Cover Artwork © 2020 Giulia Pex

Third studio album SEISMOPSYCHOLLAGE by Maike Zazie able to create a new language between poetry, literature and minimal pianism.

It is an emotional journey through different atmospheres, sometimes soft and delicate, sometimes enthralling and moreenergetic, sometimes nocturnal and crepuscular, airy and dreamy.

It is a mysterious, enigmatic and therefore fascinating world, the one created by the German pianist and composer Maike Zazie Matern, stage name Maike Zazie. Her second album for 7K!, Seismopsychollage, is coming out on March 20th, 2020. There are many things: an attractive mixture of piano compositions, singing, poetry, literature, neoclassical music, spoken word, but above all, a record impossible to frame in a genre. It catapults the listener into an elsewhere not conceived as a mere external and objective reality, but as intrinsically linked to one’s own intimacy.

"We are part of reality, but we are also observers. In the same way I don't feel detached from nature, I perceive myself as an element of it," Maike Zazie says.
It is no coincidence that the artwork for her new record by the Italian illustrator Giulia Pex depicts a nude of a woman who blends in with the landscape, as if there were no borders between one and the other.It is this connection, this interdependence between the external and the inner experience, the main source of inspiration for Seismopsychollage meaningful title for a work that captures, moves and strikes for its multifaceted gait. It is a journey through different atmospheres, sometimes soft and delicate, sometimes enthralling and more energetic, sometimes nocturnal and crepuscular, airy and dreamy. There is the calm, the sweetness, the melancholy and the quiet in the pieces composed by Maike Zazie, but also disruptive sound passages that the composer compares to "earthquakes", resorting to a "perfect metaphor to describe what happens when we experience inner conflicts, conflicts with other people, conflicts between humans". She specifies:
"The tectonic plates represent the body, the skin, the human being; the colliding plates two humans in conflict".
Here it is, the key word: "Conflict". The conflict with ourselves and the desires that stimulate us as much as they intimidate us, the one with the otherness in its absence/presence, with that solitude that unites us all, but towards which we feel ambivalent, with that transience of things (see the track Vergänglichkeit) we have to accept in its inevitability. There is another key concept that feeds the musical discourse of the pianist: "healing".
"I consider this album a healing product, writing it was like conducting a psychoanalytic investigation of myself", explains Maike Zazie.
"Every track is a stage in a journey, a path of inner growth towards an awareness that will never be absolute, but that can always be increased. All of us in relation to each other and to the world continue to change and evolve: there is no end, there is no final goal, only the journey exists and it is this journey that the album elaborates on".

The record merges music with other languages: with the lyrics written and then read or sung by Maike Zazie herself («both recent and old, a couple are fragments of diaries and notes dating back to when I was a teenager»), with extracts of books, verses and quotations recited on the album not by actors, but by ordinary people, not only in German, but also in English, French, Italian, Swedish, Danish. Growing up among the vinyls collected by her parents, inspired by classical composers like Chopin and Satie as well as by Tori Amos and Björk, Maike Zazie included some reflections by American poetess, writer and essayist Siri Hustvedt on Seismopsychollage, who over the course of her career has studied the relationship between identity and perception, conscious and unconscious, work of art and user.
"I agree with her theory that the value of an art piece does not lie in its supposed beauty, but in its ability to move something within the person who perceives it", confirms Maike Zazie, a graduate in literature and piano teacher.
"Music and art in general are this for me: something that can transform us, that can help us work on ourselves and eventually enrich us".

Some excerpts from Momo, Michael Ende’s fantasy book, are also included in Seismopsychollage. Others are from The Eight Mountains, an award-winning training novel published by the Italian writer Paolo Cognetti in 2017 and from The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm (one above all: "In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two"). We also hear fragments from the Finnish poet of Russian origin, who died in 1923, Edith Södergran, from the Scandinavian writers Peter Høeg and Per Olov Enquist, from Nicole Krauss, author of the acclaimed The Man on the Threshold (2002), among others. The result is an interweaving of words, melodies and notes, in which a linear narrative is completely absent.
"There isn’t a story nor a plot with a beginning, a development and an end in this album", says Maike Zazie. "If anything, it is a collage of points of view: inside there are pieces of me, of my life, of the person I was and I am today, but also pieces of the surrounding reality, of people close to me, of friends, lovers and family. The idea was to create a dialogue between different perspectives, perspectives that sometimes agree, sometimes collide causing a contrast. In each of them the listener can identify or find a starting point for reflection".

