It all began with Study Ten.

After releasing his 4th Static album, which included ten songs, about 15 musicians and which took almost 6 years till its release, Hanno Leichtmann had the wish to record an album in one go, without endless recording and mixing sessions.

While experimenting with his modular system he discovered a method to compose that, what he later called Minimal Studies.

A modular sample player which can be controlled manually, by a sequencer, LFO or any CV source would make the basis.

So first there was the loop from Study Ten. Leichtmann added a bassline and some static tones made with a guitar and an ebow. A sampled choir. Then he asked Sabine Ercklentz to add some trumpet layers.

The first idea was to send the basic loop to different artists which should add different overdubs. And so to have 10 different versions of one song.

But then Leichtmann made more and more loops and used the same compositorical method on them.

So we have: a rhythmic-tonal loop, a deep synthetic bassline, static tones from ebowed guitars or a synth. And one or two melodies or melodic patterns played with an acoustic or sampled instrument. All the pieces have about the same length (approximately 4 minutes long).

The finished recording lets one think of (classical) minimal music but also of club music, ambient, dub or drone music.

These all have at least one thing in common: reduction.

Hanno Leichtmann invited these fine musicians Boris Baltschun, Kai Fagaschinski, Sabine Ercklentz and Alex Stolze to play on Minimal Studies.