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In the digital-world, it is possible to achieve perfection - and Stephen Parsick is quite grateful that he is not at all part of this endeavor. The common musician must cede the realm he explores as ['ramp] and his decades long reckless ride into the unknown. His album no sleep 'til wilmersdorf (75'57") excites the highest imagination. A thing of beauty, with darkness at its center, this work opens a wide sonic space, invites you in, but remains indifferent. In eight instrumental space fables, conjuring beasts as easily as they do flowers, the music matches its creator's ambitions quite well. Just because this genre is referred to as Spacemusic, we need not contemplate the meaning of the cosmos to enjoy it. Once you are in step with the spiraling sequencer patterns, ratcheting accents and echoing syncopation of electronic tones, the search for meaning slips away - as we find consolation in all sonic imaginings flowing from out of our speakers. Carrying an undercurrent of doom, uncertain welcomes and wayward spirits, no sleep 'til wilmersdorf is a reflection of our deep disquiet about the world we are building. Human and muscular, mesmerizing patterns and furious colors emerge from a realm of their own - defying comfortable categorization. Everything shimmers in starlight, as ghostly assemblages of drifting electronics, as if fighting gravity, move through sections of stillness. In tempestuous upheavals of sound, then with painterly restraint, prowling bass notes beneath the restless surge of tumbling upper register notes forward march in a study of formal relationships at their most primal. While our attention may leap from synthesizer, to Mellotron, to electric piano, to field recording, the music always showcases Parsick's masterful understanding of arrangement and navigation. An interconnected mess of components, his music machinery heats up (and maybe even vibrates slightly), producing ethereal tones, full-bodied lead lines, and an entrancing futurism like something out of a dream. It takes a certain kind of individual to appreciate this experience, one of being the only person in this musical space - and liking it... the feeling of solitude, the absence of noise, the possibility of encountering something elemental, or something bigger outside of ourselves. It is the feel of an extraordinary enchantment, as magical as you would expect. So works by ['ramp] (and other things like it) patiently wait - for our senses to grow sharper. This music has always been thought of as forward thinking - a premonition of the future. But somewhere our world stopped caring about what will come, about the potential of humanity, and more about chasing easy contentment. Although Parsick acknowledges the pitiful sight of a people with a past, but no present, he would not have released no sleep 'til wilmersdorf were it not for a galactic sized optimism. In works of intriguing musings on the intersection of technology and art - Stephen Parsick gives life to the breadth and width of his imagination.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 26 April 2018 |
