Markus Guentner and Joachim Spieth reunite for Conversion, their second collaboration on Affin, blending ambient expanses with dub-driven detail through a contemporary lens. Minimalist yet immersive, the album balances rhythmic depth and atmospheric stillness, reflecting the artists’ shared roots in early ambient, dub, and deep techno while continuing their distinctive sonic evolution.
A finely tuned exchange inviting introspection
For Conversion, Markus Guentner once again joins forces with Joachim Spieth, uniting the German electronic craftsman and the Ambient Techno Meister for their second mesmerizing collaboration on Affin.
Forces are joined to delve into shared musical roots refracted through a more contemporary nuanced lens, the result a work mixing ambient expanse with dub-driven detail, stratified ‘scapes balancing openness with structure, moving fluidly between rhythmic depth and atmospheric stillness. Bass kicks stalk in glacial spatiality through quiet passages buoyed by aerial pads, and niftily emplaced accents.
Created in an atmosphere of relaxed intimacy, Conversion reflects the formative influences of early ambient, dub, and deep techno releases, embedded within the artists’ signature styles. Both made early 2000s Kompakt debuts and were part of Wolfgang Voigt‘s seminal Pop Ambient series, since when they’ve forged distinctive niches in the electronic music sphere, with cinematic ambient albums like Theia (A Strangely Isolated Place) and Onda (Affin) from Guentner, Spieth heading the Affin label with its deep hypnotic sound aesthetic, from which a steady stream of his own work, e.g. Irradiance or the more recent Retrace, has issued forth.
Overall, with its minimalist composition, chthonic depth and organic colour, Conversion is not so much retrospective as continuation—of a finely tuned exchange inviting introspection. Tracks unfold deliberately, emotion mediated via space and sound, drawing you into a liminal space; between structure and expanse, density and silence, quiet contemplation and club leanings, Conversion bears testament to shared provenance and lineage as well as artistic evolution.
Conversion is available on Affin [Bandcamp]
