Tim Story tells us the story of Objective Objects -

Objective Objects, as a concept at least, was born in my messy garage a full year before a single blip was committed to tape. Moebi and Joachim were here in late autumn 2007 for the recording of Qua, the album that would be—sadly but beautifully—Cluster's finale. Dwight and Paula, our old friends and frequent collaborators, often stopped by for dinners and drinks during that Qua week, and Dwight, Moebi and I regularly found ourselves in the aforementioned garage, having a smoke in an environment marginally preferable to the cold November outdoors. During those breaks, we'd joke about ephemera both epic and mundane, one of which was Dwight's brainstorm to reconvene here at my place sometime in the future to collaborate with Moebi. Magically, the idea solidified over the days and months until we did just that. Moebi and Irene returned the next October and we dove in—Dwight and Moebi to collaborate, I to produce. As misfortune would have it, Dwight was enduring a rough patch with a bad back and lots of pain, but he soldiered on, and it barely put a damper (easy for me to say) on an amazingly fun and productive week. As usual, Moebi had stuffed his suitcase with a magnificently loopy array of rhythms, sounds and samples, and what started as a bit of a sonic free-for-all quickly settled down to a more controlled modus operandi, the gist of which was that we'd gradually pare down and tuck in the chaos until we had a series of rhythmic progressions constructed of the most implausible materials—acoustic, electronic, and everything in between. On mornings that Dwight was late, toughing it out with his derelict spine, Moebi and I—reluctant to move too far ahead without him—simply used the time to flesh out these curious patterns, and try out bits of studio trickery on what Dwight and Moebi had already recorded to throw off the angular harmonies and resonances that would eventually populate OO. Dwight, despite wincing every time he strapped on his Les Paul, added the most delectable and off-kilter guitar parts, bass squiggles, and brilliant textures. He was also the mastermind of my favorite memory of the sessions—somehow convincing Moebi to sing a silly German children's song (Hoppe Hoppe Reiter) into a vocoder to extract a bizarre alien singalong for Helicobacter. We soon found the more angular the inflections and crazy the histrionics that Moebi employed, the better the results were, so he gamely served up what was surely the vocal performance of his life. (Smartly, he did make us promise we'd never let those raw vocal tracks loose in the world.)

It's hard to evaluate OO with any level of dispassionate perspective, but I'll just say that I'm thrilled to have this project finally enjoy its long-overdue release. I hear in it so many elements that represent the best of both Moebi and Dwight: the humor, the depth, the beauty of things done in such an idiosyncratic and joyful way. And above all, those fabulous rhythms—dare I say grooves—which pulsate and slither through worlds ultimately impossible to describe or pin down. Separately, Moebi and Dwight had a sonic language each his own, and together those distinct dialects gel with a surprisingly fluid and cohesive power.

OO was never meant to remain on the shelf so long. Scheduled for release so many times, one thing or another always seemed to intrude. Moebi's passing in 2015 was the biggest blow, neither Dwight nor I had much appetite for such raw reminders of what we lost. But allowing this vibrant work to remain hidden any longer seemed equally unacceptable. Objective Objects embodies the last major piece of the Moebius legacy (my god, he'd hate that word) from a period in his life that was particularly active, happy and inspired. Those same three adjectives might just be the best descriptors of what Moebi and Dwight managed to create here.

released November 5, 2019

Composed and performed by Dieter Moebius and Dwight Ashley

Produced, engineered and mastered by Tim Story

Recorded at Seventh Chance Studio and The Rectangle, Ohio

Creative: Next Year's News, Inc.
Design: Molly O'Riordon

Liner Notes by Tim Story, September 2019

All compositions published by Jealous Entropy Publishing (BMI) and Seventh Chance Music (BMI)

(c) & (p) 2019 Dwight Ashley and Irene Moebius under exclusive license to Curious Music