Rock musician Sven Caßebaum is celebrating a vinyl release party
Fresh from the pressing plant, the records arrived at Sven Caßebaum's home at the beginning of March."Sven at Sun" is the solo work of the "5 vor 12" frontman. That was just before "Corona", and with the lockdown the once planned soon release concert in a Cologne cellar restaurant suddenly burst, Caßebaum remembers.
To date, album releases of the rock band have usually run in front of 450 listeners in Cologne's "Blue Shell". This time it was planned anyway as one of the few concerts this year, according to Sven Caßebaum. After a year with many, many live performances and the recovery of their ill guitarist Heatty Mauss, the band decided to have a year without performance. "We had no idea that the whole world would take part in this," Caßebaum strikes a laconic tone.
With the release of the LP "Sven at Sun" a long-maintained project had finally come to a conclusion, the musician tells in his Königsdorf "Kingsville Studio". He recorded the music in his quest for the roots of King of Rock 'n' Roll at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.
"We had no idea that the whole world would participate in our year without performance."
Sven Caßebaum
It was "5 before 12" songs that he sang and played into those microphones only with his guitar, his Gibson Jumbo and "with some cool beer and a great portion of warm Southern friendliness from Curry Weber and Ples Hampton".
Microphones with which his great idol Elvis had once recorded early songs. And under the guidance of the local sound engineers, he was able to try out the old 1950s tube technology with the legendary slapback echo.Jenem Hall, developed by Memphis Recording Service founder Sam Phillips, who gave Elvis' voice a distinctive sound, a sound that became the declared hallmark of "Sun Sound."
Today's sound engineers Weber and Hampton still maintain the original Echo effect, the origin of which can be found in an Ampex 350 tape recorder. When recording sound on a continuous tape, the small distance between the recording and playback sound heads produces a delayed signal, which is immediately remixed to the original recording signal.The technicians varied the distance of the echo repetition with three adjustable band speeds: at 15 inches, i.e. 38.1 centimeters of band pass per second, it was about 133 milliseconds, at 7.5 inches, i.e. 19 centimeters, 266 milliseconds, at short 3.75 inches, i.e. 9.5 centimeters, already about 533 milliseconds.
Sven Caßebaum put exactly how this works on a mini poster by means of a graphic image of an Ampex tape machine in the plate cover. In general, the record in the long-playing plate format has to offer in its folding covers the luxurious space that made it a true art object for the wedding of black vinyl.With a biographical, atmospherically dense text and photos, Cassebaum designed the cover and the inner cover itself.A true luxury object in the age of digital music streaming services, precisely because it offers not only the perfect recordings mixed by the German sound engineer Khalil Chahine, but also the raw material of every moment of Caßebaum's stay in the studio.The dialogues with the sound technicians can be heard like a historical micro damaged by a hair or the search for the true Elvis location in the recording room.There's a lot of the time-honoured studio atmosphere coming over.
An atmosphere that fans can now sniff out with live music.For the evening of August 22, Sven Caßebaum rented on the aft deck of the Marienburger Bootshaus in Cologne. The local crew then serves whiskey and burgers.Sven Caßebaum then plays live according to all the rules of the Corona Protection Ordinance with friendly musicians in duet singer.
Then Caßebaum also shows the atmospherically dense film documentary "Sven at Sun".Because just as he plays guitar, so he also produces his own cinematographic clips, this time big cinema on the big screen. In it, he recounts his trip to Memphis, his early childhood passion for Elvis, and introduces his new friends Curry and Ples.
Bookings for the performance of the album "Sven at Sun" on the aft deck on August 22nd are unfortunately a must because of the Corona Protection Ordinance, sven Caßebaum says, he accepts them on the band's website: www.5vor12.net