Track by Track: Jungstötter – Sustained

With songs formed of piano, strings, electronics, and noise – which often move beyond those elements – ‘Sustained’ is filled with sonorous minimalism, orchestral elegance, wavering vibrato, and eloquent silences. Symphonic, dissonant, and beautiful, the eleven tracks that make up the album convey torch song pathos, concert hall poise, and post-industrial discordance all at once. 

A profound, poignant album that looks inward and outward, ‘Sustained’ channels longings of the self and contemplates the sensations of an intense contemporary world. As Fabian relates, in this special track-by-track guide to the album, the process of making these songs, and constructing an authentic world for them to inhabit, was a meticulous undertaking, borne out of patient artistry and a generous sense of collaboration. 

Arising from a past life in Vienna and a return to the high rises of Berlin, ‘Sustained’ is filled with magic and life. Led by ardent vocal intonations and eclectic instrumentation, it’s an album enriched with distortion and environmental ambience, from the echoes of a playground to the street sounds of Kreuzberg. It’s subtle details like these that only add to the sense of an artist coming into their own, creating a work that feels total and sweeping; a kind of understated Gesamtkunstwerk. Read on for an essential guide to one of our favourite albums of the year so far. 

OVERTURN

Within each album process for me there is one song that sets the tone in a peculiar way. It feels like it has progressed more than the others. Reached out to where I want to be musically before I was even able to articulate it. ‘Overturn’ was the one for this album. It came about when I listened back to a fully improvised session I did with my friends (check the credits on the album). It was merely a process back then and I just had different groups of people together, throwing in ideas that we tried to turn into music. What became ‘Overturn’ was the fizzling out of a take we did that day. The beginning went nowhere really but that end bit was beautiful. It was too fast so what you hear is actually a slowed and pitched down version of that recording. I took it as a foundation, added the vocals, harmonicas, kids and other bits and it served as a guideline for the rest. I think I’ll enjoy it for a long time because it was so unexpected.

SUNK & THAT NOISE

These two belong together, they are even in the same project in my DAW, which was a bit silly. They’re two piano songs, that have been lingering for quite some time. I wrote them 6 years ago in Vienna and thought I’d collect a bunch of solo piano songs for an album some day (you see I have a lot of redirected album plans). I liked them from the start but felt like they were missing something, maybe a bit too classical or plain with just the piano. The move back to Berlin happened, the sessions with friends and ‘Overturn’ and I knew where to take them. Thematically they both circle around being teased and tossed about by a feeling. That feeling can take any shape you want really, it’s more about the idea of it being separate from you cruising in and out of your day and room and chest. [This feeling essentially] plays the harmonicas in those songs.

POSSESS

This one really is to be credited to my friend Roui Zweifel, who played the piano on the songs where my skills wouldn’t suffice. I fell in love with her style of playing during some get togethers we had. The softness is unreal. What you hear is actually one of the takes for ‘Consume Me’ that was too pretty not to use. You hear her fingers, open-window-kids sounding an alarm and Kreuzberg ambiance. I tweaked it with another layer of the piano that stretches through the stereo field and ventures into dissonance and added that stubborn synth. Again an obtruding feeling to me.

TELL THIS LOVER

I’m in a Berlin high-rise, slabs of concrete. 10th floor, 60 year old cyan carpet and mirrors on everything (not my choice). I look out in the direction of Grunewald, you never have a view in Berlin. It’s blackness and alien lights from a flock of wind turbines in the distance. That’s when and how this song happened. Love to Andy Aquarius for playing the harp on this.

LOUD FINGERS

A coarse one. I had been gnawing on multiple versions of this one for a ridiculously long time and it made it go stale. I feel it’s a common trap when working creatively, false perfectionism that makes you lose momentum and the rawness which is the most exciting thing. There are versions of it that I recorded with my band, another with my former partner in Vienna and somehow I just never let it be, so I was unsure whether to include it on this album or not. I picked it up again quite late in the process, stripped it and built it back up again with new recordings, dressing it more like the other songs. With that and the turns it takes in the composition it suddenly became this imprint of the album process as a whole and I loved it.

SEAWEED

I had written this as a poem. Heart being flooded. So the lyrics were there and I had one particular night where I tried to turn them into a song. I don’t think I ever managed to be this fast with anything, it really came together that night. Polar opposite to the last one. I was playing with space and silence a lot on this album and you can hear it best in this song I believe. It feels like it’s just brittle scaffolding around the lyrics.

AGAIN feat. ronja

I’ve been wanting to work with ronja for a while. I love her music and her band Roomer and we became close when I moved back to Berlin. There’s this big untouched folder of guitar demos that has been growing on my computer. I took one of those to ronja and it turned into a song in a really lovely process. It had entirely different lyrics but once we had done a proper sketch I thought they didn’t fit anymore. I did a rework and it became this circular theme of want and need and longing. You hear it in the cello-texture-movement (I don’t know how to play) and ronja’s flute ladders and stabs (she knows how to play).

CONSUME ME (TAKE 9)

Another poem. It’s been a desire of mine to write words first and make the music hold them. It feels more firm to me that way. With this song I had the basic chords and took them to Roui [Zweifel]. We had an afternoon where we just did take after take with minor notes in between. Roui‘s playing elevates it so much and it was just a matter of finding each other in timing and dynamic. I really love this way of working because it’s pure intuition. You sense what’s happening just as much as what’s not happening and wager what the consequence of that must be. You control it one bit and it gets overruled by chance straight away and then you’re off trying to catch it again. Take 9 was the one. All I added afterwards was a continuation of cello texture from the previous song.

TAG 10

The way I work creates a lot of offshoots in projects. I put things on the floor or push them to a different corner of a project. It often happens then that these bits of song and recording and idea overlap and form this pretty alternate version. Basically the trails of colour on a palette or studio floor. This interlude is one of these specks that happened with ‘Loud Fingers’. Conceptually I also wanted a lot of reoccurring or sustained elements on this album. So in almost every song you hear some sort of drone or background noise or layer that pushes through the whole thing. Sometimes stagnant, sometimes evolving.

ELASTIC (AVENUE)

This one closes the loop. It was recorded in the same session as ‘Overturn’ with a simple idea of having this back and forth of dynamics. It was meant for these lyrics that talk about this recurrent walk down the same avenue. While the things in it stay the same, they are perceived differently with changing states of mind. This idea is overexposed thematically and musically, stretching and warping it until the avenue becomes a big rubber band.

‘Sustained‘ is out now on Unguarded. More info HERE.