frown
by EMERGE
The three tracks on this album distill the essence from EMERGE’s
musical endeavours of the past decade or so and form the perfect
starting point for exploring his vast body of work. Between 15 and 20
minutes in length, each track showcases different aspects of EMERGE’s
musical personality, from contemplative to unrelenting. With a minimum
of timbres, he still creates varied and well-paced compositions that
stand up to comparison with masters like Asmus Tietchens.
EMERGE has always been a minimalist, but not in the sense of any
musical school, but simply in that he restricts himself to the use of a
very limited set of found sounds which he then treats and edits to
create his compositions. Almost puritanical in his refusal to
synthesise sounds, he only occasionally uses samples from like-minded
musicians, such as the very subdued drum loop by elektrojudas on the
second track of this triptych. The results could be characterised as
musique concrète, drone, dark ambient, lowercase, or sometimes even
noise, but eventually refuse to be pigeonholed so easily. The “frown”
of the title may easily be that on the faces of critics trying to pin
EMERGE down to one particular style. The uniquely consistent three
tracks on the album manage to integrate the different facets of
EMERGE’s work into an electroacoustic symphony of austere sparseness
which reveals a surprising wealth of beautiful sonic detail to the
careful listener, like patterns of colourful pebbles in an endless
stretch of grey industrial dust.
ACU 1001
factory-pressed CD in cardboard sleeve
Released in 2014
limited to 500 copies, sold out
price: 7.00 EUR (excl. postage)
all sounds, photography and design by EMERGE
drum loop on frown 2 by elektrojudas
mastering by elektrojudas
frown was an pre-exclusive give-away for subscribers of the Bad Alchemy print magazine
UNRUHR / Black online:
eine weitere der wie schattenhaft abgründigen werke von emerge: musikgewordene verschiebung untermeerischer kontinentalplatten; dort, wo kein licht mehr hinfällt und die ohren dadurch um so konzentrierter arbeiten können / müssen.
"frown" durchzieht auf voller länge der eigentlich nur auf den ersten blick paradoxe eindruck, sich gleichzeitig in unendlich großen kavernen zu befinden als auch unter wasser; die ohren bis zum trommelfell gefüllt und so in der lage, nun die gänzlich andere schallausbreitung unter wasser erleben und dinge hören zu können, die sich ansonsten, bei ausbreitung an der luft als das gewohntere medium, weit außerhalb der hörweite befinden würden. und die so sogar neue summen und überlagerungen bilden können; ein hörkosmos bis auf molekulare ebene, fremd und rau, ohne harmonie und melodie, eher der gesang der teilchen. auf der sehr langen reise bis zu den ohren wie zerrieben im nachhall, in einer weise, die jede unterscheidung zwischen den ausgangssignalen und ihrer x-fachen spiegelung und reflexion unmöglich macht.
musik an der grenze zur nicht-musik, noise ohne dessen oft vordergründige aggressivität; nochmal: gesang der teilchen... in deren ganz eigener harmonie...
schöne grüsse
N
http://www.unruhr.de/musik/rezensionen/4067-emerge-frown
http://www.blackmagazin.com/?p=18285
igloo magazine:
Emerge’s Frown is a scowl of ambient, an extended session spent deep in thought. Imagine The Thinker by Rodin, straining for insight, scouring the far reaches of his mind’s universe, until, like the third track, his mind explodes into a foundary, forging new stars, new globes in bursts of glowing, volatile magma.
(Stephen Fruitman)
http://igloomag.com/reviews/emerge-holzkopf-emerge-attenuation-circuit
VITAL WEEKLY 974:
Attentuation Circuit goes for the next step up; they already released LPs before, but now they are also releasing 'real', factory produced CDs. Obviously the first to open up here is the label boss himself who goes by the name of Emerge. He has released plenty of his own works. Much of his work takes place inside the computer and he doesn't use synthesized sounds. He has three long pieces here, somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes each and Emerge's music can be found in that place we call musique concrete, drone, microsound and such. The information mentions Asmus Tietchens, and surely that seems to be a strong influence here, especially the post 2000 works by Tietchens. Emerge takes a sound, and then expands heavily on it's theme. Except for a drumloop by Elektrojudas in 'Frown 2', we are left in the dark what those sounds might be. It's not that Emerge wants to sound exactly the same as Tietchens. In 'Frown 3' he uses quite some noise elements, covered in a fair amount of reverb and with a shimmering melodic line somewhere, this might be more to do with the world of ambient noise than anything else, and sounds perhaps least Tietchens like. That is perhaps what Emerge does best: create dense fields of ambient industrial sounds, which is 'Frown 1' appears to be more on the quiet side, with remote objects falling on the floor in a cavernous space. It's also the way 'Frown 2' starts, but the drum sounds are occasionally easy to recognize, and gives this a more electro-acoustic feel. In general the three pieces were quite varied, which I thought was a good thing, but perhaps the pieces could have been a bit shorter: it doesn't always seem to have enough variation to be interesting for the entire length. But so far it's his most refined work to date.
(FdW)
http://www.vitalweekly.net/974.html
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