SOGAR
"BASAL" (12K1014)
to translate languages, paste text
here: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr
ALTERNATIVE
PRESS (US)
there
are generally two possible avenues of listener engagement offered
by most minimal "glitch" electronic music. you can strain your
ears (and brain) trying to pick up the tiny, timid sounds, or
you can let the disc soothe you to sleep with its delicate hisses
and pops. basal offers more than that. like a few other releases
on the often excellent 12k label, it actually seems composed,
rather than discovered. jurgen heckel's melodies (or the traces
of them) spiral out from a still center, sparking and pealing
into the air like the cries of digital baby mice. sure, the
trakcs blend together, but no more than expected in such an
unobtrusive, self-effacing genre. those who can spot beauty
in the rust patterns on a steel plate, or in a decade's worth
of random impact scuffs on a diner counter, will find sounds
here of a profoundly pleasing nature. - phil freeman
AMBIENTRANCE (US)
Yet
another new microsound artist is unveiled on the mightily understated
12k label; sogar (the nom-de-processing of one Jürgen Heckel)
delivers basal, a slightly glitchy tableau inhabited by teasing
wraiths of almost-musicality. An especially intriguing blend!
In enigmatic beauty Ker35, sporadic motes and slithers are topped
with a pretty-though-obtuse layer of cut-up chimes. A somehow
slurpy rhythm spatters behind the ringing/rippling void of PE
(2:42). Speckled with occasional pips of static, live recording
dek here (9:31) alights into a steamy, shifting radiance pulsing
with various levels of activity. Bleeping blun emits cheerful
burbling tones and effervescent clickiness.
Beaming
with unknown energies, L2 simply radiates within a force field
of its own making. During parts of 9, a vaguely harmonica-like
glare and remotely guitar-esque strums appear, making this closing
number seem like a sunset campfire song from some android homeworld,
sorta.
I'm
not sure how sogar manages to stir relatively obscure soundforms
into such curiously ear-catching transmissions... but he certainly
does. Like an alien robot telling not-quite-decipherable tales
which are nonetheless captivating to hear, basal's subtle eccentricities
are worth a 9.0 of appreciation.
Of
course you know by now that 12k is the premiere source of microsonic
wonders.
DE:BUG
(DE)
Jürgen
Heckel is Sogar. And Sogar is a more than adequate descendent
of the excellent Shuttle358 CD on Tayler Deuprees´ label.
Heckel concentrates on the balance between pads, bell-like octave
chimes and bleepy gurgling and rustling, runs everything into
itself, lets odd digital splashes run softly into an ocean of
FM-synthesis only to send the last remaining sound particles
back off on point-guard duty. A night like this can last for
ever. Surprises appear up to the last minute, if not because
Heckel closes the album with his guitar, which no-one expected.
People will be talking about this one for a while. The format
of a winner!
ETHEREAL
(FR)
Sortant
sur 12k, label de Brooklyn fondé par Taylor Deupree,
le premier album de Sogar, alias Jürgen Heckel est aussi
apaisé que pouvait le laisser prévoir sa pochette,
paysage nu dont on ne sait pas très bien s’il s’agit
d’une piste d’atterrissage ou bien des abords d’une
piscine. Principalement composé de nappes accueillantes
et de glitchs mélodiques (ces petits larsens discrets,
jamais violents popularisés par les artistes du label
Mille Plateaux), ce disque n’est jamais ni froid ni glacé.
Au contraire, Sogar arrive à influer dans ses textures
et craquements une chaleur et une âme qui manque parfois
cruellement à ce type de productions. Po ur ce faire,
il peut user de la réverbération, travaillant
et triturant une unique note pour en faire sortir le maximum
de sons différents (Dek Here). Il sait également
faire ressortir la rythmique interne de ses sons (Ker35) ou
bien leur adjoindre une rythmique qui leur confère un
statut mélodique (PE et Blun). On a parfois l’impression
que Sogar se laisse déborder par les grésillements
qu’il crée (L3), mais ceux-ci sont, en réalité,
toujours maîtrisés, contenus, dans un perpétuel
souci d’évasion pour l’auditeur qui, hypnotisé,
se perd dans les paysages ainsi constitués. Les sons
micro-électroniques y croisent alors des instruments
plus classiques (guitare, orgue), mais la sérénité
ambiante n’est a-ucunement troublée. [François
B.]
