Sinner DC :: MEG​/​CDG (Mental Groove / Geneva Ethnography Museum)

Sinner DC is all circular, all spinning. It is silvery particles being held together by some undiscoverable but essential dark matter. Unreduced surface noise is made smooth and soft against the ear skin.

Sinner DC :: MEG / CDG (Mental Groove / Geneva Ethnography Museum)

In the first of a planned series of collaborations with various musical entities, the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva—whose audio archives house thousands upon thousands of recordings from around the world—granted local rhythmic duo Sinner DC free access to its database. A new name to the undersigned, though apparently active and applauded for some twenty years now. With great discretion, MEG / CDG weaves samples culled from Niger, the United States and Romania into its heady compositions. Each track is stamped with an IATA airport code—Medan, Alice Springs, Lagos, Memphis and Warsaw.

With “MES” opening it like gently like the dawn, the album begins to twirl with “LOS”. Sinner DC is all circular, all spinning. It is silvery particles being held together by some undiscoverable but essential dark matter. Unreduced surface noise is made smooth and soft against the ear skin.

As MEG/CDG steadily gains momentum, it tilt-a-whirls the timbre of the sound in air, it loops and echoes for eternity the sweet praises of a young woman in pre-war America; then a supplicant, she now becomes an entrancer. “ASP,” the lengthiest track at over thirteen minutes, calls and responds with heroic stoicism in a frictional but weightless stillness. “WAW” is a classical string orchestra, a four-minute coda that, like Andrew Deutsch famously did with some “quiet bits” from Mahler, stirs something profound in an atmosphere that is already furtively romantic.

MEG/CDG is available on Mental Groove / Geneva Ethnography Museum.