Here it is also important to recognize the excellent work carried out by Simon Goff, musician, producer and sound engineer of the Berlin-based Vox-Ton Studio, who helped create Seismopsychollage into a space from which the voices in the record seem to emerge from various directions as if from nothing, giving the listener a feeling of estrangement and at the same time an immersive experience.

Of course, the piano is the protagonist: it partners the hypnotic voice of Maike Zazie, acts as a carpet for the readings, gives birth to sweet melodies alternating passionate progressions, moments of tension, others full of nostalgia, airy passages imbued with serenity. The notes lull, little by little the variety of male and female voices that talk - sometimes overlap - becomes a theatrical dialogue in music driven by the composer with her own voice and her fingers on the piano keys. It is as if we were observing a moving picture and at the same time we were part of it. As if in front of us the map of an inner self stood out in the flow of its tremors and its moments of peace, of its thoughts and its moods. A multimedia installation in the shape of a record: accessing it means not only listening, but also imagining, remembering, meditating, feeling, feeling yourself.

We can also say that Seismopsychollage is an introspective record that resonates as a conversation with the inner child, the eternal child who lives in each of us and from which flows the creative impulse. It is in that infant purity that Maike Zazie, born in 1983, dips into when she writes music and plays. "I have always stayed a bit of a child", she confides, approaching the piano at 9 intrigued by her father who played it for fun in some jazz groups.
"I was named Zazie from the main character of Zazie dans le métro, a 1959 novel by Raymond Queneau adapted for cinema by French director Louis Malle, one of the leading exponents of the Nouvelle Vague. And it is a name that I feel very mine: I truly believe there's something of that little girl in me".
The tracks by the German pianist represent an emotional river (Fluss is the title of one of them), the flow of images, projections, thoughts and suggestions that constantly pass through her mind in moments of solitude and loneliness.
"As far as I am concerned, solitude is a condition of creativity", says the musician born near Heidelberg, who wrote and recorded Seismopsychollage in her apartment in Berlin, the city where she moved in 2003. A cozy flat, a hideout where prints, photographs, mini sculptures, a portrait of Virginia Woolf that reminds her of her mother, and still small stuffed animals, plants, souvenirs, boxes, diaries and notebooks make up the bubble where Maike Zazie takes refuge when she plays and more generally when she creates. In addition to making music she loves writing and creating collages like those that embellish the album booklet together with the illustrations of the aforementioned Giulia Pex.
Romanticism, intensity, depth, delicacy: Maike Zazie’s music is all this combined. She’s not only a musician, she’s a creator of space. As Seismopsychollage is more than just a record, more than just music: it is a space to be lived, a place to reflect and take comfort. No matter how you want to define her work, it is something unique that deserves attention and holds the ability to let her listeners be carried away.

Presentation text written by Raffaella Oliva.

* Other writers/poets quotes in the album in chronological order of appearance:

Track one (Prolog)

"[…] the books we read are not fixed in recollection as complete texts that we can turn to as we would a volume on the shelf. Books are made between the words and spaces left by the writer on the page and the reader who reinvents them through her own embodied reality, for better and for worse. The more i read, the more i change. The more varied my reading, the more able i am to perceive the world from myriad perspectives."
FROM: Siri Hustvedt: On Reading. In: Living, thinking, looking. New York: Picador, 2012.
Read by: Luca Elder


Track two (Sehnsucht)

"[...] elle court après quelque chose qui existe pas. Elle est comme un animal blessé […] et elle retombe toujours un peu plus bas. Je crois que le monde est trop petit pour elle […]."
From: Philippe Djian: 37°2 le matin. Paris: Bernard Barrault, 1985.
Read by: Pierre Martinerie

"Das Individuum ist sich bewusst, von äußeren Umständen konkret abhängig zu sein. Um diese Kräfte kontrollieren zu können, ist der Mensch ständig um Harmonie mit der Außenwelt bemüht. Eine Sehnsucht ins Unendliche würde dessen Extrem darstellen, um das gesamte Universum für sich überschaubar und durchschaubar zu machen um völlig frei und eigenständig handeln zu können."
Compare: Maike Zazie Matern: Die Sehnsucht in der schwedischen Stadtprosa bei Strindberg. Berlin, 2011.
Read by: Janna Horstmann

"Ziel des sehnsüchtigen Strebens ins Unbekannte und Fremde ist die eigene Vervollkommnung durch eine schrittweise Aneignung der Außenwelt."
Compare: Maike Zazie Matern: Die Sehnsucht in der schwedischen Stadtprosa bei Strindberg. Berlin, 2011.
Read by: Janna Horstmann

"Desire appears as a feeling, a flicker or a bomb in the body, but it's always a hunger for something, and it always propels us somewhere else, toward the thing that is missing."
From: Siri Hustvedt: Variations on Desire. In: Living, thinking, looking. New York: Picador, 2012.
Read by: Luca Elder


