Markus Mehr articulates his musical discourse around a sonic continuum made of process drone sequences and fractal electroacoustic dynamics.
Germany-based multi-instrumentalist and sound designer, Markus Mehr began to work under his own name after several years spent under the moniker of Aroma. He is firstly known to the audience thanks to his various sound-art installations in the context of European festivals (Media Art Festival, DokFestival, L’étrange Festival) and for being among the leading musical personalities whose material is signed on the independent label Hidden Shoal Recordings. In this new album suggestively titled Binary Rooms, Markus Mehr articulates his musical discourse around a sonic continuum made of process drone sequences and fractal electroacoustic dynamics.
The stylistic expression is at the border of minimal abstract ambient music and the formal expression is kind of conceptual, derived from advanced psychoacoustic researches about temporality and the perceptual phenomena. The axiomatic electronic waves, the field recordings and the disruptive micro-events are sometimes intertwined with delicately harmonious acoustic timbres taken from piano detached notes (“In the Palm of your Hand,” “Basin of the Lost”) and what seems to be heavily manipulated acoustic sound textures as in the beautifully glitch-looped ambient “Blackbox.” “Gymnasium Swarms” delivers a psych-acoustically intense and complex drone hypnosis built on layered sounds and micro-sonic assaults. After a first immersion, those “Binary Rooms” seem to reveal an impossible cross between the hauntingly mnemonic turntablism experiments of someone like Philip Jeck, the various conceptual electro-researches from institutes and laboratories (GRM, Tape Music Center et al) and the subtly evocative property of glitch ambient. A real curiosity which is well advised for opened listeners.
Binary Rooms is available on Hidden Shoal.
