Jeannine Schulz’s “Rooms and Surfaces I”

Here’s another fine piece from Jeannine Schulz, whose “Intense” I wrote about earlier this week. Like that track, this new one, posted just today, “Rooms and Surfaces I,” shows an internal development, a means of altering over time, that is often lacking in standalone SoundCloud ambient recordings. What makes it so special to listen to is how that change occurs according to some unheard metronome, in phases whose distinct qualities are imperceptible as they shift, but are fully recognizable when you scan through the piece, dropping the metaphoric needle here and there: first the rising drones, then heart-pulsing percussion, then that same rhythm rendered as a glitch-like filter, later a halo effect an octave higher, then an octave higher still, then a cello-like line slow and mournful. So much happens, and yet at a pace that it’s as if very little is happening at any one time. I found myself turning the volume up and up to hear what was going on “inside” the track, which is very much the classic definition of ambient: background music that also rewards close attention.

Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/jeannineschulz. More from Schulz, who is based in Hamburg, Germany, at jeannineschulz.bandcamp.com.