When Matthias Ockert, the leader of the POLYTHEISTIC ENSEMBLE, receives SIGNALS FROM THE COOL, it is meant programmatically.

His music processes sonic influences from other jazz musicians. It is metrically and rhythmically complex, often dance-like, as the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Its sound and melody are primarily shaped by string instruments. It incorporates rock elements as well as aleatoric components.

Carefully composed and balanced, it does not require musicians to play exactly what is on the sheet music. It unfolds as a collective process, taking everyone into responsibility, never leaving anyone alone – not even in the solos, for which it consistently creates spaces – and requiring everyone to listen attentively.

Matthias Ockert's music not only sounds like jazz; it is jazz, eliminating any dichotomy between jazz and composition. And then there are the signals from the cold at the edge of the solar system. The Herschel Space Telescope transmitted them from a distance of several light minutes.

Matthias Ockert has transformed them into sounds and incorporated them into the music. They leave traces in it, and we do not know exactly what they are. But they are there. They do not disrupt the order of the music. They are a part of it.” - Hans-Jürgen Linke

The electronic sounds are based on light data from the observation of trans-Neptunian objects by the Herschel Telescope, provided by the Max Planck Institute Germany in cooperation with Dr. Miriam Rengel. The CD production is supported by the Initiative Musik gemeinnützige Projektgesellschaft mbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.
For more information, visit www.polytheistic-ensemble.net / www.matthiasockert.de