Carlos Cipa – Influences

One of my favourite writers of all time. I love his rough language and his ability to describe people at their worst. His work always reflects a certain sadness, but at the same time (self-)irony and even happiness. A lot of my song titles are inspired by his work, especially by his poems. I am not reading much at the moment, but I can always get to some Bukowski poems to get some inspirations. His language is always very free, but he has this special feel for structure and form, that I can also relate to within my music. He probably wouldn’t have liked what I am doing, but that makes it even more interesting to get inspiration from his words.

I’ve nearly seen every movie from Hitchcock, and most of them are so totally amazing like not much else. I chose this movie for the list, because it’s one of the lesser known ones, but equally good as his classics. What this man has envisioned for film is just unbelievable. One of my songs on the new album is inspired by this movie, especially by the beautiful last scene. Since I’ve seen his movies, I find it hard to enjoy modern cinema, because most of it lacks this kind of cinematic and artistic quality that his work always has.

This was the first piece I got to know from Steve Reich and I think also the first piece of „contemporary classical“ music I listened to properly. The funny thing about learning classical music is that you kind of always play pieces of a certain time frame (Barock-early 20th century). Everything after that period is like a blur and you don’t often play pieces from it, especially not when you’re young. So listening to Reich’s “Different Trains” was like a revelation because it was nothing like I’ve ever heard before. He created a whole new world of sound and I was instantly amazed by it. When I started writing my own music and started composing, I always come back to that piece (and of course the other pieces by him) and still get amazed how unique his sound world is. I personally believe, that within the „minimal“-style, Reich is the only one who really found a way to express his inner feelings and is the only one who really managed to make that style his own. I think it’s amazing what influence he has/had on so many different styles of music.

Also see;

One of my favourite artists. Just the right amount of surreality and in no way at all kitschy (compared to e.g. Dali). I think it’s very beautiful but also challenging at the same time.

One of my favourite modern bands. The way they create their totally unique world is so inspiring. I love the arrangements, how the songs are produced and how the many different instrument colours are used, hardly any band does it so subtle and beautiful. Bryce Dessner is a fantastic composer and songwriter and every member of the band does his part to create their music. I also must say that their concert this year was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, the sound and especially their stunningly precise playing had the quality of a classical music performance. Totally amazing! One song on my new album is a reference to one of their songs.

I fell in love with Pet Sounds only during the last year, because it’s so beautiful and insanely creative. The arrangements, the instrument colours, the form of the songs, how he plays with repetitions within the songs, it’s so free; it only follows its own rules. That’s something I totally adore and it inspires me very much for my own work. Also a song on my album refers to one of the songs on Pet Sounds.

This series brought me to TV series in general and also watching stuff in the original language. I still think it’s one of the best series, the way it is orchestrated and directed, the characters, the humour, the sadness, the concept of life, it’s just something I totally admire.

I’ve seen this movie twice in its full length with a live musical performance, first a film music composer from Munich made his own version for piano solo and performed live to the screen, second the original score performed with an orchestra in the Gasteig in Munich. It was both very fabulous and inspiring. The movie itself is just so amazing and it must have been an unbelievable experience to actually had seen it in the premiere or around the time it’s been released. It’s still one of the best utopia/science-fiction movies of all time.

He’s just the best. Especially the piano concertos. They’re so beautiful. I wish everyone would listen more to Mozart, it’s the most fabulous music ever written, so fresh, so musical, so masterful, so innovative.

He is one of the few modern filmmakers who actually have something to say and know how to narrate a story and create characters that are deep, interesting and challenging at the same time. I’ve seen every one of his movies, and one is better than the other; I am so much looking forward to Inherent Vice, which comes to cinemas in February. Magnolia, There Will be Blood, The Master, Boogie Nights, all favorite movies of me. It is of course also very interesting for me, because the use of music is just fabulous, both the works of Jon Brion and Johnny Greenwood.