So many of the words Markus Mehr’s music evokes – drift, wavering, expansive – are ubiquitous when describing ambient drone. Yet there’s something so fresh about Lava, his first album under his own name. The German musician/composer simply sounds liberated, despite the familiar vocabulary and nods to his various influences. Like Gentleforce’s recent Sacred Spaces, Lava explores a wealth of approaches and destinations without getting in its own way. It’s wonderfully slow, enriching going.
Imagery of oceans and night skies persists in song titles like ‘Hubble’, ‘Costeau’, and ‘Full Moon’ – and rightly so – while ‘Softwar’ and ‘Everyware’ reflect Mehr’s process of computer-filtered home recording, which includes synth, guitar, and found objects around the house. ‘Datenwolke’ translates to “data cloud” and features shuffling, echoing field recordings that recall a more minimal Pantha Du Prince. That track is interesting in its brevity (it’s just under three minutes) as well as for showcasing one of Mehr’s distinct tacks here. The opening ‘Agenda’ is total drift that only finds momentum with an increasingly shivering tone, and ‘Full Moon’ is almost totally absent in body until two and a half minutes in, thereafter recalling prime Fripp & Eno. ‘Hubble’ and ‘Everyware’ each mine a quaint melody against a slow-burn backdrop, while ‘Up Sturz’ tries out dial-tone-like glitches and the closing ‘Ohm’ couches an icy melodic presence within a fully saturated drone.
‘Cousteau’ is the most beguiling of the set, barely audible for the first 30 seconds. The track then works away at a backwards melody and soon a bit of submerged turbulence before a bristling wash overtakes it. It feels like different planes converging on all sides, as if a multitude of Mehr’s wise ideas were rearing up in the space of a single seven-minute experiment. Unusually busy compared to the rest of the album, it’s as close to a climax as Mehr allows himself on this glacial outing.
Doug Wallen
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