FAQT
(US)
Sogar
"Basal" (12K) The current trend in glitchalia seems to be leaning
toward "keeping it real" - tearing their cracks and squiggles
from sounds ranging from taped ambient sound to the return of
instrumentation. On Christian Fennesz's latest disc, "Endless
Summer", he returns to his first love: guitar (even if he does
filter it through an army of effects). Jurgen Heckel, the flesh
to Sogar's shadow, twists the six-string, as well as odd non-musical
objects and found-sound, behind baffles, effects, and intense
processing on his debut, "Basal". Unashamedly bound to the glitch
genre, Heckel finds freedom in such constraints by taking the
structural route less travelled: the thrumming static on "L2"
mimics insistant tribal beats, before being overwhelmed by the
soft hail of a thousand satellite signals. "Dek Here" refrects
the single-tone studies of Microstoria into a diffused rainbow
of feedback and a stuck organ note that would make LaMonte Young
nostalgic, while "Blun" stacks beat fragments, crackling with
electricity, into a House framework that makes SND sound like
Daft Punk! The most fascinating thing about "Basal", though,
is that it's vibrant, microscopic beauty was captured live.
Top that, Popp!
GROOVES
(US)
squeezing
between shuttle358 and kid606 circa PS I Love You, Sogar's Jurgen
Heckel brings some fumbling guitar playing and powerline drones
to the glitch/click party. It's impressive enough, especially
the way in which "Dek Here" builds its quietly contemplative
buzzes to a subtle, layered climax. Elsewhere, wire surges and
humming drones add to the somewhat melancholic feel. Austere
and serious, but that be expected on this label. Certainly a
worthwhile addition to the 12k roster. - JG
HAUNTED
INK (US)
I
knew nothing about Sogar when I first started listening to this
disk, so I checked out 12k's excellent web site. This is what
I found: "Born in Nuremberg, living in Paris, Sogar's Jürgen
Heckel manipulates accidental sound into gentle and brittle
melodic textures with arrangements using guitars as well as
mixing desks, amplifiers and cables as instruments." It's important
to note that guitars, amps, and cables are all referred to here
as "instruments." This is absolutely the correct term, for what
is an instrument but a device that generates sound? Notice that
I don't use the word "music," but sound. Sound is a natural
phenomenon, and can take any shape; music is a human construct,
and it can take only certain set, prearranged shapes. As the
blurb goes on to say, Basal was created out of "nonmusical"
sounds (static, glitches, rustling electrical surges) culled
from these instruments; the sounds were then sequenced and manipulated
digitally by computer software. It is, consequently, impossible
to tell the origin of any particular sound--to tell which sound
comes from a guitar, which from a mixing desk, which from an
amplifier, or which from cables. When the sounds are all processed
together on the computer, they blend, fuse with one another,
and become something quite different--something, in fact, that
is far more "musical" than anything created out of aberrant
sparks has the right to be.
I
focus here on the process of creating this disk not because
I have any particular "secret knowledge" into the creation of
Basal but because music like this foregrounds process--pushes
the act of creating music out into the open by focusing attention
on the noises that most music tries to hide, thereby exposing
music itself as a created thing. However, what's interesting
about this work (as opposed to some other works in the "glitch"
micro-genre) is the unusual way this music actually transcends
its base origins. What I hear on this disk is the work of an
artist who is trying, like a Zen gardener, to prune and order
a chaotic sea of sound into something beautiful and interesting.
The third track, "Ker75," for example, starts out with a series
of undulating, prodding hisses that swivel around and mutate
but never lose their hiss; above and around these hisses, snatches
of static and digital noise pierce through the haze. Then one
of the hisses turns into a simple, elegant melody, rising up
and around the noise. Then some of the digital noises glisten
down into a steady, soft pattern. It's as if the song begins
as chaos. Then slowly, one piece at a time, the chaotic elements
are culled, cropped, or otherwise "tamed." Of course, "tamed"
here is a relative term, for the sounds never escape the category
of "glitch" or even "noise." It's just that, amidst the chaos
of these sounds, a musical idea somehow takes shape and is given
definition, at least for a little while.
