False Mirror

Tobias Hornberger’s debut on Telrae marks the fine line between abstract electronic
experimental music and dub.
One can say he draws on his experience from a period of more than five years during
which released several EPs and also albums.

"Unknown" starts with a beatless droning bassy frequence that step by step gives way to
mighty chords and and an elegant groove pattern. The track reveals more and more
throughout of its running time and shows an almost mystical and dark side. Tension rings
and one can say this is without doubt a bit of an masterpiece.

"Strands" on the flipside starts with sounds that could come from a far a away shore, waves
slowly sliding onto a sandy plateaux. The tracks works more on the micro scale of things...
seems to be even contemplative and well balanced.

In the beginning it looked like an ordinary storm...

After three years of intense work, Dark Ambient disciple False Mirror returns with his third full-length journey, aptly entitled "Derelict World".
With the timeless drones of his debut "Chronostatic Scenes" and the icy soundscapes on his highly acclaimed sophomore masterpiece "North" still resonating through space, solo artist Tobias Hornberger delivers "Derelict World", his most massive and epic undertaking so far.
As its two brooding predecessors, also his third work of masterfully crafted Ambient has become a monumental alliance of dark drones, frostbitten soundscapes and warm vibrating tones from the deep bowels of the earth.
Famous for his skilled use of field recordings from an extremely diversified range (some of the recordings stem from an old monastery, the medieval city of Ulm or the Arabian sea) and for his ability to cloak the superior forces of nature into menacing, yet beautifully devised sounds, "Derelict World" also offers a truly apocalyptic concept that blends perfectly with the dense wall of sound on this mysterious Ambient challenge: Nothing less than the end of humanity, brought upon this world by the relentless forces of nature forms the basis on which the resonating and thundering tracks develop into chimaeras of terrible momentum, ever-changing and ever-increasing their dramatic potential.
Devised with sophisticated software he solely created for composing this album, False Mirror easily evokes elemental feelings like sublimity, fear or trepidation - culminating in an impending sense of doom that never leaves the listener and brings to life the destructive side of nature that surrounds us every day.
From the sheer force of a tornado set loose to the beguiling calm within the eye of the storm, "Derelict World" is a 74 minute long sonic journey into a desolated, depopulated world.
A 20 page booklet with a conceptually linked short story written by author and journalist Bjørn Springorum accompanies the release. The album is moreover equipped with a number of hidden messages that lead to a rewarding "Bonus World" on falsemirror.de.

... and the rest was silence.

Performed and recorded live at Antischall studios in snow-covered Wuppertal at 22.11.2008.
This is a free EP you can download at audiophob.

North is the second full-length album released as False Mirror. Many of the techniques, methods and effects I developed during the production of 'Chronostatic Scenes' were applied.

Whereas 'Chronostatic Scenes' dealt with a dreamscape athmosphere, 'North' is much colder and darker.
I was always impressed by arctic surroundings and the early expeditions to the poles. This is the mood of the album, like an arctic expedition somewhere into nowhere.

Many of the sounds come from recordings of acoustic instruments like guitars, accordion, gongs, mouth organ which were extremely effected and processed. There are also environmental recordings I made from the North Atlantic Ocean and during the European windstorm 'Kyrill'.

The cover again was painted by Sylvia Riester and was inspired by the stunning fjords of Norway.

Chronostatic Scenes is the first full-length CD released as False Mirror.

This album evolved from images and moods of my dreams I collected in a dream-diary. the 8 scenes are mixed into a continuously floating piece of ambient and could therefore also be regarded as sceneries for a plot within the listener's head.

the best way to listen to this album is being in a nebulous state of mind, drifting between awake and asleep when images float between presence and imagination.

The album was produced from december 2005 till september 2006 with a long preceding period of so called 'sound-design-studies'.
I dismissed many of the tracks I began for this album due to my steady urge for perfection (and even did some changes afterwards).

The cover was painted by Sylvia Riester who will do the artwork of all following False Mirror releases. Her majestic, dark and still landscapes are blending very well with the mood of my music.

Gras was the result of a long process. It startet when I met Martin from Stadtgruen on a gig in Ulm. We noticed that we had a pretty similar musical taste and he liked the tracks i had made so far, so I decided to create an EP solely for Stadtgruen.

The first tracks were 'Blütenstaub' (which I also put on mp3.de under a different name) and 'Wassermann'. Especially 'Wassermann' defined the direction of the Album. As mentioned above it wasn't ment to become an full-length-album, but as things are, music always has the last word.
The probably most interessting track is the jazzy 'Horizont' which I recorded live together with two friends.

After all... Success of this Album was overwhelming and it is by today the most-often-downloaded artist-release on Stadtgruen.