The Blank Manuskript is a Project from central Europe, situated in mountainous Austria. The whole project is organized by the two musicians Dominik Wallner (Keys, Vocals) and Alfons Wohlmuth (Bass, Flute, Vocals). The band's musical output can best be described as Progressive Rock, or - to be specific -Art-Rock with a special attention towards the narrative elements. The Band's aim is to present a story with their music, which means that the music itself is written to fit the intentional narration.
I got in touch with Alfons for the Blank Manuscript story.
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When was
Blank Manuskript formed and do you have any background from other
bands?
In late 2007 Dominik
Wallner and Christian Breckner, who were student collegues at
Mozarteum Salzburg had the idea of putting together a progressive
rock band in the historical town of Salzburg. Dominik proposed me as
a bass player since we’ve been collaborating quite well with our
previous project “The Exhibition”. We’ve all had our share of
live concerts and ceased-to-exist projects so we decided to make this
a big project with the aim of receiving international recognition.
Why did
you choose that name?
We came up with the
name initially, when we tried to find a monumental
name for our newly formed project and an empty sheet of music paper
was lying in the middle of our practice room. We thought it to be our
duty to fill it with our music.
What bands
were you influenced by?
Our biggest
influences are heavy to trace down since we all had a
different musical background. Dominik was a classically trained
Pianist, who was quite well known in Salzburg for his major
contributions to several rock-cover-bands. Christian Breckner had
been touring with his old band for almost 10 years while pursuing his
university studies on the classical guitar. I therefore was a
self-trained multi-instrumentalist and a progressive rock-enthusiast
thus complementing the trio.
Our
roots were quite diverse but altogether, traces of bands like Camel,
Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd and some King Crimson can be found
throughout the whole compositions.
Please
give me your thoughts and lowdowns on your only album to this date
Tales from an Island – Impressions from Rapa Nui
We first came up
with the concept in one of our discussion session in which we were
searching for a concept to give us efficient possibilities for actual
historical research and at the same time we wanted some freedom in
adding our own elements without changing the historical facts.
“Easter Island” seemed perfect for us and so we started writing
the whole story and defining our main sections. Following that,
we were working on the songs as a trio but soon we came to the point
where it was difficult to work on our sound without having a drummer
for our arrangements. So we asked the drummer Elias Papaioannou to
join us. When it was slowly getting time to record, we recruited the
singer and multi-instrumentalist Jakob Aistleitner in order to do
some of the main vocals and a saxophone solo. The recording sessions
were long and tedious because we first had to do the backline with
bass and drums and then, one after one, we added the other
instruments. Thanks to many musical contributions by friends from all
over Austria, we were able to perform the whole album live at our
CD-Presentation in the Beginning of 2009. We had a total of 8
musicians on stage, which proved to be a difficult job but it
nonetheless was a big success.
You are
busy with some contributions on other projects and writing and
recording a new album. Please tell me more about these projects.
Soon after that,
we were contacted by Colossus Projects to contribute to two of their
projects “Dante’s Divinia Comedia Part II” and “Rökstenen –
a tribute to Swedish Progressive Rock”. We started with Rökstenen
and it appeared to be a very hard job since we didn’t have a
drummer back then. But Jakob agreed to learn to play the drums just
for this project. With the great help of our sound engineer “Manuel
Schönegger” who has always been a steady helper in musical
questions we recorded the whole piece in just one day.
Our second contribution
“Dante’s Divinia Comedia Part II” proved to be even more
difficult because at that moment the whole band was spread throughout
Austria, and Dominik was in Whales. Fortunately, Camillo
Mainque-Jenny had agreed to join us on the drumset. I wrote the music
and then Dominik added the lyrics to that. Each of the musicians
recorded their parts at home and then they were put together by me,
after which I sent it to the sound engineer Richard Marichal
(Venezuela), who was able to squeeze out the best of our
amateur-recording-techniques.