Errol
Morris, the director of such documentaries as The Thin Blue
Line and Mr. Death, made an interesting film a few years back
called Fast, Cheap, and Out-of-Control. The film told the stories
of four people: a lion tamer, a topiary gardener, a biologist
who studied the naked mole rat, and a robot designer. These
individuals seemed to have nothing in common, but Morris' documentary
reveals that each of these people were trying to control, to
order, or to otherwise understand the vast chaos that is life.
I hear the same thing going on in the tentative, unusual compositions
on Sogar's Basal. I see in this work the musical landscape carved
out by others in the "glitch" or micromusical genre, but I also
see the deep well of noise that exists beyond human defined
musical categories. As I said earlier, "glitch" music foregrounds
process; this work, however, foregrounds not simply the process
of creating music but the process humans go through in determining
what is and what isn't music. It's an interesting work, to say
the least. Not everyone will enjoy the droning, static aberrations
(the raw data) that flow throughout these nine tracks, but the
melodies (when they materialize) are worth hearing, and the
work as a whole is worth investigating if you are, like me,
interested not only in listening to music, but in considering
the concepts which shape and define how we perceive and understand
all sounds, not just music.
INCURSION.ORG (CA)
Basal
is the debut full length from Sogar, aka Jürgen Heckel.
Richly layered textures, crackles and tones create some compelling
sonic spaces and a mood that is quite calming and reflective.
The components often melt into gentle rhythms, yet sometimes
remain in the abstract. The tracks are medium length (9 tracks
in all, with a total runtime of just under 50 minutes), and
develop with natural ease. There's a calm, contemplative nature
to this music, which carries a sort of warmth about it that
seems rare for a microsound project (usually favouring more
of a cold, stark mood of alienation in the digital age). The
melodic textures on this album can be almost hypnotising: their
crackles, tones and harmonic loops mesmerise the listener with
their soothing rhythms and complex layering. In all, this is
a peaceful and engaging new release, and a promising start for
Sogar. [Richard di Santo]
VITAL WEEKLY (NL)
Sogar
is the name chosen by a German guy Juergen Heckel, who lives
in Paris and 'Basal' is his first release. Apperentely he manipulates
accidental sound, using guitars, mixing desks and amplifies
and cables as instruments. Everything is then put into the holy
computer for further sound treatment. Soft clicks, soft hiss
and slowly faded soundscapes forms the music on this release.
Quite ambient atmospheres here, but don't be fooled. This has
not much to do with ambient music as you may know it, but it
extends the ambient music to the clicks and cuts movement, without
having the 4/4 beats or the digital coldness found amongst some
of those. Sogar is a less hectic Oval and a less poppy Stephan
Mathieu, and a more coherent Shuttle358. Sogar found himself
a nice spot among the best with a clear own sound. Great discovery
of a new artist by a likewise great label. (FdW)
XLR8R
(US)
Minimalist artists Sogar and ZELLE approach similar sonic constructions
from divergent positions, each creating tonal textures and noise
infused intricacies, that are contemplative and complex in effect.
Basal is the remanipulation of found sound with the accompaniment
of various instrumentation and additional processing. The sounds
are natural enough to be soothing , something of an amplification
of the everyday in a more concentrated arena of experimentation.
Layers of melodic texturing thrive within the hums and lengthy
tonal screetches, like an aesthetic restructuring of white noise.
However, where Sogar's bleeps and hisses fall into rhythmic
beauty, ZELLE's graphically constructed sound compositions aim
for a precision of abstraction with the abandonment of melodic
structure. Electroacoustic composers Maurizio Martusciello and
Nicola Catalano create highly intricate (if, at moments barely
audible) snippets of sound on their debut, Nth. The sound is
deliberately sparse, leaving the act of listening quietly active
and participatory.
