(LOOTPRESS) – To say it has been an eventful year for Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and modern-day musical genius John Frusciante might be a bit of an understatement.
Following the musician’s long-anticipated return to the Red Hot Chili Peppers lineup following a ten-year absence, the band release two separate double LP albums in 2022: Unlimited Love and Return to the Dream Canteen, respectively.
In addition to a massive world tour and press run which followed the release of Unlimited Love on April 1, 2022, John Frusciante has announced plans to release an album of his own in February.
The album, to be released in separate formats each with unique track lists, will be titled I – pronounced “One” – and II – pronounced “Two” – will see the musician’s return to the electronic music to which he dedicated his attention during his most recent departure from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“After a year and a half writing and recording rock music, I needed to clear my head,” said the guitarist in a statement.
“When the band’s recording phase was completed, I needed to go back to my adopted language. I had done enough with chords, rhythms, notes, defined sections, sharp transitions, etc. What I needed was to create music from the ground up with nothing but sound, and have that music reflect “being” rather than “doing”. It was a therapeutic way of re-balancing myself, before and during my band’s mixing process.”
Detailing the creation of the music Frusciante compared the process to the art of sculpture.
“Music being a solitary sculpture in sonic space was the main motivating thought. I was looking at pictures of sculptures and trying to make music that simultaneously conveyed both movement and stillness,” he said.
”I refrained from sudden musical changes, especially avoiding sequences of notes and rhythms. In fact, this music was made from sequences which never exceed a single note, many of these pieces being made on a single pattern. The movement which a good sculptor conveys when the shape of his medium meets the eyes of the viewer who walks around the piece, or the sun changes its position, are the kinds of movement which it was the role of the synth patches to communicate.”
He also details the inspiration taken from an array of artists in the assembly of the record, citing names such as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Bruce Gilbert, and Klara Lewis.
“While I was almost exclusively listening to artists such as Chris Watson, Peter Rehberg, Bernard Parmegiani, CM Von Hausswolff, Jana Winderen, Oren Ambarchi, Hazard, Bruce Gilbert, Klara Lewis, Ryoji Ikeda, and so on, I was also inspired by my mental image of John Lennon’s tape and mellotron experiments he made at home during his time in the Beatles, as well as events like the first minute of Bowie’s Station To Station, …And The Gods Made Love by Jimi Hendrix, the synths in the song Mass Production by Iggy Pop, and the general idea of Eno’s initial concept of Ambient music.”
John Frusciante’s previous electronic-oriented efforts include the 2012 EP Letur Lefr, PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone released later that same year, 2014’s Enclosure, and 2020’s Maya – the first music from Frusciante after the announcement he would be rejoining Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“I’ve been listening to music like this since I was 13 or so, but I felt that making it was out of my reach because of the amount of restraint I imagined it required,” he said of the upcoming project.
”Once I found myself making this music, it did not feel like a matter of restraint at all. I wanted to build a certain type of building, and hear certain types of movement, and I knew when it was complete. There was no place for sequences of notes and rhythms in my plans.”
The album will exist in two versions in different listening formats with separate track lists to accommodate the respective formates, Frusciante explains.
“There are two versions of this album. The CD version is pronounced “two” and called : I I . This is the longer version. The vinyl version is pronounced “one”, and called . I : This version is shorter, but contains one vinyl-only track. The reason the vinyl is shorter is that some of the tracks have sounds that can not be pressed on vinyl.”
More information on the upcoming I and II album can be found here.
