Whilst a certain feeling of déjà-vu permeates much of Sekundenschlaf, you won’t be disappointed in the slightest if you whack this one on for some late night electronic exploration.
[Release page] Martin Juhls returns under pseudonym krill.minima—a name set up to experiment to cross referencing pop appeal with ambient emotion and warmth. Sekundenschlaf or ‘microsleep’, as Google reliably informs me, has a distinct dub-techno influence as subdued skanking synth pads rub up against pretty motifs, melodic bass and brooding crackling background atmospheres.
Apparently Juhls clanked and crashed his way around his living room, sampling away and honing the found sounds into many of the percussive elements here—something that adds a nice organic feel throughout the release and leaves you guessing what objects were responsible. Production wise things are sharp and clean with the deftest application of effects and scratchy late night backdrops keeping things the right side of experimental. Overall, it’s fair to say that the release doesn’t command highly original sound design spaces—it kind of feels like something you might have heard before, rummaging about in those parts of the mind where the likes of slow motion Basic Channel, Disrupt, Quantec and Deepchord might be filed. That’s not say it isn’t a great laid back listen—it most certainly is and tracks like “Mamor (dedub)” are right in the zone of blunted synth pads and dubbed-out reverb-y effects. “Monddiode” gently clunks synapse firing bursts of sound across a low slung sub driven lope and “Kalypso” provides a pretty beatless number, floating a simple motif across further undulations of dubby sound. Particular favorites include the organ-led distorted shuffle of “Unter Druck” and the Steve Reich-like repetitive simplicity of “Nachtigal.”
Whilst a certain feeling of déjà-vu permeates much of Sekundenschlaf, you won’t be disappointed in the slightest if you whack this one on for some late night electronic exploration.
Sekundenschlaf is available on Psychonavigation. [Release page]
