Sonic Ritual [CLIPP248] by Schegg

Munich based musician, sound collector and artist Schegg (aka “Scaled Chord Harmony & Electronic Groove Grounds”) crawls through the wormhole for his third outing on clipp.art. A minute between stints, (his last extended player release on clipp.art came out in 2019) but where “Dream Emulator” drifted into corners of detroit electro, groove-heavy house, full frontal breakbeat, aquatic acid and UK rave, “Sonic Ritual” is a trio of tracks that finds the Munich based musician delving into new 4D angles inside the tesseract. It’s a space where he builds on his enthusiasm for vintage-sound tracks, tribal rhythms, and silky chords, albeit all wrapped up in a raw housey music kinda way. Oh, and he adds some borderline Baltimore breakbeat and early morning ambience into the mix.

It’s interesting to think about the concept of a “Sonic Ritual” and not get trapped in the boring utilitarian idea of a customary practice or soul-sucking routine of everyday existence. There can also be pleasure in repetition. The 4/4 hypnotic loop of club music is a good place to start. And I think most people reading this would have surrendered to the habits of a regular dancefloor visit at some point in their life.

But let’s talk about the music: If I had to imagine a scenario where you would be correct in throwing on “Memory Loop” then it wouldn’t be while drinking coffee at 7a.m, or on the treadmill at the gym. I’d opt instead to blaze a fat one and watch spider web shadows through my window on a spring afternoon.

“Shamanic Dance” won’t summon an ancient curse, although it sounds really good if you watch the jungle scenes in Raiders of the Lost Arc at half speed with the sound muted and play this over the top instead.

Finally, title track “Sonic Ritual” evokes less of a literal ritual and more like an everyday ceremony where you listen to heaps of Orbital and then remember it’s the year 2025. Its good stuff, man.

On his first release with us back in May 2019, Schegg said ”The most important thing is to make human-like music for the heart and soul. There should be some healing sound at the dancefloor, something to dream about and to forget all your troubles.” Many moons later, in a world where everything has changed, it’s comforting to find some habits stay the same.