In Martin Juhls we have an artist who designs his music with architectural vision and efficiency. He writes that when setting to work on what will ultimately be heard as nearly amorphous, “I have a clear soundpicture, emotion and atmosphere in mind which I want to make hearable. Then I start collecting the sounds, chords and fragements which I think could work to create a comparable acoustic surrounding”.
He´s created some lovely, accessible hybrid ambient-orchestral music as Marsen Jules, particularly Herbstlaub and Les Fleurs (incorporating harp and vibraphone players), a little minimal house as Falter, and as Krill.minima some very distinctive dub techno. He slso tours his music as a trio and runs the Oktaf label, which last year hosted his co-curated tribute to Harold Budd, Lost in the Humming Air.
Regarded in a certain way, dub techno is the woozy jazz music of electronica, stretching the familiar into the unfamiliar on a frame of regular rhythm, and Sekundenschlaf is as sophisticated an effort as you´ll hear. Opening ambiently with “Substantial Drift,” co-written by Jean-Sébastien Roux (also known as Tlon and Deluge), eyelids begin to flutter; powerless to resist the soft petting of “Bienenkorb”, you are finally set adrift on the roll of the subtle bass swells of “Mamor (Debub)”. Having succumbed doesn´t necessarily mean slumber will be entirely dreamy. Despite its festive title, “Kalypso” is pure Cold War film noir and “Unter Druck” is beautifully insidious, almost subliminal brainwashing. Another Canadian, Jeff Morton (aka Nuthre) rides shotgun on the Transatlantic nightride “Montreal>Dortmund”.
Falling deeper and deeper, the details of the dream flee memory, and the generous, seventy-five minute album ends with the long, wet splatter of “Timbre”, a rude awakening after such a warm, dreamy hour. It´s a powerful, slowly unscrolling mural which will surely stand as one of the best of its genre, if not electronica as a whole, at the end of the year. Spare, just strange enough, and utterly original.
Stephen Fruitman
