ULI JON ROTH - Will North America See Him Live? Page 2
by Martin Popoff

"It was pretty unpremeditated actually," explains Uli. "When I was preparing for the first time ever that we did the entire Four Seasons, with an orchestra in Germany, I remember one day, at the end of the piece, I just kept on playing, and I thought this might make a nice spot for an extensa. It's very unusual to have a cadenza at the end of a concerto. So I just followed that up, and suddenly a new piece emerged, and it just led me down this path, where an entire little concerto in its own right developed. And more and more as I was working on this thing, I saw so many different angles to explore; ideas just kept coming in, and started to make more sense to me. And the whole thing began to be transformed under my own eyes. There was very little I could do about it, you know? A lot of things, I began to understand as I was working on it. And some things I understood after I finished the album. And when I did the artwork, even more things became clear to me. So it was one of a strange processes of giving birth."

"It's a new format I invented; I call it cinemascope," laughs Uli, when complimented on the double-sized (then folded in half) booklet which accompanies the elegant, orchestrated Metamorphosis album. In it, one gets, through a wealth of poetry, a sense of Uli's multidisciplinary spiritual paths. The paintings and photos comprise a presentation that is baffling and new-agey, colour-burst and timeless.

"The original CD format, if anybody asks me what I hate the most in life, I would probably say it's the CD format, the little tiny booklets. They're just a complete pain. They kill any artistic kind of expression right away. Because I can't work like that. I'm not really hankering after the good old days, but one thing I do miss are the big record sleeves. I am one of these people who are like... I'm just pathologically connected to art. And I can't help it. Everything has to be artistic. And I just see the world in these terms, for me to enjoy, when I do something. So I like to really give the artwork full attention. And when you have a canvas which is like 11 centimeters wide, it's hell on earth. So I thought, hang on, maybe I can double the format, so this is what we did. It's actually the biggest booklet that that record company, SPV, has ever produced."

ULI JON ROTH - Will North America See Him Live? Page 3