MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO
Fetch
HJR67
Honest Jon’s Records 2012
04 Tracks. 50mins43secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

Moritz Von Oswald, Max Loderbauer and Sasu Ripatti reconvene for a third time, and once again, the mood is subdued and quietly hypnotic, carried by elegant stripped down grooves and vast and airy sonic landscapes. Like its predecessors, Fetch is split into four tracks clocking at anything from seven to seventeen and a half minutes. The basis for this album was recorded at the end of the summer last year during a four hour improv session which saw the core trio joined by Mark Muellbauer (bass) and Tobias Freund ((live electronics and effects). The recordings were later processed by Von Oswald who added contributions from Jonas Shoen (flute, clarinet and saxophone) and Sebastian Studnitzky (trumpet).

More so than its predecessors, Fetch is an intriguing record, which appear to draw on darker tones as it progresses. Continue Reading »

RICARDO VILLALOBOS/MAX LODERBAUER
Re: ECM
2758681
EMC Records 2011
17 Tracks. 134mins27secs

Amazon UK: CD US: CD

Convincing ECM mastermind Manfred Eicher of the validity of letting Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer, known primarily for their involvement with linear minimal techno, loose in the ECM catalogue, one of the most aesthetically consistent catalogues there is, was probably never going to be a given, but the pair got his support early on after he visited them in their Berlin studio as they were just beginning working on the project.

What the pair propose here are not so much remixes as entirely new contextualisations of sonic spaces. Each of the pieces presented is based on segments of a particular work lifted from the vast ECM catalogue, but Villalobos and Loderbauer essentially create new compositions out of the raw material at their disposition. Continue Reading »