STEINBRÜCHEL
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SLAAPWEL4
Slaapwel Records 2008
01 Track. 33mins36sec

Steinbrüchel’s high quality manipulation of guitar recordings from Daisuke Miyatani is pleasantly calming, almost indifferent, as though a light squall of rain at sea.  The instrumental colors are constrained, the harmonics scant, but the texture and friction is delightfully varied and yet fluent.  Rich, vibrant chords first lap up against scratchy textures and humid atmospherics, until they settle into a slow breathing that forms an organic polyphony with stately, levitating electronic tones and waves of low end fuzz.

Slowly, the gently abraded, drifting tones, dwelling more or less in the meditative state of drone, reach toward the ecstasy of subdued noise, where bisecting streams of feedback drift over the guitar chords like magma.  In its snails pace, and casual shifts in density and abstraction, Steinbruchel exhibits compositional maturity.  As the label’s telos makes plain, it’s music to sleep to, but it’s also luminous, richly hued, and ends up in a number of intriguing places.

3.5/5

Steinbrüchel | Slaapwel Records

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