Kyoto Calling: Efdemin on the influence of wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese phrase that, like most Japanese phrases, is pretty tricky to translate. It stands for a ubiquitous worldview that recognises beauty in natural deterioration and decay. Think withered trees, creaky floorboards, or, ­in Phillip Sollmann's case, subterranean echoes.

Last autumn, Sollmann – aka Efdemin – got on a plane headed for Japan with his partner, a visual artist, and a hard drive full of live jams. They had been selected by the Goethe Institute to complete a three month residency in Kyoto, living and working out of an old German-language school that lies in the shadow of Mount Hiei and the surrounding Higashiyama Mountains. Sollmann's aim was to immerse himself in Japanese culture, using it as inspiration in the mixing and mastering process for his forthcoming third LP, Decay, due on Dial at the end of this month.

"Japan is completely overwhelming," Sollmann says, calling on return to his newly-established workspace in Berlin. "I've been there six times in total, but never for that long. We were constantly studying art and literature. We could just about manage to tell the difference between fish and pork on a restaurant menu – most of the time, anyway. The language is crazily complex: they have three alphabets for a start! It's a system which is impossible to fully understand unless you're born there."

Residing in Japan also allowed Sollmann to get a better grasp of Buddhist culture, where deterioration is seen as a vital component of life. "It's so different to Christian culture, where we almost avoid talking about death," he considers. "There, we'd wake up to the sound of monks chanting sutra in a nearby temple and go walking along the Kamo River or wandering around the scatter of Shinto shrines."

The album draws energy from that unchecked tranquillity and, even though 95% of recording took place in Germany, the Kyoto "state of mind" shines through. "It was liberating to know that I didn't have to add anything as such," he admits. "I tend to get lost in possibilities. Nothing was near finished before I moved out to Kyoto; all I had was a collected mess of basslines and percussive loops from my beloved Pearl Syncussion."

Part of the finishing process was also to define the concept of Decay. "We actually arrived in Japan just as the leaves were starting to change colour," Sollmann remembers. "It was like no season I've ever seen. It showed why people shouldn't be afraid of change.

"Decay in music is also fascinating for me," he continues. "How does a sound change from the moment it is triggered? How does a bell decay? How does a piano key decay? You can completely alter the perception of a sound by increasing or decreasing that single parameter. Aside from that, there's also the fact that I'm getting older! Of course, decay is what we all must face, but I still have to deal with it personally. Maybe I'm already thinking about the next 30, 40 years and how I can sustain a nice level of being. Some ideas that used to burn brightly don't seem as important now. Ideas decay, and other thoughts take their place."

There's a lot in this title, then. The mood harks back to the darker, abstract techno that first seduced Sollmann in the late 90s – a nod, he says, to the gloomy soundscapes of "M-Plant, Axis and Cologne minimalism." He pinpoints his fondness for the first track, Some Kind Of Up and Down Yes. Then, there's a track called The Meadow, which is named after a tiny garden behind his Berlin studio: "It's basically a patch of grass and a few plants, so we started calling it The Meadow for obvious reasons. There isn't much light back there, but we've even considered getting lights in to get the grass to grow faster," he laughs. "Also, Track 93 is the first time I've recorded myself singing. That was an experience. I mean, I used to sing a lot more going back a few years, but don't expect any more than improvised nonsense."

That said, let's go back a few years. Sollmann's journey into electronic music began in the early 90s, when he was mucking about in punk-y garage bands with Hendrik Weber, now known as Pantha du Prince. "Nothing serious," he checks; "Hendrik was playing bass in another band called Stella at the same time. We still hang out, and we're both on Dial, but we gradually disconnected from playing together. Everybody has to follow their own path. We do go way back though... bro-style!"

Further discussion of his musical youth reveals Sollmann's passion for the cello, which he played up until the age of 17. "I still have one here in Berlin," he adds, "but I would never say that I can play. If my music teacher didn't leave school at the time, I would've carried on having lessons. Cello is one of those instruments where if you don't devote time to practice every day, you really notice. You end up sounding like a crying wolf."

Ditching the resin for needles, his foray into electronic music proper began under the alias Tobin, putting out a track – Reis 1 – on Kompakt's legendary Total 1 sampler back in 1999. He also became the first producer out of Hamburg to release an independent techno record. It was around this time that he met Peter Kersten, who would go on to set up Dial Records in the same year. The pair first bumped into each other in Hamburg's notorious Golden Pudel club.

"In the day it's a very liberal, left-wing art space and bar," says Sollmann. "But on the weekend it morphs into a club. Carsten (Jost) started playing there and, soon after, we all discovered that we had the same cloud of friends, as well as shared common interests in art, film and techno. It feels natural with Dial; friendship counts over commercial success. There's nothing stopping me from doing whatever I want in whatever way I want..." he pauses. "Providing, of course, that I don't ruin everything."

He goes on to define the artwork for Decay as his "favourite cover yet." The image is a minimalistic photo collage of a mountain range, fading from dark indigo in the foreground to pale blue in the back. "The pictures were taken early in the morning from the bridge in front of our house in Kyoto. The mountains have an omnipresence there, cradling the city. They contain so many different shades of blue, a different blue for each day. Blue is a very important colour in Japan; it symbolises the vast ocean surrounding the islands."

Sollmann is clearly captivated by the culture, to the point where he nearly extended his respectful bow to include Kyoto as the album title. Indeed, he would've done "if the last one wasn't called Chicago." Instead, Decay sums up the album's meditative outlook, sitting atop a collection that does a fine job of transposing the abstracts of transience and change into soft rhythmical patterns. If anything, it challenges us to remember that sound is a flux, and that the river of yesterday is not quite the same river as today.