Robert Dorschel is one of the many friends that I made at Electro-music 2010, a festival dedicated to electronic music. Ironically, while most of the festival was electrified, it was during the acoustic jams that we really got to talking. Robert brought his melodica and Zen drum, which added some great textures to everything from folk tunes to 8os covers. Based out of Syracuse, Robert plays a number of instruments, but concentrates mostly on synths and Logic Pro and has an ear for down tempo ethereal ambient music. We stayed in touch after the 2010 event, and put together a (largely improvised) set for EM2011 as RodoJerde. We got an invitation to play in Egypt, so I guess that is good!
It’s rather unusual for me to work with a collaborator that I do not already know for many years, but Robert and I seemed to relate on many levels philosophically. I think we were both at points in our lives where it was time to just set aside any preconceived ideas of perfection and just see what happens. This has been liberating because neither one of us are trying to prove anything. We continue to swap files and ideas via Skype and DropBox. Robert just started a new venture for 2012 that he calls Ditty A Day 2012 where he assigns himself the task of posting something new every day. We’re still formulating our next experiment, but it will be fun to see what happens this year.
