The Music of Versus X

versus X play sophisticated Rock with cross-influences from classic, heavyrock and "minimal-music".

By exhausting the full dynamic band width of rock, multi-coloured harmonies, odd meters, and unusual melodies are interwoven, forming complex song-structures with abstract-associative lyrics.

Up to 20 minutes in length the tunes are leaving the beaten tracks of"mainstream-rock", beginning with the creative heights of the early seventies and progressing, exploring the possibilities of composition in rock.

In any case music for a concert audience expecting more than easy listening pop.

If you want to get more information about versus X please visit the versus X web site.

Differences to APOGEE

I do not write differently for versus X and Apogee. Over a span of time I use to collect a variety of ideas covering different musical styles. After a pre-selection of the best ideas I present them to Ekkehard and he presents his ideas to me. Those ideas we both like and feel familiar with, we use for versus X Songs. After that process I have usually still a lot of good ideas left which cannot be used by versus X because composing with a band takes much more time than to do it alone, due to the many discussions and compromises to be made between the band members.

Ideas which do not fit with Ekkehards Material I use for Apogee. With APOGEE I arrange the tunes differently using the extended possibilities of my sequencer program. As Apogee I have the total freedom of creating my own, very individual kind of music. The main difference to versus X are the mostly improvised guitar solos (a relic of my jazzrock period) and the complex orchestrations using sampled instruments (and of course the missing piano arpeggios).

versus X on the other hand features a lot of brilliant ideas by Ekkehard. The way of composing is almost the same in both cases: First a rough succession of themes is figured out which is usually turned up and around many times until everybody is happy with it, modulations are composed to fit the parts together. Mostly these modulations develop dynamics and are growing to extended parts which otherwise would never have seen the light of day. This is one of the great opportinities with long tracks.

The rough pieces are then presented to the other Bandmembers and together the arrangements and instrumentations are figured out. After all composing I fit the lyrics to the complex musical structure which before only exist as draft versions.