| Artist: Spielerei & Mantacoup Album: Wichman and Other Pieces Released: August 2004 |  |
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On Wichman and Other Pieces (68'34") Spielerei (Dennis Knoepper) & Mantacoup (Jeroen Vermeent) bring together divergent traditions. The duo views electronic music, from groundbreaking deep space works through to experimental computer built realizations, in the present tense. This strong release derives its potency from the unresolved tension between the old and the new. "Wichman" (39'24"), the piece for which this album is named, is a live recording, while the remaining four tracks are from the studio. This combination makes for an interesting mixture of perspectives, with one view heated and intuitive from the concert hall, the other cool and collected from the studio. The mood and tone of Wichman moves easily between edge-of-nowhere electronic wasteland and the vastness of the pulsing cosmos. Repetitive patterns of geometric rhythms and abstract forms rise out of the quiet complexity of drifting harmonies and spacey effects. This work is meant to be stimulating, its expansion and contraction correlating with the listener's engagement - which will be focused during the lilting ethereal melodies, less so when submerged within the stark sonic depths. Wichman, however open and infinite, possesses an impeccable sonic sense, one where every meticulous detail demonstrates that nothing was left to chance.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 3 December 2004 | |
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