(05.01.06) This album is worth it for the opening cut alone. On past releases Mapstation’s Stefan Schneider has seemed content to slowly develop tracks around synthesizer arpeggios. Here, on the mighty “Horns Version,” he starts things off in the usual manner, but starts piling up beautifully complementary elements: a great trombone part; off-beat melodium stabs; soft and shuffling drums, kept well in the background; and something like a marimba adding beautiful body to the sound. The result is one hell of a reggae bounce, but using a sound palette that has more in common with his band To Rococo Rot than it does to Studio One records. This is also by no means a dub track, which makes it all the more distinctive. No wash of reverb and echoes, none of the crackles and looming bass of Schneider’s new label boss Pole.
As it turns out, the opening “Horns Version” is pretty indicative of what’s to come. The rest of the album is more low-key, but every track is based on a repeating synth measure, around which further sounds, rhythms and melodies are allowed to build and decay. And on Distance Told Me Things To Be Said Schneider’s got the balance of stillness and development just right. He introduces enough elements to maintain attention, while being restrained enough to let enjoyable atmospheres to form. The clean, repeating synth sounds put me in mind of older German artists such as Cluster and (dare I say it) Tangerine Dream, but the use of a large number of traditionally African instruments, from kalimba to hand drums, really takes the compositions somewhere new. Highly recommended.
Distance Told Me Things To Be Said is out now on ~scape. (Buy it at Amazon.com)
