Underground jazz flecks, piano, field recordings, fuzzy radio signals, glowing guitars and Stolze’s lyrical violin create a fresh but oddly uneasy atmosphere and a palpably dense mise-en-scene that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Buy at Amazon, iTunes or Juno.
Poems From A Rooftop, the latest opus for Monique Recknagel’s increasingly busy Sonic Pieces imprint, may only be Dictaphone’s third album in ten years, but if the product of such paucity is work as strong as this then it’s as great a vindication of the old adage “less is more” as you could possibly hope for. Consisting of multi-instrumentalist Oliver Doerell and saxophonist and clarinet player Roger Doering, Poems From A Rooftop introduces new member, violinist Alexander Stolze, adding classical elements to the cool jazz, twirling analogue flourishes and powdered electronics of the group’s earlier sound.
With track titles that frequently betray a love of art-house cinema and a free-spirited tone that further aligns it with the Nouvelle Vague, Dictaphone fuse metropolitan sophistication with furtive, shadowy, film-noir depth of field through the use of a diverse range of electronics and sound sources that could give Matthew Herbert a run for his money. Underground jazz flecks, piano, field recordings, fuzzy radio signals, glowing guitars and Stolze’s lyrical violin create a fresh but oddly uneasy atmosphere and a palpably dense mise-en-scene that is so much more than the sum of its parts. The acoustic and electronic are much more than simply complementary on ‘Poems From A Rooftop,’ often so inextricably entwined that they border on seamless. The extremely talented Jan Bang is one artist that springs to mind when confronted with such successful, freeform and memorable commingling, but where he uses his extensive live-sampling, live-remixing and post-editing techniques to achieve this effect, Dictaphone make it sound like it simply comes naturally.
“The Conversation” instantly transports you to the secluded, coastal inlet town that could be the album’s main setting: rolling tree-lined hills on one horizon, a jet blue sea on the other, whitewashed stone buildings with red-tiled rooftops undulating above the shady, secretive, cobbled streets below. Electrical clicks and sandy hi-hats are mingled with live drums and brushwork as clarinet, plucked and bowed violin dart through the sky like colourful, tropical birds, and delicate guitar picks its way through the trees. “A bout de souffle” plays out like like a breathless, nighttime dash through elegant, lamp-lit streets and underground club filled alleyways with the converging sounds of the bustle of the town blurred into a high contrast, monochrome smear, while “Manami” kicks off with a tragic, slow-motion, film-noir set-piece playing in reverse before settling into a cool, laid back, finger-clicking groove.
A defining characteristic of Poems From A Rooftop is the extensive use of what sounds like a vibraphone, used so atmospherically on the warm, digitally rain-drenched “Maelbeek” or heard clattering against glass in “Soylent Green (1973).” Its most enchanting moment, however, occurs when rendered as the clatter of bottles on “Rattle,” accompanied by high-speed claps, supple bass, fluttering clarinet and plucked strings. This would be a heady enough concoction all on its own, but then Marienchen Danz’s smokey voice plunges into the mix like an improv performance in some smoky, underground beatnik bar, a vocal that exudes such confidence and authority it’s as if she’s been been present all along. It all seems to paint a picture of a place that people escape to; beautiful on the surface but hiding all kinds of secrets underneath.
The piano and sinuous clarinet/saxaphone figures of “Au botanique” are unforgettable, and when surrounded by rhythmic cowbells, coiling strands of detuned analogue radio, forest chirps and chirrups creates such a lilting setting it’s hard not to become lost in it all. The album is anything but predictable, however, and the title track unleashes muffled, pensive spoken word, clattering, chiming percussion and pitch-bending squeaks and sighs, that create a vertiginous whirl of sound from which one emerges dazed and disoriented. Perhaps the only criticism that could really be leveled at Poems From A Rooftop is that it lacks a satisfying ending. The atmospheric, but ultimately rather limp “Nr. 12” simply peters out with a whimper, rather than going out with a bang like so many great noir movies. Then again, maybe it is this inconclusive and somewhat ambiguous ending that keeps one coming back for more.
If you have even the slightest inclination towards jazz, of uneasy, evocative music that drops you dead center into a physical setting, or indeed of electronic music that recalls the days of City Center Offices, Neo Ouija, M3rck and the like, then Poems From A Rooftop should be considered essential. Easily one of Sonic Pieces’ finest releases to date, act quickly if you want to acquire a copy in the first run of handmade, cloth-bound sleeves, as an only slightly less lovely letterpress reprint may be required very soon.
Poems From A Rooftop is available on Sonic Pieces. Buy at Amazon, iTunes or Juno.
