Why did you choose the name "fishmoon" instead release your albums
under your personal name a.m.h. ?


Cause "fishmoon" simply represents this special selection of music best.
It's basically music which is related to moods and pictures in a fluent way,
not so much to certained musical styles. Any musical language and root
is interesting for me, as long as i'm able to bring it into a universal and
spacy context. In other words, i always intend to destillate musical
material to it's “metaphysical bones“ to be able to combine it with new
aspects in a different environment than it's original tradition.
I think that's one or the only way to keep traditions alive.
“fishmoon“ represents the openess in feel without limitation or condition,
which can be dangerous for  a human being - mentally and socially, but
from the creative point of view a higher goal.
The sea is as deep, as the universe.
Did you release any soundtracks, considering your album's visual
suggestions ?


There aren't any soundtrack releases, but you can achieve two
independant docus i produced with my partner from “phonoroid“,
Vanessa Vassar. These are “American Waitress“ and “Cinderellas
of Santa Fe", which have been produced in USA and won awards.
It's true : “no picture - no sound“ !
Nine years between the first and the second album, what's that about ?


Mainly two reasons : First of all there was a business-contract problem.
My former partner “Think Progressive“ held rights, and it wasn't possible
to release somewhere else. Second, i was busy with other activities as
Sunya Beat, Phonoroid and the founding of my own publishing company
and label “ Phonokultur".
What have you been influenced by in your music ?


When i was a kid, the start up was listening to the Beach Boys,
“good vibrations“ - this little opera ! Then the Bluesrock thing
from England around 69', B.B King made me wish to become
a guitarplayer - i was very impressed by the John Mayall Band,
and later by Eric Clapton with Cream. I thought the overdriven
guitarsound would be a exotic instrument from India. I had no
idea till i saw the whole thing in TV.
From there to the Progrock movement. King Crimson, Yes etc.
At that time i started my first band in school. This was a duo
with a flute and saxophoneplayer. We tried to play “21th century
schizoid man“ on a school party, i had a acoustic guitar with a pickup
and my amp was a old  tube radio. There was no PA and we didn't
have a drummer, i didn't went so well.
I became a big fan of Grateful Dead and their psychedelic
improvisations. I liked very much the sound quality they achieved.
Jerry Garcia and his band were very much organized with their
equipment and loudspeakersystems.
Soft Machine and Robert Wyatt gave the initial link to the Jazz-world,
followed by John Mc Laughlin, Steve Khan, Ralph Towner and Larry
Coryell as guitarplayers - Wes Montgomery i heard through them.
John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis became very important
as well as the Ethno influences by Ravi Shankar and Don Cherry,
who gave me some lessons later on in Sweden - i was very lucky !
He was friend with Terry Riley and Steve Hillage, which rounded
the picture up, since i was constantly influenced by the German
electronic scene, Kraftwerk, Popul Vuh, Can (jamming and recording
from time to time with Jacky Liebezeit, Rosko Gee and Damo Suzuki).
At that time i had with my band “Foodband“ a first recording and
publishing contract in England. Later on i was very busy in the german
Rockscene as sessionplayer and sonwriter - i brought some space
into this, till i started to produce my own albums in the 90's.
So this mix of meditative, ethno, electronic and jazz - rock - blues
combined with the early great like of orchestral pieces like
“apollon mussaget" from Stravinsky, or collaborations of Jehoudi
Menhuin with Ravi Shankar for example, made it for me in the end.
 I don't think this list is so exceptional, but the mix of electric guitar
bluesrock roots with the openess and spacyness of the symphonic
aspect in contemporary modern music made the difference for myself.
Music got to have more than one dimension to attract my attention.
How and on which media did you produce your albums ?


The first album "music of a.m.h.“ was recorded 96-98' analog in the
first step.I was using a Otari 24 track and a Akai 12+2 rack mountable
recorder with a videotape like transport (this was adventure, but
obviously good sounding). Next step had been a couple of Tascam DA 88
with Lake People AD-DA conversion-cards - a definitly great sounding
system, which i still use in connection with my NUENDO - system.
The STEINBERG software is, what i used for the “two moon music“ -
album. It ran on a PC system. While the first album was mastered on
a Promaster 20 by Pro Tools, ran on a Mac, the new album was done
completely on PC, except some recording in other studios.
The first album was partlially recorded in Santa Fe, the second partlially
in New Zealand and Australia.
Steve Baltes programmed “american zonata“ on the first album,
and “sniff“ and “lys primeur“ on the second, so he is kind of
co-producer on these tracks. I like his wild beats, and it's fun for me
to edit these figures later to some suitable climatics for my
guitar experiments. a great guy.
Him and Harald Grosskopf are my Sunya Beat - companions, so
they are always around to support my other projects as well.
I worked basically on first takes bases with the instumentalists,
like Bertil Mark (Drummer of Thomas D.) or H.P. Salentin (trumpet),
on my recordings. Important is the initial “set up“ - room acoustics
and the simple situation with people one likes. The atmosphere
of my personal studio supports this a lot, i'm thankful for that.
I was lucky abroad, too - with Latha Vegantha or Shawn Berid.
The huge work on these long tracks is to build the fundament, which
has to emphasize the later dynamics of the actual recording.
I do this with virtual sounds, which helps raising up the symphonic
structure of these long tracks. This is comparable to scores.
The recording goes easy, a lot of work is the editing and mastering,
which has to bring everything together into a fluent and understandable
sensation.