Almost three years ago, Martin Haidinger caused a bit
of a stir with his first album as Gimmik, Slow
Motion Process, placing his music firmly alongside
that of Boards Of Canada
and Isan as he privileged
beautiful melodies and luscious sonic landscapes. After
a releasing a series of EPs and an album as Abfahrt
Hinwill, all released on London-based Toytronic, Martin
Haidinger finally revives his original project for a
full-length release, and he has lost none of his visionary
touch.
Hailing from Austria, Martin Haidinger produced with
Slow Motion
Process one of the most engaging records of
2001. Displaying luscious melodies swathed in warm analogue
waves and disarmingly simple beat structures, the album
placed Gimmik at the more accessible end of the electronic
range. With a handful of EPs released on Toytronic under
his belt, he started a collaboration with Chris Cunningham
(nothing to do with the visual artist of the same name)
as Abfahrt Hinwill. With this new project, Haidinger
and Cunningham embarked on a journey through early electronica,
with a distinct Artificial Intelligence flavour,
eventually collecting a series of EPs on the Links
Berge Recht Seen album. Haidinger’s second
album under his Gimmik incarnation follows on a similar
path. Entitled Back To Basics, it very much
describes the man’s approach as he carves sumptuous
melodies on beautiful soundscapes. Tracks such as Un
Jour, Le Ciel or Syntax build
superbly on the legacy of Slow Motion Process,
and when Haidinger investigate more introvert terrains,
as on L’Appel Des Cors, From A-5310
To TW2 7Q7 or 7th Of May, the simplicity
of his melodies is revealed even more clearly. Yet,
he also injects some rawer elements on this album. The
opening track, Let’s Play Cricket shows
Gimmik as he ventures in more playful territories, adding
digital abrasion to him warm sonic waves. Later on,
on Square Two, he confronts his blend of analogue
and digital processing with discreet microbeats, but
it is on the impressive Booga that Gimmik causes
the most disturbances on his environment. The bastard
child of Boards Of Canada
and Aphex Twin,
this track combines textbook drill and heavenly melodic
cuts. As unlikely as this could sound, it actually proves
to be a phenomenally fun composition and is definitely
one of the highlights of this album. Back To Basics
comes to a close with the superb cinematic title track,
which shows Gimmik at his most melodic.
If Back To Basics doesn’t unleash new
musical grounds, it however takes some liberties with
a variety of existing genres and defines some interesting
areas of experimentation. Not only Martin Haidinger
revives his original sonic landscapes, but he actually
takes them to a new level, reaffirming his place on
the electronic scene with confidence.
4.4/5 |
