Daniel Menche MP3

Let’s close off the week with a second consecutive Important Records entry, following up yesterday’s reference to the group Larsen’s Autechre-inspired Play. Like that album, Sirocco by Daniel Menche is of particular interest due to the music that fueled it. But whereas Play‘s ambitious post-rock benefited from Autechre’s glitch in ambiguous if imagination-provoking ways (Larsen reportedly jammed to Autechre melodies prior to moving into the recording studio), on Menche’s Sirocco the debt is literal. The album is constructed from one-minute slices of source material submitted by a range of musicians, including Andrew Lagowski, Asmus Tietchens, John Duncan, Scanner, Akira Rabelais, Illusion of Safety and Merzbow. As with Play, though, it’s unlikely you’ll recognize the raw ingredients in the final product. The result of Menche’s refined digital blender, as represented by a five-minute extract on the Important website, importantrecords.com (visit the “releases” page), is a cyclically chiming wonder, an epiphany on hold, something that simultaneously has the efflorescence of intense forward motion and the resolute stillness of a frozen moment glinting in the sun. More on Menche, who has albums on Trente Oiseaux, Soleilmoon, Ground Fault and other labels, and who has contributed to compilations on Ant-Zen, 23Five, Touch and other labels, at esophagus.com/htdb/menche.