“Weite” is a German word meaning vastness, expanse, and immensity. An appropriate name for this instrumental band that was brought into existence by Nick DiSalvo and Michael Risberg of the illustrious American stoner prog band Elder, and German musicians Ingwer Boysen ( High Fighter), and Ben Rubin (Lawns). Together they explored how expansive they can stretch their jams, and they called the result Assemblage.
What we get is four beautiful instrumental landscape paintings created by four veteran musicians who have clearly found a deeper connection here. The songs here are not merely jams, they are wide open vistas into beautiful natural surroundings where we can dwell as long as we drift away on the music within our minds. The overall atmosphere is calm and explorative, the perfect soundtrack for wandering and contemplation.
Of course we hear signature DiSalvo Elder-isms, some Delving synths, and some obvious similarities with the similarly awesome collaboration album Eldovar, but the fact that these jams are purely instrumental and clearly band based makes them a genuine experience on their own. Weite is expansive, and this debut album definitely legitimizes more future expanses by this US/German collective. I for one can’t wait to mind travel with them again.
Hi guys! How have you been these days?
Hey there! Since we’ve just released our album on all digital platforms, we’re pretty excited about that. We’re also looking forward to our upcoming shows and performing the songs live for the first time.
Can you introduce Weite? Who’s who in the band?
Nick and Mike are known in the heavy psych world for their work with Elder. Ben plays in the Berlin based bands Lawns and Rope and Ingwer plays in High Fighter from Hamburg as well as occasional live for Downfall of Gaia. The instruments were constantly switched during the recording session, so everyone played kind of everything, except for the drums which were played by Nick only. At the moment Mike and Ben play guitar, Ingwer plays bass, Nick plays drums and synthesizer and Fabien from Perilymph is helping us out on keys for our live shows.
How did you get in touch and started this band? And how did you come to name it Weite?
Mike and Ingwer also play in Nick’s solo project Delving. They were supposed to tour in early 2022, but it got canceled, because of the obvious. Ingwer asked the other guys, if they wanted to write and record some music in that time frame instead. We were looking for a fourth person for that session, so Mike asked Ben to join. After the recordings it took us a while to come up with a band name that suited the music. At some point Nick came up with Weite, the German word for vastness, width, expanse and so on, which suited the music and the idea of the band quite well.
What was the first thing you thought when you started jamming with this formation?
Well, the first thought we probably had was: “Where is this going to go?”, as this was a very spontaneous idea.All there was in the beginning was the plan to write and record a whole album in a very short time frame. There was no time to overthink anything and to work too long on a song or even a part of a song. Some melodies were created just minutes before they were recorded.
How do you approach making new music with Weite? Do you for instance set up any rules beforehand?
Whenever everyone is available, we’re meeting in Berlin for rehearsals to work on new material. There are no real rules for songwriting, but everyone has to be in favor of what is happening. It is totaly open where this journey is taking us. This is all about experimenting. We write the songs together and everyone is contributing.
Can you tell me where you live and how that may affect your music?
We live in Berlin and Hamburg, so in big cities. This maybe has some kind of affect on the music we’re playing, but maybe it would sound the same if we would live in the middle of nowhere.
What are you looking forward to most in the coming year?
We’ll probably record our second album and play some more shows, if time allows us to.
Can you recommend some of your favorite music you heard this year?
For our upcoming shows this week we will be joined by our friend Fabien of the Berlin based band Perilymph. They play really nice synthie soaked trippy music. Their new record isn’t out yet, but it sounds very cool and is highly recomended. It’ll probably be released some time this year, but meanwhile you can check out all their other great stuff as well.
What should the Weirdo Shrine reader do after reading this interview?
The Weirdo Shrine reader should of course do the obvious after reading this interview and listen to our new record Assemblage. Another suggestion would be to check us out on one of our upcoming shows!
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