This may surprise, but Ludwig Wittgenstein, for many the greatest philosopher, or anyway the most eminent exponent of analytic philosophy according to Roger Scruton, maintained that music (!) was the most important to him, not formal logic or philosophy. On the other hand, it is known for at least a century, this I take from a mentioning in Bertrand Russell’s “The Analysis of Mind”, that artistic skills, apparently especially that of drawing pictures, suffer when the brain starts using more resources for rational tasks. Similarly, some who lose logic functionality due to stroke start drawing very well.

Being much like Wittgenstein a Scientist and Philosopher on Aspergers, music, song and dance have always been very important to me, too. And indeed, at some point during my PhD studies, my drawing skills, you may know them from my Mondrian painting, suffered until I could only produce an all gray canvass one day and gave up painting. Ability to use software for visual art was less affected, but music, well music never left me. Raves and progressive music relate to some of my fondest memories, and playing African drums and the Persian Ney (a flute without mouth piece – some need a few days to produce the first sound).

Add an old guitar I found abandoned inside a laboratory a few years back. I present to the world my first Album “Feel Free To Stay” [At Soundclick], with “You Can Stay Today” and the start of “Drifter’s Revolution /Balloon in the Sun (Der Heissluft Ballon)”. (Downloading needs registering at the site. Streaming works fine.)

Album Cover Art by Artist, “Arid Life” (1993) 79 cm x 54 cm, cheap paint on cardboard, all rights reserved

“You Can Stay Today” are 15 minutes of guitar – all in one go I proudly add – sadly the quality is terrible and so one does hardly hear the finer melodies behind the rhythm, rendering it at times too monotone – this was recorded without proper microphone, just in front of an old laptop, my voice I partially rerecorded, then I sampled moaning from porn clips, time reversed and distorted the samples, and so on, all with free software (Audacity), all on the same laptop. This is trying out whether one can do all this at no cost and still gets a presentable result – you be the judge. The time invested into this was about two days, including finding free multi track music mix software.

The lyrics, “Do or don't know what to say … Do or don’t know you wanna stay … you can stay …” will be the theme song and welcoming motto of the social club designed for socially awkward and intellectually under stimulated people I am planning (since true postmodern philosophy after Wittgenstein is Zen like practice or useful for science, not inflating nonsensical language games in academic journals). There, we, meaning you and me if you like, will talk much or not, but shall make music together for sure.

“Drifter’s Revolution / Balloon in the Sun (Der Heissluft Ballon)” I have not fully recorded yet, since it turns into energetic hard rock after the calm start, and I need time to practice that more in order to get it error free. The song’s German lyrics (see English and Chinese translation and interpretation at the soundclick website), which I wrote 1990 or so, are dear to me. The lines are contradictions such as “Forward, if just the wind turns”, which are not so much about the balloon but about a young mind’s desire for revolution while comprehending the absence of free will.