At the beginning of
this year we recorded our contribution to the third part of this
Trilogie. This time we played it as a quartet with Dominik on Piano,
Alfons on Bass, Jakob on Vocals and Saxophone and Camillo on the
drums. Manuel Schönegger was once again
our recording engineer and he also contributed greatly to the sound
and our arrangements. Our new quartet-sound proved to be very compact
and powerful, so we decided to keep on working with this lineup. This
recording happened after our loss of our founding guitarist
Christian.
You did
Baltic Prog Festival. Please tell us more about this experience.
Baltic Progfest was
a great experience. We bought a big bus for our trip and drove all
the way to Lithuania were we played our Tales from an Island-Album
without the aid of extra musicians. Our
album has evolved a lot in our previous live-shows and therefore I
would probably consider our gig at Baltic Progfest to be the
highlight of our live-shows. Though our first visit to our stage, the
day before the concert, had filled us with doubt that this is really
going to happen (it was raining so heavily and the whole site was
almost a little lake), we were even more astonished by how the
festival-crew managed to pull everything through without
complications (by the time the festival had started, everything was
in great condition again!). Shortly after, Christian Breckner decided
to leave the band due to the constantly rising workload and his new
job-affiliation.
How is the
writing and creative processes in your band?
Usually, one of us
comes up with the main ideas about a song
and then we work together to arrange the piece in order to fit our
lineup and our sound expectancies. The main composer on our first
album was Dominik while I was responsible for the lyrics; but
altogether, the collaboration of the whole band-core was the most
important thing to actually make the songs what they are now.
How would
you describe your music?
Our music can best
be described using the term Artrock for we
always tried to make our complex arrangements pleasant to everyone.
We always put high emphasis on the point that even a
non-musically-trained ear should be able to enjoy our work. We didn’t
write the complex parts to sound “out there”; we wrote the music
to fit our narration.
Besides of
the new album and the projects, what are your plans for this year and
next year ?
Right now we are
finishing our latest contribution to
Colossus Projects while composing the material for our upcoming
album. The details about our new CD are still secret, so you’ll
have to wait for more information on that… As soon as we release
new material we will be working to bring our new compositions on
stage as soon as possible.
What are
your top five favourite albums of all time?
Close to the Edge (Yes)
Acquiring the Taste
(Gentle Giant)
Animals (Pink Floyd)
Si on avait besoin un
cinquieme saison (Harmonium)
Moonmadness (Camel)
Anything
you want to add to this interview?
I want to thank everyone
who made this project possible! It would not have been possible
without you!
Manuel Schönegger (Sound
engineering, arrangement, Saxophone, musical questions)
Christian Breckner (Former
Guitar player and co-writer)
Elias Papaioannou (Former
Drummer)
Örjan Strandberg (Guitars
on Rökstenen)
Richard Marichal (Sound
engineering on Purgatorio)
Clemens Wannemacher (Sound
engineering on Tales from an Island)
Veronika Obermaier
(Studio-Vocals on “The Waiting”)
Cory Reithuber
(live-Vocals on “The Waiting”)
Martin Flatz (Narration
and lyrical assistance)
Gabi Lidicky (Classical
Flute on After the War Part I)
Victor de la Rosa
(Percussion)
Florian Spies (Trombone on
Rökstenen)
Philip Reitsperger &
Clemens Göller (Illustration and Design on Tales from an Island)
Special thanks to Marco
Bernard, Greg Walker and Bernard Gueffier for their great support!
And last but not least,
the current band:
Dominik Wallner – Grand
Piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond, Synthesizer, Strings, Vocals
Jakob Aistleitner –
Vocals, Saxophone, Flute, Organ, Drums
Camillo Mainque Jenny –
Drums & Percussion
A big thank you to Alfons for this interview.
Blank Manuscript's PA profile is here and their homepage is here
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Blank Manuskript (June 2010)
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