Johannes Schmoelling

White Out

- Studio, released 1990 -

Covers

CD release Germany 1990 Artwork & Design: Detlef Maugsch	CD misprint release Germany 1990 Artwork & Design: Detlef Maugsch
CD release Germany 2000 Design: Andreas Hedler	CD release Germany 2010 Design: Andreas Hedler

Tracks


		[a]
1.	White Out	12:04
2.	Navigator's Chatter	5:53
3.	Native Eye, Native Ear	6:53
4.	Ice Walk	6:09
5.	The Big Nail	4:43
6.	A Great Continent	8:24
7.	Anian Path	5:20
Total running time		49:26


		[b]
1.	White Out [2000 re-recording]	10:27
2.	Navigator's Chatter [2000 re-recording]	5:48
3.	Icewalk [2000 re-recording]	6:11
4.	The Big Nail [2000 re-recording]	4:08
5.	Rain Echoes	6:40
6.	Native Eye, Native Ear [2000 re-recording]	4:59
7.	A Great Continent [2000 re-recording]	8:13
8.	A Long Way Home	5:47
9.	Anian Path [2000 re-recording]	5:50
10.	Icewalk (Mix 2000) [2000 remix by Robert Wässer and Ulrich Schnauss]	6:29
Total running time		64:32

Details


Recording date	1989
Recording site(s)	Riet Studio (Berlin)
Composer(s)	Johannes Schmoelling
Musician(s)	Johannes Schmoelling
Producer(s)	Peter Wirths

Notes

"'White Out' -- an optical illusion: the merging of heaven and earth, the absence of shadows, space without depth, without horizon."

In 1990, Johannes Schmoelling released his third studio album, White Out, and like its predecessor it was a concept album. Johannes Schmoelling about its origin:

"All of a sudden there was this feeling, the Antarctic, a concept album. No, it was not so sudden. This sudden was the crossover point of three things, all happening at the same time: a book (Christoph Ransmayr's The terrors of the ice and the darkness), a movie film (Antarctica Project by Axel Engstfeld), and finally a own study, an experimental sound performance, on which I was working together with the author Martin Burckhardt. And in this sense the 'sudden' was nothing incidental, but a feeling of an inner inevitableness: a concept album, the Antarctic.
In the movie a man was seen, in front of the American Flag, who pronounced the Antarctic as an immense reservoir of energy and resources. He had a voice as if money could speak. And the voice said: 'I have no doubt, it will happen. Twenty years, thirty years, it will happen.'
To tell a landscape -- so long as it still exists. [...]
I worked with short sound samples from [...] Antarctica Project on the tracks White Out, The Big Nail and A Great Continent. In A Great Continent I used excerpts from Engstfeld's interview with Michael T. Halbouty, Chairman of the Antarctica Treaty."

A very rare misprint of this album was released first: on the front cover the ship sails to the right side except to the left (as originally intended). Soon after the release Polydor corrected the error and re-released the record with the correct cover. The back insert of the CD was completely redesigned for the corrected release.

Even the official release became quite rare as it went out-of-print a few years after. Ten years later, in 2000, Johannes Schmoelling completely re-recorded this album -- similarily as a few years ago he did with his album The Zoo Of Tranquillity.

The re-recordings of this album do not differ that much from their original recordings as they did on the re-release of The Zoo Of Tranquillity, thus the overall atmosphere of the album has not changed very much. The track listing has been altered, changing the order of some of the original tracks and including two new compositions which fit quite well into the older material.

As a bonus, there is a remix of one of the tracks, done by Robert Wässer and Ulrich Schnauss. The latter would become quite famous in the following years after releasing his solo albums Far Away Trains Passing By (2001) and A Strangely Isolated Place (2003). Using his pseudonym Ethereal 77 he as well appeared on the compilation Unpleasant Poems (2004) together with Jerome Froese.

With the re-release of White Out, Johannes Schmoelling launched his own record label "Viktoriapark Records" (named after a park near his home in Berlin) to release all his future solo material.

In 2010 the album was once more re-released as the release from 2000 was sold out. The new version has a 12-page booklet (instead of 8 pages) and slightly different artwork.

Releases


Germany	1990: Polydor LP [a]: 843 395-1 CD [a]: 843 395-2; misprinted cover with ship sailing to the right CD [a]: 843 395-2; corrected cover with ship sailing to the left 2000: Viktoriapark CD [b]: VP 00-1 2010: Viktoriapark CD [b]: VP 00-1