Unstable Range’s “Karussell” is two things. The first is a series of short melodic bursts, little single-note streams of playful, buoyant effortlessness. They bring to mind a childlike perspective. They glitch and rupture on occasion, notes held in a near-static space, bouncing like marbles in a small box made of rubber sides. Notes toward the end of their duration fizz upward and outward, like a distant firework or a spray of soda.
The second thing is an underlying layer of echo, of repetition. Each segment of these playful melodies is heard several times, bounding quickly into the sonic distance. There’s an illusion of chords, the notes teaming up in small groups, but it’s just that, an illusion. The repetition isn’t merely a harmonic slight of hand. The patterning suggests, at times, that the piece is moving more quickly, the pacing of the echo matching nearly enough that of the main melody and doubling it, tripling it. Despite which appearances, it’s just a single thread repeated as if in a hall of mirrors. It’s quite splendid.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/rudzupuke. Unstable Range is Andrea Peregrini of Austria.