Disquiet

For 40 minutes, a series of bell-like tones cycle through. They’re heard as a simple riff that’s played out in minutely differing permutations, against a slowly transforming backing track. The tones are seemingly artificial, in that they don’t truly resemble actual bells, but they’re fairly organic, in that their textures bleed into the background in a natural manner and their sonic envelopes involve a comfortable give and sway. The track in question (MP3) is a live recording, made this past May 10, by Ralph Steinbrüchel, performing material from his album Basis, which was built from layers not of bells but of modified recordings of guitar and piano. Basis was released on the label Room 40 (room40.org). The MP3 was recorded at the Offf Festival in Lisbon (offf.ws). More on the recording at cronicaelectronica.org and on Steinbrüchel at synchron.ch. (Thanks to the website of the label 12k, 12kblog.wordpress.com, for the initial reference to this recording. The 12k associated label Line, 12k.com/line, released Steinbrüchel’s album Stage in 2006.)

By Marc Weidenbaum