Unicycleman's Trajectory

By maintaining a balance of irony and recognizability, unicyclists complement them with their individual style - musical and other quotes, paying tribute to the greats. In Unicycleman's compositions, typical pop is mixed with experimental fragments. As we work on a composition, we listen to it multiple times. This leads to various associations, Bert explains - in the composition Rüdiger (which touches on homosexual relationships), we included a fragment from Debussy. We had in mind the common belief that homosexuals like fancy music. Playing with listeners' expectations is one of our methods. With vibrant hit choruses and meticulously crafted soundtracks, Unicycleman cleverly create a show that embodies the spirit of groove and glamour. The musical range is matched by the multilingual texts. Tourist pidgin English, naive German, and rhythmically pulsating vocal samples. From wordplay, stars, and styles emerges absurd lyrical content. As bold as the unusual songs-narratives are, the process of creating them is equally experimental. Unicycleman are perfectionists. Evidence of this is their double album National Tracks and International Tracks, and singles like Riesa, Java, and especially the album Guter Name, Sowieso (Good Name Anyway) WSFA 2001. Unicycleman adore cinema. When they were asked to write music for Fritz Lang's film Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon, 1924), it turned out not to be traditional piano music accompanying silent films, but a soundtrack. However, Peter explains, one should not view soundtracks on one side and songs on the other as two separate stories - they are the two facets of the group. Unicycleman's music for silent films like Aelita (Yakov Protazanov, 1924) and The Mummy (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918) is included in their instrumental album (VÖ: 2003). The group's concerts are complemented by a luxurious dia-show created by the Society of Visual and Sound Rows - Peter A. Bauer and Bert Renner. Slides illustrate the performed songs or transfer their ideas to different levels and contexts. According to Peter, a non-musical impulse, theme, idea appears first, and then its artistic embodiment follows - the picture and sound. Currently, Unicycleman are working on a new concert program. This material will be released in 2003.