Words by Harper Mahood
Childhood has a profound impact on the way that humans navigate the world. It shapes personalities, fosters curiosity and acts as the road map for the long journey called life. In the case of Sebastian and Daniel Selke, of Brueder Selke, the influence of childhood has fostered their creative spirit and aided the conception of their most recent release with Midori Hirano, “Split Scale.”
Coming of age in a small, walled off city under Soviet rule is not a universal experience but for the Selkes, it was all they’d ever known. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, the brothers were faced with the task of unlearning Soviet propaganda and expanding their view of the world. “Split Scale” references this time in the brother’s lives, while also building on themes of connectivity and childlike instinct for play and discovery through its experimental adaptation of the western scale. The use of manipulated sounds and spontaneity challenges the boundaries of classical music, while building on the fundamental teachings from the artist’s musical backgrounds.
Off Shelf: You recently released an album with Midori Hirano titled ‘Split Scale,’ can you tell me a little bit more about how this collaboration came to be?
Sebastian Selke: We have known Midori for a very long time. I think since the beginning of our little festival Q3Ambientfest, a mini festival for ambient music, neoclassical and a meeting point for encounter and exchange with other artists. Our main goal was to reach out to other artists because of our past in East Berlin where we were always surrounded by a wall. That was the same with Midori, especially because she came from the so-called Far East, from Japan. We decided after the pandemic to do our first real collaborative album with an artist and Midori directly popped up. She’s very versatile and she knows a lot of aspects of modern or experimental music from the classical point of view, so she was an ideal partner.
OS: Split Scale follows the scale of A to G. How did you decide on this concept and what was the process like as you began to create your compositions and collaborate with Midori?
SS: The idea was really to start from a blank project. Our solo project has always focused on the past, especially our childhood where everything started, and our youth time after the fall of the wall. We were present in the classical world but there was always a certain point where the repertoire was finished, and this was our limitation. We noticed that Midori had almost the same path through her development as an electronic musician with classical aspects. With her, we wanted to start from a childhood moment where everything was more new. We decided that the western scale was a good starting point.
It’s a little funny because as an East German we had to learn [the western scale]. But still, here and there were these moments where we couldn’t resist moving toward the western world. For example, the Communist Party was very against Christianity and crosses but their main TV tower, centered in the main part of the capitol, made a cross with its reflection when the sun was shining. With our humor, we like the ironic things that came through. It’s not possible to divide a whole population of people; there will always be a gap where you can look through and find your way.
OS: Is there a song from the album that’s your favorite or one that you’re most proud of?
SS: I don’t want to say that we always do full concept albums, but there is a bit of truth in it because it’s a development. We like to tell a bit of a story because these days everything is so fast and there is no time to really listen to one another. We have this especially [in Germany] with our politics; they don’t ever listen to each other and they don’t ever give each other the time to understand the arguments. Split Scale is more of a story in the way the album follows track by track. It’s also a bit of the classical movement because classical music needs time as well. Time is our main aspect over which track is our favorite.
OS: How does Split Scale compare and contrast with your previous works?
SS: Whether “undercover” as CEEYS or now under our real name, we have always dealt with personal topics in our albums. At the same time, we keep coming across wonderfully original concepts at our Q3Ambientfest. The highlights were always the spontaneous improvisations with one artist or another. Most of them practically unrehearsed, nevertheless very intuitive and genuine. Split Scale is the first attempt – with an artist we find extremely inspiring – to capture and record this magical collaborative moment. Conceptually, the album is therefore not directly a look back at our musical beginnings in a thin-walled East German Plattenbau, but it does follow an innocent childlike instinct for play and discovery.
OS: From the listening perspective, what are you hoping that your audience takes away from this album?
SS: This album is a peak point for our releases. We took a lot of time to release our own story because it was difficult to find ourselves. We changed our name from our alias CEEYS because everybody was saying, “you have so many Spotify followers,” but that’s not our goal. I don’t want to collect just listeners. It’s beautiful, of course that it’s working but behind these tracks lies so much more. It’s the story of two brothers who come from an isolated place of no return.
The [German Democratic Republic] told us when I was nine years old that the wall would stand there for the next hundred years. We were so flabbergasted that it was possible to break not only through the wall and be able to release music but to invite like-minded people to do an album together. We came from a communist world and we saw the other world, the western hemisphere, as the enemy. In school, they told us how bad the western world was and that children had nothing to eat. When you have no experience, you believe what they tell you.
I have a daughter now who is only five years old, and I have to give her this open mindedness from the very start to find her own way because when we were children we had a straight line.
People now, with technology, are drilled to be focused in small packages. Maybe if everyone would learn an instrument, they would learn how important it is to take the time to learn something and to understand the other side. To find your own way through all the stories and understand what the other wants to say.
OS: What are some of your musical influences?
SS: From the very beginning, our approach to composition has been all about diversity, diversity and a tolerant plurality. What this means is that with our knowledge of vibrant textures and repeating structures in minimalist songwriting, we create an experimental yet accessible tonality of manipulated acoustic and electronic music between avant-garde and pop. We try to intelligently incorporate spontaneous and prepared organic and synthetic elements of classical and impressionistic chamber music and free jazz, ambient pads and cinematic sound effects, as well as refined chill-out songs and complex abstract noise.
Daniel Selke: Our music reflects the myriad sounds that we have encountered in our lives. Early influences such as Johann Sebastian Bach & Claude Debussy are just as recognizable as the East German group City with Georgi Gogow on violin, and Frank Fehse’s synthesizer duo Key. The names City and Key can be seen as components of the neologism CEEYS. Further inspiration came from, for example, Arvo Pärt & Philip Glass, Arthur Russell & Allen Ginsberg, as well as Hildur Gudnadóttir & Nils Frahm, and Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld…
SS: In the 1990s, we also discovered a generation of East German artists who had explored the intersection between music, art and science. Be it Frank Bretschneider, who founded the influential underground band AG Geige in 1986, or Carsten Nicolai as Alva Noto: the fluid intersection between complexly interwoven rhythmic structures and strict reductionism, as well as the analytical view of individual elements, fascinate us to this day.
DS: We also like the approach of the brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok. Their band Ornament & Verbrechen had a defining influence on German subculture of the 1980s. Their work on electronic instruments that were difficult to obtain in the GDR and often had to be borrowed or converted from existing equipment was driven by their love of experimentation. And it wasn’t just because of the ubiquitous lack of materials, they also created an alternative to the prevailing rock aesthetic.
OS: What can people expect from Brueder Selke in the future?
SS: Tying into these early musical ideas from our childhood, we are planning our first music book. Presented will be compositions that through their simplicity will be accessible to everyone. We’ve also included an extra booklet – with a second copy of the music – so you can approach the music in pairs. The fun of playing and “listening to each other” also plays a central role here.
DS: Parallel, we are currently organizing the ninth edition of our festival, out of our own pocket. Unfortunately, the necessary massive budget cuts also in the cultural sector mean that the previous support from the city of Potsdam is no longer possible.
SS: Following our purely musical collaboration with Midori, we are also very excited about an invitation from the artist Sven Sauer with whom we will be creating an interdisciplinary installation for the first time. The work could possibly also result in a new album.
great interview–thanks!