Humans are always in a constant dialogue for finding their true selves. What we like, where we are born at, the situations and people that surround us can have a deep influence on how we identify our own selves. BI DISC in his new album “Pieces Falling” manages to capture that endless pursuit of finding who we are. A fantastic music delivery that not only manages to capture the digital and the analogue, but that it also gives us an insight to the million pieces that consolidate BI DISC’s artistic soul.
Different from previous collaborations, Phillip Lorenz, under his new moniker BI DISC, combines analogue samples created with drums, voices, recordings and so on with techniques used in Drum and Bass and reflects on his new solo pieces as an adventure to be told. He explored and tried to present his most honest sound throughout the whole album.
Tell me more about yourself. When did you decide to dedicate your life to music, and what is the story behind your artistic name, ‘Bi Disc’?
Phillip Lorenz – I would say a certain dedication to music has already been there during my youth. While piano lessons felt more like a thing I did because my parents wanted me to, I became pretty obsessed with Hip Hop and Djing in my teenage years. Pretty much then I also developed the urge to produce music myself and I started producing beats. When school finished, I thought about studying music, but I honestly didn’t really believe I would get into music universities. Eventually, I did and while studying, I got together with my friends, we formed the band ABBY and we started to produce and write music also for other people. More than a decade passed until I decided to start my own project and while I was trying to give it a name, I stumbled upon the description of an old Bi Disc, in the Louvre, in Abu Dhabi. It said ,Bi Disc for ritual use’. First I fell in love with the whole sentence, as a name for my new project, but then it ended up being just, Bi Disc’.
Pieces, Falling” stands out from your previous collaborations. The style, the tone, the harmony are completely different from what you have previously worked with. What do you think sets this new album aside from your previous musical collaborations?
Phillip Lorenz – Yes it’s true, I also think it sounds quite different to my previous collaborations. But in a way I also hear them within the record. It was basically the first time in a long while that I worked on music mostly by myself. The way I did in my teenage years when I started to compose music. “Pieces, Falling” feels like a very direct reflection of myself. Myself at the time. It’s a very honest album.
Who was or has been an inspiration to you during your creative process? Do you feel you have had some sort of muse to start creating “Pieces, falling”?
Phillip Lorenz – I started working on “Pieces, Falling” the moment I decided to move from Berlin to Rome / Italy. My girlfriend is italian. I was flying back and forth for a couple of years and when covid hit, I decided to stay in Italy. Moving to a new country was beautiful, but leaving my home and my friends in Berlin also provoked feelings of isolation. Also did leaving my former projects, my studio and studio partner. All of it made me feel like I had to reorder my life and to reform my identity as a musician. Probably that, Rome, my girlfriend and my new home, were the biggest inspiration for this record. Of course, also other music and musicians that inspire me, are always part of it. But I decided to stop listening to other music while I was writing for “Pieces, Falling”. Partly because I was anxious to compare myself, but also because I wanted to avoid the urge to imitate other artists that I admire. If that’s possible at all I definitely tried.
In our currently hyperconnected world, I feel that “Pieces, Falling” gives an unseen perspective of what is considered as electronic music. The quantity and quality of all the samples, music fragments, instrument solos and vocals used in your new album were astonishing. Did you have any criteria to choose what sounds to include in your compositions? How did you manage to marry “the analogue” with “the electronic”?
Phillip Lorenz – I love both worlds. The acoustic and the electronic. If I think about my own music, I feel like they go hand in hand. There was no point at which I thought about specifically being more the one or the other. At least I don’t remember any moment in which I did. I work with a lot of synthesizers and I love them when they sound weak, dirty and noisy or organic and imperfect. Thinking about the drums on the record .. initially I wanted to do a Drum and Bass album, looped and sampled drums. Or more, I wanted that side of the record to be at least very Drum and Bass influenced. In the end, I started loving the idea of working with a drummer instead. To give the songs more dynamics. Before the drum recordings with Moritz (Baumgaertner) and Olaf (Opal / Album Mix & Drum recording), we decided to record all of the drums in a slower tempo than the original song tempo, to then pitch them up again. That’s basically a similar technique to the way you treat drum loops in Drum and Bass productions. It worked out great. I love the drums on the record. Moritz is an amazing drummer. Regarding all the strings, I am obsessed with the way real Strings sound. And one of my best friends, Philipp (Johann Thimm), is an incredible Cellist. We already worked together for many projects and bands and it was clear from the beginning for me that I wanted him to play on this record too. He ended up playing all the strings on “Pieces, Falling” and I love the way they sound. They are silent, airy .. they scream. I’m so happy Philipp gave this record some of his magic. Oh and the vocals – I wanted to have vocals on the record, but I always thought about asking someone else to sing them. In the end I tried to do it myself and it was the first time I sang on a record properly. It felt a bit weird in the beginning, but I am very happy I decided to do it.
“Pieces, Falling” aims to portray a more authentic version of yourself. In doing so, it seems you’ve had to confront and reflect on your own identity. Do you feel that the creative process for coming up with songs like “Home” or “Pieces, Falling” required constant self-reflection and self-dialogue? How did you manage to exteriorize your internal discussion into a music piece?
Phillip Lorenz – Iam quite used to being self-reflective. I think I have always been that way. Even too much sometimes. But it helps me to be creative. Moving to Italy and leaving Berlin, my home at the time & the place that shaped a huge part of my musical identity, in the initial phase of this record, made me reflect even more on identity and the idea of the term “home”. The song “Home” was very much inspired by Rome, but more an idealized and romanticized Rome. Romanticized up to a point, in which it could be any place that feels like home. On a side note, everytime I think about that song, I feel the need to add that I consider myself very lucky, being born into a country that makes me live in peace. Unfortunately this is not the case for everyone. The album title and the song “Pieces, Falling”, are basically about the idea of reordering your life. So to some extent, the whole record is about identity.
As an artist, who would you like your main listeners to be? Do you have a particular listener in mind that you would like to share your music with?
Phillip Lorenz – It feels beautiful if people that listen to my music share a similar taste in music with me. But in other ways, it’s even more inspiring if they don’t. It is all about perspective anyway. Everyone looks at things from a different angle, listens to music in a different way. If one song moves 5 different people, that’s beautiful to me. No, I think I don’t want my listeners to be a specific type. I am grateful for every listener.
