SWOD - Sekunden

If it's true that, to this day, the record releases of the year seem characterized by a considerable harvest of productions broadly traceable to "experimental piano music" (from Eluvium to Library Tapes, by way of Rafael Anton Irisarri), it's equally true that many of the exponents of this artistic expression arrived there via rather different paths, encompassing ambient, modern classicism and minimal electronica. Well, Oliver Doerell (also the mastermind behind the Dictaphone project) arrived there instead starting from what he himself calls "the ruins of electronics", onto which the German artist grafts a rich array of acoustic instrumentation, crowned by Stephan Wöhrmann's piano, a decisive element in defining the sound of this duo, now on their second album, following 2004's "Gehen".

Like that of other kindred artists, Swod's music too is centred on piano scores of elegant essentiality; however, their compositions display greater instrumental articulation, including, alongside field recordings and manifold electronic streaks, acoustic rhythms, bass and guitar. The result is a record of nocturnal atmospheres and a pronounced cinematic bent, which, without entirely giving up its underlying electronic-noise dimension, tries to fuse it into a context of homogeneous romanticism, expressed through continuous layerings of sound, small concentric electro-acoustic loops ("Montauk"), delicate piano touches ("Ja") and, above all, in the thrilling crescendo of the splendid "Patinage", which seals a record of dark, composed beauty, built on the measured structural growth of an established musical formula whose expressive effectiveness remains fully intact.

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12/09/2007