SONG – THE RIVER DREAMS

CONCEPTUAL MUSICAL STORYTELLING • SOLO & COLLABS

MUSIC is one of the deepest kinds of connection agents. Like water it flows everywhere. I compose and produce my songs myself, with a lifelong passion for the beauty and mystery of sound.

SOLO

And now everything is so magical
The moon has gathered her stars
To shine a light on the dark world
That stole our secrets away.
– Forever –

EP: ACHILLES • Music, Lyrics, Composition: Defer
Achilles came to me in 2022, just after I had battled with death for several months in 2021. The wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon as well as his beauty felt very tangible to me during that time. Likewise, Achilles‘ relation to the Snake and Dragon myths via his mother Thetis and his transient and elusive historic persona, composed of failure and hero, mortal and immortal, lost knowledge and mythical overlay, fascinated me, as it captures the two sides within human nature. These two sides are the molecular and the non-molecular, that are in constant interplay, always aiming to balance each other out from chaos to harmony, in struggle and in love. The themes of the EP thus are accordingly. Only two songs of the EP are uploaded so far.

Coming up: Good Times Last (2009), Achilles (2022), The Muse (2022), Days Of The Forlorn (2001/2025)

„LIMINAL LOVE“ (2022)
I was fascinated with liminal spaces at the time and felt that I wanted to make a song about inner journeys, dreams and the transient nature of the liminal, which seems elusive but offers a gateway between different spaces.

Defer · Liminal Love

„USED TO BE GOOD“ (2022)
This is dedicated to victims of people and entire systems that are evil by choice through self-entitlement disguised as systemic and misplaced righteousness. The message is that even the biggest believer of their own righteousness will eventually face the turnaround due to the nature of reality, and that truth, with a bit of luck, only takes time.

Defer · Used To Be Good

EP: MANTUA • Music, Lyrics, Composition: Defer
The title of this EP came to me on a train ride from Venice to Verona in 2019, while I was mentally processing the nightlike, darkish and mystical vibe I found the name of the city of Mantova, which I had visited prior to travelling to Padova and Venice, was exuding. The theme is the interconnection within myth, spreading from East to West, with ancient knowledge lost and still, in traces, found. The EP begins with the starlight in „Forever“, carries over to the mythical overlay of Ovid’s and Shakespeare’s take on the influence of culture on true love, takes a dip in the forest flair of the oak myths, takes the listener onto the Black Sea at night with the Dragon and ends with a hint of the tale of the ancients. One song of this album, which is the 5th and thus the conclusion of the circle, hasn’t been uploaded, yet.

Coming up: Loreland (2020)

„FOREVER“ (2021)
This small song came to me in spring 2021 in the flow of one night as an antidote to one of the first songs I wrote in my life in 1995, called Moments, which was a lament about the fading of the moon (or originally: the death of the moon) through the darkness of (the light of) the sun. 26 years later I felt that what had changed was that the moon, even when it is in a „new moon“ phase and dark at night, still gathers its friends, the stars, and that there is still that cosmic light illuminating our world, if only one looks up and beyond, that says: you are not alone.

Defer · Forever

„MANTOVA“ (2019)
Mantova’s setting is the ancient Ovidian theme of „Pyramus and Thisbe“, which later metamorphed into Shakespeare’s „Romeo and Juliet“. This intro on the EP „Mantua“ is a song from Julia’s point of view, after Romeo has gone into exile to Mantova. Julia is forced by her immediate environment to marry another man. She decides to take a sleeping potion, whereupon Romeo finds her and thinks she is dead – and so the story finds its tragic twist, leaving the true lovers to be destined to reach unity only in the afterlife when all misunderstandings have been overcome…

Defer · Mantova

„THE ACORN“ (2019)
The Acorn was inspired by the idea of inspiration being invisible, yet accessible. Even though the information at the core of a little acorn can’t be seen with the human eye, the tiny seed still bears the entire information concerning the gigantic tree that may be born from it, if only it receives enough suitable ingredients such as light, rain, nitrogen, wind and a little love of living…

Defer · The Acorn

„THE HOSPITABLE SEA“ (2020)
This song is dearly dedicated to the Fairy and Dragon myths and the historic undercurrents still kept alive by cultures and traditions around the Black Sea. It is an invitation to the listener to become acquainted with the overlooked historic niches, which are so beautiful and inspiring, located in the Eastern regions of Europe and Asia Minor, transferred via the arts, chants and circle dancing all over Europe. There’s an origin of lost knowledge that still breathes behind the veil as long as the inspirational flame is lit.

Defer · The Hospitable Sea

EP: IMMANENCE • Music, Lyrics, Composition: Defer
A potpourri of songs.

„STORIES“ (2013)
A song that came to me about the freedom of the inner story of mankind, expressing itself through the ups and downs of history like water pressing through the tightest cracks of stones and oppression. The inner story of mankind is deeply subversive as evolution aims at living, not dying. Hence, the story will continue to breathe new life into the imagination of man.

Defer · Stories

„AUTUMN SOUL“ (2013)
The gloomy autumn mood and reading about Korea at the time inspired me to create this tune from the point of view of guardians from a fairy kind of world. Sometimes disparate seeming inspirational elements can create a sudden third.

Defer · Autumn Soul

„ALWAYS ONE LOVE LEFT“ (2015)
This song sketch was quickly live recorded with just a little layering afterwards, subconsciously inspired by „I Know Him So Well“ from the musical „Chess“. Just a little channeling of feeling, nothing too serious.

Defer · Always One Love Left

„KLEINE WEISE“ (2009)
Just a little, airy, instrumental mood piece.

Defer · Kleine Weise

„MOMENTS“ (composed 1995, provisorically recorded 2013)
This was one of the first songs I wrote in my life during a time of great confusion when I was sixteen. It’s referenced in the description of my song Forever from 2021.