Track three (Kind)

"När jag var barn såg jag havet: det var blott."
From: Edith Södergran: Min själ. In: Dikter. Borgå: Holger Schildt, 1916.
Read by: Reza Saleh

"Es gibt ein großes und doch ganz alltägliches Geheimnis. Alle Menschen haben daran teil, jeder kennt es, aber die wenigsten denken je darüber nach. Die meisten Leute nehmen es einfach so hin und wundern sich kein bisschen darüber. Dieses Geheimnis ist die Zeit. Es gibt Kalender und Uhren, um sie zu messen, aber das will wenig besagen, denn jeder weiß, daß einem eine einzige Stunde wie eine Ewigkeit vorkommen kann, mitunter kann sie aber auch wie ein Augenblick vergehen – je nachdem, was man in dieser Stunde erlebt. Denn Zeit ist Leben. Und das Leben wohnt im Herzen." From: Michael Ende: Momo. Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1973.
Read by: Robert Oeser

"Zeit stirbt buchstäblich, wenn sie von ihrem wahren Eigentümer losgerissen wird. Denn jeder Mensch hat seine Zeit. Und nur solange sie wirklich die seine ist, bleibt sie lebendig."
From: Michael Ende: Momo. Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1973.
Read by: Robert Oeser

"Vi er ikke bare overladt til tiden. På en eller anden måde er den ogsånoget vi uafbrudt er med til at skabe."
From: Peter Høeg: De måske egnede. København: Rosinante, 1993.
Read by: Torben Kjærgaard

"All children, except one, grow up."
From: James Matthew Barrie: Peter and Wendy. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911.
Read by: Daniel Meyer


Track four (Erdbeben)

"Als Erdbebenschwarm oder auch Schwarmbeben bezeichnet man in der Geophysik eine bestimmte Form von Erdbebenserien."
Compare: Erdbebenschwarm. In: Wikipedia.
Read by: Janna Horstmann

"Der Zeitpunkt des Bruchbeginns wird als Herdzeit bezeichnet, die Bruchfläche, die das Erdbeben auslöst, in ihrer Gesamtheit als Herdfläche.In den meisten Fällen erreicht diese Bruchfläche die Erdoberfläche nicht, sodass der Erdbebenherd in der Regel nicht sichtbar wird."
Compare: Erdbeben. In: Wikipedia.
Read by: Janna Horstmann

"I knew the person i was looking at was myself, and yet there was an alien quality to my reflection, an otherness that brought with it feelings of exuberance and celebration. All at once, i was looking at a stranger."
From: Siri Hustvedt: Extracts from a story of the wounded self. In: A plea for Eros. London: Picador, 2006.
Read by: Luca Elder

"Det gör ont att ställa sig på sina ben och gå."
From: Per Olov Enquist: Boken om Blanche och Marie. Stockholm: Norstedts, 2004.
Read by: Vincent Baars

"Besonders an den Plattengrenzen, wo sich verschiedene Platten aufeinander zu, auseinander oder aneinander vorbei bewegen, bauen sich innerhalb des Gesteins Spannungen auf, während sich die Platten in ihrer Bewegung verhaken und verkanten. Diese Spannungen können sich schließlich durch ruckartige Bewegungen der Erdkruste entladen. Dabei kommt es zum tektonischen Beben."
Compare: Erdbeben. In: Wikipedia.
Read by: Janna Horstmann

"I suffered from commanding inner voices and rhythms that terrified me with their insistence. They always came when i was alone, and they seemed to want to impose their will on me, to press my body into their marching orders."
From: Siri Hustvedt: Extracts from a story of the wounded self. In: A plea for Eros. London: Picador, 2006.
Read by: Luca Elder


Track five (Vergänglichkeit)

"Es war eine Blüte von solcher Herrlichkeit, wie Momo noch nie zuvor eine gesehen hatte. Sie schien aus nichts als leuchtenden Farben zu bestehen. Momo hatte nie geahnt, dass es diese Farben überhaupt gab.Das Sternenpendel hielt eine Weile über der Blüte an und Momo versank ganz und gar in den Anblick und vergaß alles um sich her. Der Duft allein schien ihr wie etwas, wonach sie sich immer gesehnt hatte, ohne zu wissen was es war. Doch dann schwang das Pendel langsam, langsam wieder zurück. Und während es sich ganz allmählich entfernte, gewahrte Momo zu ihrer Bestürzung, dass die herrliche Blüte anfing zu verwelken."
From: Michael Ende: Momo. Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1973.
Read by: Robert Oeser

