one faint deluded smile

Monday, May 30, 2005

Space Out Rhythm

armpit hair?

Late one Friday night, Annette and I were driving home from a splendid evening of eating and drinking and laughing with friends. I turned on the radio (we forgot to bring along some cds) and sat listening in slowly bewildered silence as this ridiculous, monotonous, electronic beat bore down on our good mood for 15 minutes and buried it under a pile of stinking mediocrity.

As you can see, minimal techno is pretty much the nadir of music as far as I'm concerned. However...

mp3: Michaela Melian - Panorama
(warning - it's almost 11Mb and so that's 4 dloads / day at the most before the isp limit is reached)

Michaela really is part of that scene but maybe not part of the stultifyingly dull variety.

I'm fairly certain that the middle section of Panorama would still have elicited a similar response in me had I heard it that lovely, ruined night. But when I listened to it for the 3rd time today it seemed just... completely hypnotic. Maybe it's the buzzy drone that insinuates itself throughout (as you may know, I do love a drone). Maybe it's the crispness of the hi-hat against the bass and sampled loops half way through. Maybe it's that slightly off-key guitar chord. Maybe it's because the beat seems tangential to the whole point of the track.

In any case, it's just one great moment in a pretty terrific album - "Baden Baden". And it ends with a pleasantly weird version of Roxy Music's "Song For Europe" - so that's a first as well.

And, in case you're wondering, the only other option on local radio at the time was mainstream country and western.

4 Comments:

  • thank you for pointing me to that album. the track is phantastic. it really amazes me how you come across excellent german music i never hear about in germany. btw apparently she also sings and plays bass in fsk. the experimental cult band by her boy-friend thomas meinecke from munich. and she is a trained classical cello player. i think there is some cello in the background in the first half of panorama.

    By Blogger Alexander, at 7:57 am  

  • glad you like it. i don't know ANY modern australian bands at all - so the cultural cringe continues. i love the photos of her at the web site - she's always strumming a guitar, as if she's some sensative singer/songwriter instead of a modern techno composer.

    also from germany - heard a wonderfull track by a youngster named hanne hukkelberg on the latest wire tapper cd. she's got an album called "little things" out at the moment. will post on her later.

    By Blogger Phil, at 10:22 am  

  • as above - not from germany at all - norway, i think.

    By Blogger Phil, at 5:50 pm  

  • Amazing track, yeh fsk are out there.
    Going to have to get this album i recon.
    Thanks so much.

    By Blogger 20jazzfunkgreats, at 12:54 am  

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