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staplerfahrer
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EUROPE € 15,- incl. p&p |
WORLD € 18,- incl. p&p |
Reviews:
It’s odd you know, how words can conjure up images and associations; for instance, when I read the title of this album I immediately remembered
a television programme I once saw many years about a group of scientists who were using a platform slung beneath a hot-air balloon to explore the
Amazonian rainforest canopy. Which then got me to thinking; that is the one region of the forest that very few of us ever get to explore fully,
even if we ever think about it, as we wander amongst mighty oaks and doughty beeches. As such then, it is a vaguely mysterious region, a spiky,
leafy interface between earth and sky, a natural twilight zone in some ways where hopping, flitting creatures dart between leaf and branch, only
occasionally glimpsed through bare patches of exposed sky.
So it with these images firmly embedded in my head that I approached this limited LP from Staplerfarher (aka as Dutch sound artist Steffan
de Turck); he it was who was commissioned to create the lead piece that comprises the first side of this vinyl offering as an accompaniment
to his friend LeRoi’s audio-visual installation, which toured round various venues in the Netherlands (presumably), and which culminated in
a showing at the November Music Festival in s’Hertegenbosch, where De Turck performed the music completely enclosed in four adjacent screens.
I have no indication as to what the film is about, so hearing this taken out of its natural context this review might be seen to be out of
context too: my apologies for that.
‘Treetops’, the first track, quietly seeps into the consciousness, shimmering and subtle atonality wafting gently in like the almost imperceptible
gateway between dimensions, as the listener passes from the world of light and free-flowing air and into the unfamiliar strangeness of the realm
of living wood and claustrophobic closeness. Slowly over time the fifteen minute track metamorphoses, the atonality and menace becoming more
marked and sinister, creating a sense of edginess and unease; one can readily imagine a thickly treed wood atop a silent hill somewhere, a place
where dusk has permanent residence, even in the height of summer, a place where the sun fights it way forcefully through the canopy only to fall
palely onto the threadbare carpet of undergrowth. This is the domain of creatures and denizens of folklore and myth, a kingdom perhaps where those
beings shunned by science have their last and most secure abode. At the last, strange blips like Morse code pierce the veil between the worlds, the
last message of the unwary and trapped traveller before leaving this world forever...
‘Lullaby (for my Dad)’ starts off with a pulse beckoning us into restful sleep, eventually being overlaid by a quiet screeching and howling, maybe
reminiscent of the night-‘mare’ of fable, visiting us in order to disturb our nightly wanderings and imaginings. This is like standing in pitch
black darkness, strangely disquieting and disembodied noises placelessly marching inexorably around us, the noises becoming ever more disjointed,
sinister, oppressive and insistent. Eventually we are called back to wakefulness by the blissful sound of coruscating bells, luring us away from
the dark regions and into light, the soothing light of day that dispels all ghosts and ghoulies and denizens of night.
Finally we have ‘Lover’s Breath’, a series of disjointed field recordings, of the mournful cries of seagulls, water bubbling and flowing, a kettle
coming to the boil, atmospheric noises recorded in an echoey hallway somewhere, a shimmering bell from a timepiece perhaps and waves lapping upon a
shore – perhaps all redolent of leavings and meetings, of sorrowful farewells between lovers, of separations over long distances, where the only
connections are the psychic feelings between two hearts and late night whispered phone-calls.
This is cerebral music, no doubt about that, but I have to admit that on this occasion I failed to connect with this – perhaps part of the blame
for that lies simply in the fact that being disconnected from the film it was created to accompany I failed to completely empathise and ‘get into
it’; in some sense then I felt as if I was missing half the package and consequently not receiving the complete picture. Of its kind I would say
that it’s a good example, well recorded and expertly constructed, and well packaged. I think, however, despite my lack of empathy while reviewing
this on this particular occasion I deem that it would bear a few more listens in order for me to explore its subtleties and textures more deeply.
Also, I think it would be nice to listen to whilst watching the visual component – maybe then it would make even more sense.
Simon Marshall-Jones, Heathen Harvest
One of Eno's 'Oblique Strategies' is 'to honor thy mistake'. I had to think
of that when listening to the very first LP by Steffan de Turck's
staplerfahrer project. So far he came from the crude noise to more
sophisticated microsound, but due to some mistake in mastering this LP isn't
cut too well, which distorts in various places. So it has become a different
record than what he had in mind, I think.
What was supposed to be a record
of more microsound like structures, became a more noise related item. On
side A there is long 'Soundtrack to Treetops For The New Millennium' a film
by Mahatma LeRoi, which has nice parts of seagulls, musicboxes and distorted
low and high end passages. It's of course hard to tell how this is related
to the film. On the other side there is 'Lover's Breath', which starts out
in a softer tone too, but when things reach their peak it's loud and
uncontrollable.
I think this album displays well the possibilities of
staplerfahrer to generate music that is
interesting, even given the technical problems surrounding this record and
surely cries for more like this in the future, but then exactly as intended.
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 610