"Never forget this happiness. Never forget, because soon it will be gone."
From: Siri Hustvedt: The Sorrows of an American. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008.
Read by: Luca Elder

"Jag anar dödens skugga."
From: Edith Södergran: Framtidens Skugga. In: Framtidens Skugga. Helsingfors: Holger Schildt, 1920.
Read by: Reza Saleh

"Gyllene fåglar flyga genom luften och de pilsnabba dagarna skjuta förbi."
From: Edith Södergran: Livet. In: Dikter. Borgå: Holger Schildt, 1916.
Read by: Reza Saleh

"Ord fremkalder og fastholder det som er borte."
From: Peter Høeg: De måske egnede. København: Rosinante, 1993.
Read by: Torben Kjærgaard

"Doch die Wehmut neigt zum Verharren weil ihre Phantasie nur aus der Erfahrung lebt. Und wenn sich die Wehmut verfestigt wird daraus Schwermut oder Melancholie. Die Melancholie hat keine Perspektive weil die Vergangenheit nicht wieder auferstehen kann."
Compare: Maike Zazie Matern: Die Sehnsucht in der schwedischen Stadtprosa bei Strindberg. Berlin, 2011.
Read by: Janna Horstmann

"Hun prøvede at strække sekunderne ved ligesom at stirre på dem."
From: Peter Høeg: De måske egnede. København: Rosinante, 1993.
Read by: Torben Kjærgaard


"Allmählich begriff Momo, dass jede neue Blume immer ganz anders war als alle vorherigen und dass ihr jeweils diejenige, die gerade blühte, die allerschönste zu sein schien."
From: Michael Ende: Momo. Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1973.
Read by: Robert Oeser


Track six (Lieben)


"In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two."
From: Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving. In: Ruth Nanda Ansehe (Ed.): World Perspectives IX. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
Read by: Mitchell Hawke

"Now, since their natural form had been cut in two, each one longed for its own other half, and so they would throw their arms about each other, weaving themselves together, wanting to grow together. In that condition they would die from hunger and general idleness, because they would not do anything apart from each other."
From: Plato: Symposium. In: Steven M. Cahn (Ed.): Classics of Western Philosophy. Eighth Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2012.
Read by Stas Werno

"Ändå betraktades denna strålning länge som hälsobringande."
From: Per Olov Enquist: Boken om Blanche och Marie. Stockholm: Norstedts, 2004.
Read by: Vincent Baars

"Wie nahe kann man sich in einer Paarbeziehung kommen, ohne sich aufzugeben?"
From: Jörg Willi: Die Zweierbeziehung. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990.
Read by: Marcus Köhler

"Inwiefern müssen wir uns gegenseitig abgrenzen, und inwiefern können wir miteinander verschmelzen?"
From: Jörg Willi: Die Zweierbeziehung. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990.
Read by: Marcus Köhler & Lisa Rilka

"Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love."
From: Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving. In: Ruth Nanda Ansehe (Ed.): World Perspectives IX. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
Read by: Mitchell Hawke

"To love somebody is not just a strong feeling – it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go."
From: Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving. In: Ruth Nanda Ansehe (Ed.): World Perspectives IX. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
Read by: Mitchell Hawke

"Idag vet ju alla. Både Blanche och Marie skulle ju dö av dessa gåtfulla, sköna och lockande radiumstrålar. De som skimrade så hemlighetsfullt [...]."
From: Per Olov Enquist: Boken om Blanche och Marie. Stockholm: Norstedts, 2004.
Read by: Vincent Baars


Track seven (Interlude: Poet)

"Every book is an image of solitude. It is a tangible object that one can pick up, put down, open and close, and its words represent many months, if not many years, of one man's solitude, so that with each word one reads in a book one might say to himself that he is confronting a particle of that solitude. A man sits alone in a room and writes. Whether the book speaks of loneliness or companionship, it is necessarily a product of solitude."
From: Paul Auster: The invention of solitude. New York: Sun Press, 1982.
Read by: Simon Ralph Goff


Track eight (Einsamkeit)

"Quel che dovevo proteggere, in me, era la capacità di stare solo. C’era voluto del tempo per abituarmi alla solitudine, farne un luogo in cui potevo accomodarmi e stare bene; eppure sentivo che tra noi il rapporto era sempre difficile."
From: Paolo Cognetti: Le otto montagne. Milano: MalaTesta, 2016.
Read by: Carlo Garré.

