André Estermann: Balloon

est-b.jpg (20k) André Estermann: Balloon
(Sellwell - 2001)

André Estermann's brand of sound takes flight in the form of Balloon... his crisp and catchy percussion-and-keyboards constructions are released from Munich's Sellwell label. Not too heavy, not too light... these charming e-music numbers easily take me up and away!

At first the echoey beats of Bith don't quite seem to line up properly... but soon enough they do, beautifully keeping a peppy pace as soft electronic impulses whirl almost tunefully. Sedate piano-esque synthnotes chime and reverberate while grittier percussion spatters determinedly in the gorgeous-though-scuffed Fragile. Nostalgic, muted and wordless, female crooning wafts through the thrumming-and-beaty cine-mini On Screen (1:29).

Slightly warped musicality rises above slow rhythms as delicate-yet-thumping Seen delivers gentle roughness. The low tonal drifts of Takit-Sun are decidedly overpowered by more-hyperactive drumtronics. Serpentine strands twiddle through the floaty title track to be followed by spunkier Yego I. whose sparkly-though-moody melodies are fairly well pummeled.

The noisier experimentalism of dnaR gives way to more familiar (but always welcome) noodlings. With warmly majestic chaos and frenzied drumbeats, Menca (5:45) proceeds to slip into an unpredictable zone of shapeless glaze and rumble, then into fractured samples and darker regions.

André Estermann fills his Balloon with buoyant electronic ephemera then bats it around playfully with spunky percussion. Nothing necessarily lofty or new in this 45-minute dozen, but they're so sweetly rendered I smile like the kid watching the clown twist balloons into funny new shapes. A 9.1 for lighter-than-helium fun within enchantingly beaty backdrops.

Check out Dutch-East for much more, as well as the newly blooming Sellwell site.

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This review posted November 4, 2001

AmbiEntrance © 2001-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).