Wednesday 10 September 2008

BUE MOON (musick by request)

SCHÜTZE PAUL

STATELESS

Original Issue: 1997 Big Cat Records (ABB1000 CD - as part of Driftworks box)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

Following Duck comment on Thomas Köner's Nuuk, many of you requested the Paul Schütze album which is part of Driftworks boxset. Here you have it :-)

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01 Go (4:23)
02 Cool Engines (7:00)
03 The Drowning (4:04)
04 Homage (8:59)
05 Mirror (8:30)
06 Slow Glass (9:57)
07 Green Evil (9:38)
08 The Black Lake (4:27)

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from The Wire:

Paul Schütze's "Stateless" is the more propulsive of the four (Driftworks boxset works), and the most texturally vigorous. Over the last few years of Ambient exploration he's built up a meta-orchestra of sounds that cast away beyond the dimensions of traditional musical resources.

It's as he'd trawled through the repertoire of classical and ethnic instruments and straitened the sounds out of their traditional vocabularies, subtly interweaving them with synthetic timbres and electronic murmur. Defamiliarized, they are reconvened into a web of sonic calls, shaken free of many of the historical stratifications grained into the parent material.

The rhythms are full of body: swinging Fourth World pulses drawing on the loose thrumming grooves of Miles Davis, Eno and Byrne, as much as on gamelan, dub and ethnic percussion. In "Go" a lilting bassline with an uneven signature propels an amalgam of cymbals, steel drum tremolos, panpipes, flutes and what sounds like ukulele and revving cars over a sweeping drone.

Matt Ffytche

10 comments:

jessica said...

Ah, thank you for posting this! I've been wanting to hear this for a while but haven't known whether it's worth investing the money and time in finding.

M— said...

Smashing stuff, as indeed is the whole Driftworks box.

In a lovely piece of synchronicity for the new moon, I just stuck Paul's first release, Deus Ex Machina, up on my own blog.

Stefan M—
friendsound.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

Wonderful album. Thanks so much for sharing this beautiful little gem, Margot.

Droid Sektor said...

thanks Margot, another great great post!

Tom A. said...

Thanks for your work !

Duck said...

For a long time Schütze's releases were expensive and hard to get, but a while back a lot of them were reissued (albeit with ugly cover art). Maybe even these are hard to get now, I don't know. New Maps of Hell, The Rapture of Metals, The Surgery of Touch, Abysmal Evenings, Uzect Plaush – all great.

The Wire reviewer is correct to namecheck Miles Davis, Eno and Byrne, as well as gamelan and dub, and of course his use of the term "Fourth World" acknowledges the huge influence of Jon Hassell. But check this out, from a 1995 interview:

Q: Who or what is your biggest influence, and why?
A: Can. They taught me everything about listening, rhythm and silence. They completely transcend genre, culture and music history.

Q: Who would you like to work with, and why?
A: Holger Czukay [of Can]. I want to learn more about the studio and he is the master. Maybe also Manfred Eicher at ECM so I could learn how to record cymbals.

P.S. "Blue" Moon, right?

Margot F. said...

Excellent in-depth comment, Duck.

I agree with The Wire reviewer, too.

While listening to some parts of "Stateless", the old "Ambient 4: On-land" springs to my mind.

Also Eno's masterpiece was heavily influenced by Miles-Davis.

rick said...

These are intriguing soundscapes, really mesmerising. Something new for me, thanks so much again Margot. Great stuff.

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I will lend it a listen as soon as possible!
jan

Simon Pitchforth said...

I love Mr. Paul's music and have done since I first heard his Abysmal Evenings album back in the late nineties. He's taken Eno and Hassell forward into the new millennium and has an exquisite production touch in the studio. Deeply meditative and natural sound. Currently enjoying his Seed album which I've just got hold of. An ambient master - he should be more well known than he is.