markus reuter: digitalis

reu-d.jpg (17k) markus reuter: digitalis
(Hypnos - 2000)

digitalis is my introduction to the unique sounds of markus reuter who performs real-time compositions on the Warr Guitar, which according to info from Hypnos, is "a tap-style 8-stringed instrument which is played less like a true "guitar" and more like a Chapman Stick". Reuter is known for his work with Ian Boddy, the Europa String Choir and as a member of Centrozoon.

Blurry circus-like (and definitely un-guitar-y) chimes flitter, twinkle and swirl with active-yet-obscure motions throughout swallowed cold, continuing right into toward the invisible world (1:00), and then into forces tending to unbalance... for all practical purposes, the same murky vortices flipflop and spiral amid the same resonant mists.

To segue from track to track isn't so strange, but that the pieces don't seem to perceptibly change in the new tracks seems odd... though when the flow pours into the invisible world, I think I detect a slight darkening, which continues into the obviously-related the invisible world, which becomes a massive glowing three-axis cross (!?) which definitely seems to be thinning out and weaving more of the ephemeral sweeps and less of the muted sparklies, which is fine by me.

Aha... just before exiting demonic interference, things really do change... everything morphs into radiating blackness as completely smooth, shapelessly washing tonedrones which settle into these ears much more comfortably. These tonal vaguaries fade into silence. Similar to the first several tracks (though perhaps lighter somehow) angelic interference revisits the convergence of muted trills and ebbing/flowing sheets of sound.

Radiating loops tumble skyward as beyond the limit of fire emerges on free-flitting ephemera which (noticably) evolves into the more-amorphous orchestral-esque drifts of whole which seamlessly integrate themselves into holy (15:10); lush, levitating tides ebb-and-flow in several dimensions at once... beautiful!

Sorry for quibbling over that whole piece-development/track issue, but it kinda threw me... really, unless you're actually marking the tracks as I was, the entire disc simply flows like two extended (and slowly mutating) environments of markus reuter's lovely electronic haze; I do prefer the smoother varieties of the latter movements, thus digitalis captures an aggregate score of 8.4.

Go to Hypnos or markusreuter.com for further enlightenment.

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This review posted April 30, 2001

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