The Director’s Cut: beifer – constant.transition [tunnel.visions]

Emerging artist Beifer presents his highly anticipated debut album ‘constant.transition: an eclectic fusion of electronic music with strong influences from dubstep, garage and drum&bass, enriched with captivating jazz elements.

This cross-genre work takes listeners on a journey through dark atmospheres and avant-garde soundscapes, brought to life by the artist‘s complex percussion layers and interesting chord structures.

With great experimentation and a desire to break new ground in electronic music, Beifer has created an album that captures the listener‘s attention with its unique textures and unconventional soundscapes. Each track is an exploration of musical possibilities, with Beifer masterfully blending a wide variety of genres while creating a cohesive and infectious atmosphere.

The album also features notable collaborations with renowned musicians. Wanja Slavin, Moritz Stahl (Ark Noir/Lyder) and vocalist Enji have collaborated with Beifer to add an additional dynamic and layered dimension to the album. Their unique talents and empathy blend seamlessly with Beifer‘s vision, opening up new worlds of sound for the listener.

Beifer has managed to push the boundaries of electronic music and make an impressive artistic statement with his debut album.

How to listen: There are a couple of ways to proceed. First, you can listen to the whole album, which you will find below, and then read the notes. Or, read the notes as you listen to each track. This will completely change your perspective on the whole release itself and bring you closer to the artist and their work.

Inner Beginnings

This track actually consists of 2 songs: an intro and a related older track “Inner Beginnings”. I wrote the track for Jazz Quartet and then produced it. It’s about the insight that change begins within yourself. The lyrics I sang with a vocoder are:

Inner beginnings

Wise old man

Searching a way

For a place to stay

One day we’ll see that

Everything is gone

But the wise old man

He knew it all along

On the one hand, it means God, on the other hand, it refers to a wise friend of mine. The piano intro is the main theme in the whole album, it appears 3 times in different variations and develops. What’s special about the track is the 7/8 drop and the actually inappropriate outro with the solo.

Entropy

This song is also older. 2021 probably. At the time I was more into jazz than production. A friend (Enik, check him out!) then gave me a challenge to do a complete song in a week. This is what came out. The track has strong Koan Sound Bass influences. The time is also interesting: 15/16 drum and bass! And halfway through the drop, there is another time switch that totally lowers the mood. I thought the track itself developed really strongly and that’s why I called it like sorting gas molecules.

Asperitas

The project is still called “DarkGaragetoopoppy?” on my laptop. I’m really into the UK garage groove, probably because of the jazz swing I hear in the Groove. The idea started with the melody, which sounded very dark. Once I had the basic framework I found it somehow too dull, but I left it there anyway. At the time I was checking out the band Amok Amor a lot (check it out!), where the saxophonist Wanja Slavin plays. I knew if Wanja worked on the track it wouldn’t be so dull anymore. This is how the collaboration came about. In addition to the sax solo, he also played mellotron, bass clarinet, and flutes, which gave the whole song a new dimension. Asperitas is a cloud formation that looks very rough and totally unreal. I thought the name fits Wanja’s solo and the Phrygian drop that comes after it.

God’s Dice

You can hear a lot of my dubstep past on this track. Through Skrillex, I started to really love and understand music. I think God’s Dice is a tribute to that time. The title comes from a YouTube video which can be heard in the breakdown. It was about God and chance. I’m not really into classic buildups, so I usually leave them out, like in this track. So it’s much more unexpected and exciting.

Interlude for her

A very personal track. The whole album is dedicated to my girlfriend. For this song, I used the theme (which was also heard in the intro) as a basis for improvisation. I wanted it to be particularly real, so I took the first take straight away. Whenever I was feeling particularly good or bad, I continued with the track. Like a little diary. Some places became “broken” and others “more beautiful”.

The Tragic Life of a Simple Man feat. Enji

I once won second place in a competition. The prize was €500 and a concert. That was still during the Corona period. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough songs to perform, so I had to fill time and improvise. This waltz came out of it. I couldn’t get the melody out of my head for a long time, so I decided to produce the song. The idea behind the song is that the form is repeated all the time, but more and more is added to it. At the beginning, everything sounds very nice, but the more often everything is repeated, the more things break. And in the end, everything collides. The synth patch is very important here. It should sound particularly human and fragile. The patch is made on my Prophet: The sound is generated by the resonance from the filter and a random LFO modulating the resonance. That’s why the sound sometimes dies, like a person who has run out of breath. To make it even more human, I asked a good friend of mine if she could sing the melody and make some sounds. ENJI! (Check her out!). After she had sung everything, I edited the parts and made them more broken.

Close Things Move Faster

After the waltz, I wanted something quieter, which gradually ushers in the end of the album. I actually didn’t want to continue doing the track, but a friend of mine who also works at the tunnel. visions label said that it absolutely had to be included. That’s why I continued with the song and in the end, I was really happy with it. Here in the “Drop” the chords are quite interesting: Dbmaj7 and Dbmaj7#5. I’m really into setting expectations and then fulfilling them completely differently or not at all. That’s why I thought it would be fun to turn the vibe of the whole track on its head at the end and ruin everything. Why not.

There is a very distorted high-pitched sample. I had this triggered by a random LFO, which is why I had to export the piece 10 times until something cool came out. The title came to mind as I sat on the train and alternately looked at things that were close and far away.

Your Shadow Passing By

I think this is the most complicated track on the album. It always switches between 7/8 and 4/4. I doubled the melody at the beginning with my voice. I’m a big Kurt Rosenwinkel fan and I actually wanted a feature with him. Unfortunately, that didn’t work, but I still kept my voice on the track. Again, there is no buildup. At the end, the chords modulate wildly, which gives the solo another good push. I recorded the solo on a Moog Subsequent 37.

In Limbo feat. Moritz Stahl

I think this was the first track for the album. Here I played around with pedal points, i.e. a tone that stays put and everything else shifts around it. Here too the first drop is in 7/4. Moritz Stahl (check him out) recorded the solo. He has a giant pedalboard with which he can modulate his sax sound. In the end, the sound always jumps back and forth between dry and fx, this is caused by a distortion that is on a group where dry and fx are in. Killer Solo! This has become my favorite track. The chords in the last part are also funny: Dmaj9(addb6), Bb#9b13, Gbaug, Gb, Gb/G, G, Gm6. The song is about the feeling of not knowing where up and down is: In Limbo.

The End?

Same theme as in the intro and interlude. Only this time with a pure piano sound and a whole tone lower. This is also an improvised one-take. With this, I wanted to bring this wild journey through the album to a quiet end. But is it the end?