Vital Weekly (NL)

First there is Marcus Fischer, about whom we learn next to nothing, other than he hosts the DustBreeding blog. Going up and down the West Coast of America inspired him to do this album, which incorporates field recordings and ‘found’ sounds, such as piano and metal wrenches. I am not sure how you find a piano (is it on the street somewhere?), but Fischer plays with tape-loops transforming his material and that adds a certain warmth to the music. The music, so writes 12K, fits ‘the current aesthetic of the label: a passion for acoustic and found sounds, a minimal of obvious DSP and synthesis, and a natural warmth created by analog recordings and the use of physical space’. That might all be very well true, and the music is actually great too, but at the same time, I must admit I didn’t hear that much news here. Fischer surely plays some excellent music, where indeed the emphasis lies more on the use of acoustic instruments (piano, guitar, ukelele, harps) and his use of hiss from cassettes adds perhaps a slightly odd feature in this world of digital music, but its very much a continuation of what we already than necessarily something new. Fans of Seaworthy and Deupree’s own recent efforts in the field however pay attention to this new star on that particular firmament.