F.S.Blumm
Biography F.S.Blumm
F.S.Blumm
Comparisons between musicians and painters can be tricky. But historical parallels are not unusual. And just as some paintings place their creators in a particular period in their creative lives, there are also musicians who can look back on distinct creative phases. F.S.Blumm is one such musician.
At the end of the 90s there were alot of murmurs about the living room scene in Berlin; magical concerts on improvised stages in temporary event spaces. Back then it was about music without fat beats and bass. It was a counter-reaction against rockstars with all their posing and egomania. You made music with acoustic instruments and kitchen appliances. Concerts were listened to attentively and with deep concentration. One of the protagonists of this scene was F.S.Blumm. His background knowledge as a trained classical guitarist combined with his love for untempered, often self-made instruments predestined him for this.
At the turn of the century virtually any kind of music which used acoustic instruments was branded „Free Folk“ or „Alternative Folk“. But other than a few ironic comments in interviews Blumm didnt try to monopolize on this supposed movement, rather he kept a poised distance from it. It was during this time that his album „Mondkuchen“ (trans. Moon Cake) was released on Morr Music. The bristly detailedness of the living room scene met serious and powerful reductionism. F.S.Blumms music worked as a link between indietronic and a new type of minimal music.
F.S.Blumm has many faces. He does film-music, radio-play, sound-installations and oil-paintings. The musical styles he engages range from neoclassic to dub, from delicate arrangements to bold basslines. Working your way through his vast discography would be a research project all in its own right. He has collaborated with the likes of David Grubbs, Lee „Scratch“ Perry, Lady Ann, Andi Otto, Harald „Sack“ Ziegler or Nils Frahm. He found his passion for jamaican music with the Quasi Dub Development. With the band KINN he played dynamic postrock. Blumm has a faible for odd beats and could write an a-z on minimal musics pattern matching. Quite where his personal musical signature lies remains something of a mystery. Nevertheless only a few bars are enough to recognize it. „Blumm is instantly recognizable “ (pitchfork) This may by down to his preference for open harmonies, his poingnent arrangements or perhaps the general easiness of his musical touch.
Around 2008 F.S.Blumm entered a new phase of his creativity which one could call his nonchalant songwriting phase. With the swedish singer Ella Blixt he wrote some smooth and silky bedroom producers pop under the moniker „Bobby And Blumm“. With Berlin based singer Jana Plewa he had a full acoustic duo called „Old Splendifolia“. With swedish Madeleine Jonsson Gille he established a third vocal duo whose album debut came out in 2015.
F.S.Blumm repeatedly toured Japan but also Canada, USA, Mexiko, India, Bangladesh and Europe. For his solo album „Welcome“ he decided to sing his own songs himself. For him that felt like a journey back to his youth – sitting in his bedroom with a songbook and his first guitar. With „Sounds of Silence“ and „Sister Ray“ day in day out.
On Sept. 3. 2021 the forth collaborative duo album with Nils Frahm is being released („2×1=4“). “I love ending up somewhere where I’m surprised by myself or the machine or the person with whom I’m making music,” Schültge concludes, while Frahm emphasises that, “None of this is too serious. The record is only as much of a dub record as the ones before are jazz records…”
Maybe this finally brings F.S.Blumm back to his origin: instrumental music with that touch of sweet melancholia. Back in the harbour, ready to go back to the sea, ready for another journey of discovery, searching for the uncertain, hunting for the essence of a musical idea, checking the cracks, leaving spaces for the thought to travel.
