(September 2010) Anna Logue is a label that loves the past, but it also has quite a soft spot for the present. Recently the German imprint picked up an artist who had no physical releases, until now. Copenhagen based Delayscape, aka Flemming Kaspersen, has been releasing electronic music since 2005 on various netlabels. 2010 sees Delayscape’s back catalogue, over five years of work, brought together over two discs: Morse Disco.
The album is divided into two subtitles. First up is Music for Dancing at Home. What meets the listener is a deep, rich, collection of analogue notes and pads. The beats are clean with vintage synthesizer tones guiding the listener down an almost forgotten path of electronics. Simple constructs are built to form soundscapes of warm chords and squelching undercurrents, such as in the title piece “Morse Disco.” The tracks have a number of influences embedded in them. There is a clinical aspect in here, almost a Drexiyan feel, that lies alongside autumnal analogue bars that sound straight from Suction Records or the hand of Bochum Welt. Delayscape meshes colder tones, almost Stilleben style electro, with lush electronica that harks back to Gimmik. Playful elements, such as in “Akai VX,” run alongside colder rhythmic structures.
The second CD instalment, entitled Music for Frozen Journeys, is of a similar vein. The tracks have a computer music aspect to them, warm melodies layered over snare and bass. Early Roland tones are married to starker digital sounds with Delayscape finding harmony between hardware and software. Organic notes are rooted in the album, such as in “Mars Control,” where delicate keys accompany guttural electronic undercurrents. From start to finish Morse Disco has a tangible accessibility to it. Sown into these relaxing compositions is a wonderfully refreshing absence of pretension. The pieces, all thirty-two of them, have an analogue innocence. As the seasons change with Winter on the horizon, Morse Disco is the perfect sound to accompany this transition.
Delayscape’s sound is set in a warm melodic mode, one cooled and balanced by colder beats. The album is one for filing under electronica, but is not a work of algorithmic glitch. This Scandinavian artist has a retrospective quality, a tone and mood that fits into an electronica that had its hayday in the early years of this century. Yet the Dane’s obvious influences from the more clinical edge of electro add another element, think Arpanet, Heinrich Mueller or Der Zyklus. Delayscape manges to find an equilibrium, utilising sounds from electro, incorporating them into an electronic soundscape. It is this juxtaposition, this blending and isolating of different perspectives, that gives Delayscape a style that has a unique quality to it.
Morse Disco is out now on Anna Logue.
