First of all, get this CD. Then open it up and take out the booklet. Isn't that about the loveliest CD booklet you've ever seen? Pictures of little metal chairs! Well, maybe they're chairs, or maybe they're just a little piece of metal used in Hungarian vacuum cleaners. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that one photo is a wide shot of the chair-like objects on a shadowy ledge in front of a strange plexiglass wall, and the other photo is a close up of the chair objects, showing their bumps and texture and flaws. Two views of the same thing, two totally different feelings. Good stuff.
While you're futzing around with the cool booklet, you should be listening to the cool CD. Let's get the name check out of the way quickly: Microstoria is Markus Popp from Oval and Jan St. Werner from Mouse on Mars. Another electronic supergroup, you say; how interesting. Shush. This is great!
Talk about macro/micro. While listening to these tracks, I don't really hear much form, just abstract sounds. Lots of electronic clicks and pops, assorted buzzes, quiet squeaks and once in a while a noisy drum sound, but distant, like it's coming from a deluxe apartment in the sky-y. Quiet, pretty sounds, but not much to get a hold on.
But wait! Why did that track end exactly at the right place? Why do I keep remembering this particular assortment of bleeps and crackles and noodly synth lines? Why do I keep thinking of these abstract noise sequences as "songs"? That's structure, son! Damn, these fellows are good at this. Behind your back, behind your ears' back (where ever that is), they've gone and fashioned something approaching pop music from what at first listen is just another batch of low-volume sinewave fetishism.
But listen to this closely -- really, really, closely -- and you'll hear all manner of precisely tuned and sculpted sounds: filtered noise, skipping CDs, ultra-short repeated samples, delicate guitar chords, snow-covered drum machines, digital feedback. Then listen from far away, while doing the dishes or tending to your sick aloe plant, and you'll hear lines and phrases and tunes and structures. It's a wonderful effect -- one that can't really be described, as it's entirely a matter of perception and focus and attention. You'll know when it happens, and you'll be glad!
Yes, this may, in fact, be another CD full of low-volume sinewave fetishism. But it's also well crafted and designed and it's really quiet-beautiful...like a closeup of a little chair on a ledge.
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