(10.08.06) City Centre Offices is a label renowned for quality electronic music. Since
the label’s inception, a joint venture between Berlin and Manchester, the
imprint has been putting out high class electronica. The label, with
Pelicanneck (now Boomkat) being a partner, screamed onto the scene with a
series of 7″ releases that got people talking. First off the bat was Uwe
Zahn, better known as Arovane. Arovane had been making ripples in the
underground currents of digital music for some time with his superb 12″
releases on the Berlin label DiN when CCO came into existence. Zahn
teamed up with City Centre Offices for their first 7″, Occer / Silicad. The
release, a lush composition of electronic sound, was the talk of the town,
or record stores. Arovane was followed by another able artist, the Russian
crunch master that is Fizzarum. As the years went on, CCO’s following
grew. The label is now seen as one of the world’s premiere electronic
labels. The European imprint is back with a new release by Martin Juhls, a.k.a.
Marsen Jules entitled Les Fleurs.
Marsen Juhls is an instrumental/ambient project the Dortmund born Juhls has
created. In February 2005 Juhls gave the electronic populace his first work,
a short album entitled Herbstlaub. The ambient LP received high acclaim
with reviewers across the board. Les Fleurs is a continuation of Jules’
sound. The new album is gentle, lulling and relaxing. Jules’ twilight sound
is dreamy, simple and minimal. The album opens with “Oeillet Sauvage,” a
work that sets the tone for the entire album. The track stumbles softly into
being. The piece develops lazily, rich basslines saunter in whilst sound
glimmers and shuffles in the backdrop. “Oeillet Sauvage” zones in and out
like a drowsy man trying to stay awake. The track dematerializes as soon as
it has arrived, ebbing slightly away note by note in silence. “La Digital
Purpre” leads in from “Oeillet Sauvage.” The track loops around slow harp
strings that rise and melt into a dark velvet shadow. The work sweeps and
slides, rolls and falls to create a harmonious medley of ambient sound.
The LP glides effortlessly along, like raindrops slipping down a window
pane. Track four brings “Datura” to the listener, a lulling, dripping piece
of cascading strings. The track simmers and squirms as deep bass currents
boomerang through this German stew of sound. Industrial echoes twist as the
work develops to create an interesting, daydreaming song. “Amemone” enters
with strings too, but this time they are of the distorted variety. Gentle
clicks weave and echo to trouble this audio pasture of ambience. “Gueule De
Loup” is the next piece to breeze in. The track hazily comes to life,
bubbling and wisping into existence. This a track that is constantly
shifting, skipping from one foot to the other whilst blurred harp strings
loom and descend over beats that swing back and forth like a sedated
pendulum. A wonderfully wholesome and organic track. The album ends with the
fourteen minute amble of sound that is “Oeillet En Delta.” This lullaby like
minimal piece stretches as feather like keys and lazy chords drip to create
a stalictite of sleepy sound. The track concludes and encapsulates what Les
Fleurs is, a dreamy abstract album.
Jules’ latest work centers around one primary theme: the cycle. The album,
with its soft, organic tones, loops gently, but endlessly, like the earth’s
unceasing orbit, the globe’s constant rotations, or the return of the
seasons. Les Fleurs is an audio tribute to the cycle, to the beauty and
suffering that comes with the circular nature of things. Jules’ sound lies
on the edge, tittering over the abyss – his music sits between the sacred
and the profane, the weighty and weightless, the light and the dark. It is
Jules’ claim to this middle ground, the mystery of the in between, that
makes his sound so intriguing.
Les Fleurs is out now on City Centre Offices. Buy it at Amazon.com
