway, the three members went on a procedural journey in music and beyond. Jo Wespel (guitar, fx, comp, prod., fun), Felix Henkelhausen (double bass, fx, fun), Max Santner (drums, fx, fun) are presenting new musical findings on their debut album: Subwater Beats.
The compositions are more influenced from structural thinking and a clear but kind of open, bigger vision. From the interactive perspective, different kinds of music, which implement a lot of improvisation, are very important. But the main focus of the music are rhythmic complexistic state of things and how to transform them into speculative, forward thinking and innovative music of the twenty:first century Beats and music world. Through improvisational concepts and latitudes within multilayered structures as well as a synthesis of acoustic instruments and electronic soundscapes, they create their music with all their intersecting influences : grateful to had the opportunity to learn them :, each personal habitus and true emotions. In the end they call it Subwater Beats, a positive, intense, floating, fat, humorous, emotional, fluid, most diverse fields of sense affecting, rich, hopefully not boring but heartening, new insights containing, speculative, eventful, moving, multi:textured, vulnerable, postcontemporary, challenging, creative and fun music with and from three clearly political personalities.

Sinularia played e.g. at: Überjazz Hamburg, What is Music Festival Burgos, Tunnel Visions München, KIM Festival Berlin, SURfF Festival Berlin, Bandstand Festival Hellerau (European Centre of the Arts), Rhiz Wien, Subwater Beats Festival Dresden and got several grants from public institutions.

“a milestone in experimental instrumental music... a real sensorial revolution... one of the richest trips, we can assure you!" : Roadie Music / Brazil
“way:out... futuristic... incredulously transfixing... awe:inspiring... euphoric... a spatial energy replete across it all... an absolute revelation for the creative soul... filled with so much happening.“ : Find No Enemy / India
"Subwater Beats is a music creation ahead of its time… the band creates a unique sound that elevates the listening experience to a spiritual awakening.“ : Rock Era Magazine / Egypt
"...awesome, as if the vinyls of Aphex Twin and Flying Lotus were played live by a band..." : Kid Be Kid / Artist
"...even jazz lovers who already know a lot will be able to make new discoveries here..." : Jazz Podium / Germany
"...refreshing and unpredictable listening colours..." : Jazz'halo / Belgium
"... with an idiosyncratic sound cosmos..." : Jazz'n'more / Switzerland
" Music of the 21st century, for sure..." : Good Artist / Poland

The band's work focuses on using and openly dealing with complexistic rhythms from so called New Music and Carnatic Music. It is about exploring new compositional and improvisational concepts again and again. In other words: how to deal speculatively with very complex rhythms, among others Brian Ferneyhough or BJ Manjunath use, after a detailed examination of them? Or how to design one's own systems bringing new contingencies. How does one manage in a trio to hear three different, complex rhythmic levels and superimpositions (e.g. such as 11 over 17 over 31) and to be able to improvise with them, without losing control and to always be consciously aware of the relations to the other players? For all the appreciation of the greats of so:called Jazz and those who tackle improvisation with complex rhythms, such as Miles Okazaki or Steve Coleman, this terrain is still extremely or almost completely unexplored in contemporary music (by bands).
Moreover, the band is interested in linking this with elements of Intelligent Dance Music (inspired by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher) and Beat Music (inspired by Flying Lotus and Iglooghost). This means finding improvisable beat:oriented forms and uniting the two sound worlds of acoustic instruments and produced sounds or soundscapes with the help of sophisticated and deliberated effects.

Apart from all the focus on rhythm and general research work, they absolutely symbolize the underwater world with their music. The name is that of a certain coral, the music is drifting, flowing, but also sometimes unclear, so similar to water, or multi:layered and colourful like corals, the songs deal with different topics or phenomena of the underwater world and in live, performing situations they wear fluorescent jumpsuites that create an underwater world esthetic together with glowing corals in black light. They find it interesting that people have explored nearby things like the oceans much less than outer space, for example. There is still a lot to figure out there, even though it is quite close to the people‘s lives. They like to compare it : figuratively : with the fact that "we" (in our western music culture) have researched all kinds of things about harmonies, melodies or pitch in general and can imagine them really good. But with rhythm, which is perhaps closer to life, more direct or physical, it is different. (Experimental) European musicians have intellectually penetrated it, but often can't come close to interpreting, what they have written down there with precision and flow. The band members think that here, too, there's another point where "we" could rather learn slightly humbly from other cultures instead of postulating "ours" as the best.

And last but not least, they are big fans of real utopian projects like "The Ocean Clean Up". This tries to fish all the plastic waste and particles out of the oceans and recycle them with a cradle:to:cradle logic.
Planetary boundaries are more than real for them. They are firmly convinced that you can no longer create a serious picture of the future without accepting this. No artificial intelligence, no geoengineering, no technical progress will stop our multicrises per se. Without becoming too anthropocentric, it is we humans who can do it alone and on a global scale, they say. And this especially with real utopian projects, forward thinking and (global) movements and hopefully the „right“ (in the interest of the global common good) operations of the people in power. An open handling and trial of understanding the branches and interleavings of complexity or complex feedback systems, will be one of the major tasks of humanity. If you listen to their music, you can virtually feel, how they implicate this knowledge or awareness into their music. But this is just another aspect, of what you will be able to discover or experience, when you dive into Sinularia's multi:perspective musical world.