Live At Morphine Raum
A trumpet solo introduces a repetitive melodic line, slowly shifting, gradually unfolding into wide, expansive textures. One by one, the piano and the other instruments enter, slightly offset in polyrhythmic layers. What emerges are sound fields and interruptions—raw, unpolished, and marked by a fragile beauty. The result is an epic piece titled “Aphex Twin,”recorded live in November 2024 at Morphine Raum in Berlin by pianist and composer Julius Windisch for the second album by his quartet immerweiter.
The music tells a story of possibility, interconnection, and the search for a new musical language. It draws on an aesthetic rooted in the early 1990s techno scene—its sense of release through rhythm and physical energy—echoing the raw yet tender visual language of artist Wolfgang Tillmans. Windisch translates these influences into the present, a time that feels equally fragile, shaped by uncertainty and anxiety about the future.
Windisch set out to capture this emotional state in his music, while also offering a sense of hope in moments when long-held certainties begin to dissolve. For him, music is a place of longing—a space where emotions can be processed and new perspectives can emerge. The band name immerweiter (“always moving forward”) functions like a mantra: things continue, they have to. It stands as a utopian idea, a field of possibilities, and at the same time as a personal statement from Windisch as a musician, composer, and chronicler of his time.
In Windisch’s work, jazz expands through the vocabulary of electronic music, opening up virtually limitless sonic possibilities beyond the physical constraints of traditional instruments. One central question for him was how the energy and immediacy of British electronic and ambient composer Aphex Twin could be translated into an acoustic quartet—and how rhythmically complex structures might support, rather than overpower, the fragility of a melody.
Like Aphex Twin, who frequently works with polyrhythms, Windisch experiments throughout the album with unusual meters, played simultaneously by different members of the ensemble. These rhythmic layers run alongside one another, overlap, and interlock. “It was very different from writing for a traditional jazz quartet,” Windisch explains. “The music isn’t always naturally suited to these instruments, but that’s exactly where new possibilities emerge and established conventions start to break down.”
“I’m drawn to music that feels coherent without immediately revealing how everything fits together,” says Windisch. What fascinates him is the unpredictable—alongside a deep sense of affirmation, where pain, melancholy, and despair remain audible, yet are met with resistance. Another important influence was composer Wolfgang Rihm and his method of layering musical forms, combining emotional intensity with a conceptual, intellectual framework.
Two compositions, “Instagram” and “Schweben,” were newly recorded for this album and highlight the quartet’s evolving sound and expressive range. Windisch appears on piano and synthesizer, joined by Pascal Klewer on trumpet, Sofia Eftychidou on bass, and Marius Wankel on drums. The remaining five pieces emerged over the course of 2024 as snapshots—musical self-portraits shaped by Windisch’s experience of that period. “I like it when a beat feels like it’s stumbling,” he says. “With rough edges. Because life is like that. I want to write music that reflects life.”