"Ich stand noch dreimal auf und überzeugte mich davon, daß hier drei Meter vor mir, wirklich etwas Unsichtbares, Glattes, Kühles war, dass mich am Weitergehen hinderte. Ich dachte an eine Sinnestäuschung, aber ich wußte natürlich, daß es nichts Derartiges war. Ich hätte mich leichter mit einer kleinen Verrücktheit abgefunden als mit dem schrecklichen unsichtbaren Ding."
From: Marlen Haushofer: Die Wand. Hamburg/ Düsseldorf: Claassen, 1968.
Read by: Yasmene Elsner

"A third way of attaining union lies in creative activity, [...]. In any kind of creative work the creating person unites himself with his material, which represents the world outside of himself."

From: Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving. In: Ruth Nanda Ansehe (Ed.): World Perspectives IX. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
Read by: Mitchell Hawke

"Stjärnorna svärma i trädgården och jag står i mörkret."

From: Edith Södergran: Stjärnorna.
In: Dikter. Borgå: Holger Schildt, 1916.
Read by: Reza Saleh


"When you are young, you think it's going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close - as close as you can get -- to another person only makes clear that impassable distance between you."
From: Nicole Krauss: Man Walks Into a Room. New York: Doubleday, 2002.
Read by: Ivana Folkenfolk


Track nine (Interlude: Freiheit)

"Sich selber genügen, sich selber Alles in Allem sein und sagen können: omnia mea mecum porto, ist gewiß für unser Glück die förderlichste Eigenschaft; [...]. Ganz er selbst sein darf Jeder nur so lange er allein ist: wer also nicht die Einsamkeit liebt, der liebt auch nicht die Freiheit: denn nur wann man allein ist, ist man frei."
From: Arthur Schopenhauer: Schopenhauers Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit. Leipzig: Insel, 1918.
Read by: Daniel Sus


Track eleven (Fluss)

"Der Mond ist aufgegangen, die goldenen Sternlein prangen."
From: Matthias Claudius (1740-1815): Der Mond ist aufgegangen. In: Johannes Graulich (Ed.): Das Liederprojekt: Wiegenlieder. Stuttgart: Carus/ Reclam, 2009.
Performed by: Maike Zazie Matern

"Le souffle est en toi comme en chacun de nous [...] Cherche la voie. Trouve le souffle. [...] Il faut de temps en temps savoir renoncer au 'pourquoi' [...]. Pour trouver le souffle, il faut s’abandonner."
From: Catherine Clément: Le voyage de Théo. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1997.
Read by: Andrea Lacroix

"An manchen Abenden, wenn all ihre Freunde nach Hause gegangen waren, saß sie noch lange allein in dem großen steinernen Rund des alten Theaters, über dem sich der sternenfunkelnde Himmel wölbte, und lauschte einfach auf die große Stille. Dann kam es ihr so vor, als säße sie mitten in einer großen Ohrmuschel, die in die Sternenwelt hinaushorchte. Und es war ihr, als höre sie eine leise und doch gewaltige Musik, die ihr ganz seltsam zu Herzen ging."
From: Michael Ende: Momo. Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1973.
Read by: Robert Oeser

"Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen an dem blauen Himmelszelt?"
From: Wilhelm Hey (1789-1854): Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen. In: Johannes Graulich (Ed.): Das Liederprojekt: Wiegenlieder. Stuttgart: Carus/ Reclam, 2009.
Performed by: Maike Zazie Matern

"Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!"
From: Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf! In: Clemens Brentano /Achim von Arnim: Des Knaben Wunderhorn III, 1808. In: Johannes Graulich (Ed.): Das Liederprojekt: Wiegenlieder. Stuttgart: Carus/ Reclam, 2009.
Performed by: Maike Zazie Matern

"Wer hat die schönsten Schäfchen?
Die hat der goldne Mond,
der hinter unsern Bäumen
am Himmel droben wohnt.“
From: Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798-1874): Wer hat die schönsten Schäfchen. In: Johannes Graulich (Ed.): Das Liederprojekt: Wiegenlieder. Stuttgart: Carus/ Reclam, 2009.
Performed by: Maike Zazie Matern

"Mit Rosen bedacht"
From: Guten Abend, gut Nacht! In: Clemens Brentano /Achim von Arnim: Des Knaben Wunderhorn III, 1808. In: Johannes Graulich (Ed.): Das Liederprojekt: Wiegenlieder. Stuttgart: Carus/ Reclam, 2009.
Performed by: Maike Zazie Matern

"Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!"
From: Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf! In: Clemens Brentano /Achim von Arnim: Des Knaben Wunderhorn III, 1808. In: Johannes Graulich (Ed.): Das Liederprojekt: Wiegenlieder. Stuttgart: Carus/ Reclam, 2009.
Performed by: Maike Zazie Matern