JASMINA MASCHINA
The Demolition Series
STAUB 086CD
Staubgold 2008
09Tracks. 41mins24secs

In her involvement with experimental electronica duo Minit, Jasmina Maschina manipulates a minuscule bundle of patterns that wrinkle and pucker. Something of a surprising shift, then, is her first solo effort, The Demolition Series, a bald folk album where she nags away at melodic fragments while her parched vocal delivery emits opaque but expressive pearls.

The bittersweet sorrow of opener Sweet City Sue doesn’t so much cast a first impression; instead, its warm, velvety acoustic guitar picking, borne aloft by a cello spiral and faint avian ambience, seems like something one is remembering, recalling from the massive sprawl of events that color one’s days. Other pieces such as Over are like walking knee-high in a stream of pebbles. These are simple, slowly strummed affairs that leaven into a dawn chorus serenade of organ and guitar chimes, daubed with water-color keyboard chords, while Maschina’s voice glides on the echo of the high notes.

As the album develops, Maschina’s history with Minit manifests itself; that group’s affinity for repetition, drone, and alterations of a pygmy sort informs and strengthens these songs. Inasmuch as these inclinations refresh the timbral palette, they also affirm a consistency of tone that pays off handsomely. In setting off on this path and discovering something so deeply personal, Maschina has accessed a sublime form that is well beyond herself.

4/5

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