a r t i s t : Semuin
t i t l e : Circles and Elephants
d a t e : 2009
l a b e l : Ahornfelder
c a t : AH15
s o u r c e : CDDA
g e n r e : Ambient
r l s. d a t e : Feb/2010
t r a c k s : 10
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 53,10 MB
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The first album by Semuin (Jochen Briesen) "Province" was
released in 2005 on the Portland/Oregon based label Audio
Dregs. The record was critically acclaimed and loved by fellow
musicians: The WIRE spoke of delicate musical structures and
strong passions. And Greg Davis simply wrote in the press info
"It's a really fucking great record. I love it." After this
well received debut, Ahornfelder is proud to announce the
second full-length album by Semuin: "Circles and Elephants".
In contrast to the debut the new record is not merely focused
on the organic mixture of acoustic intruments, field
recordings and digital manipulations of the material. "Circles
and Elephants" is more concentrated on composing interesting
and sometimes experimental pop music with the use of
midi-instruments. The results of Jochen Briesen's
midi-experiments have nothing to do with Gameboy- Aesthetics
or midi-pop-songs like the music of Max Tundra. The mostly
instrumental music rather reminds one of Frank Zappa's
Synclavier compositions or some of the electronic tracks by
Nobukazu Takemura or - with respect to some melody-lines -
Igor Stravinsky. Especially the first track, which is even
named after a Stravinsky miniature-piece "Greeting Prelude"
shows a rich and wonderful melodic interplay of midi-oboe,
-clarinet, - strings, and electronics.
The sounds on the album reach from very "real" sounding
midi-instruments, e.g. midi- wind instruments, -drum-sets,
-vibraphone, etc. to more trashy sounding elements, like a
midi- choir or a midi-electric-guitar-solo. This tension and
the mixture with "natural" sounds of field recordings, hand
claps, human voice or whistling, etc. creates an intense and
unusual sound experience. Some instrumens sound impersonal and
digitalized others sound natural at first sight but after a
while you realize that you do hear a clarinet but you never
hear anybody breathe. And as soon as you realized that you are
confronted with field recordings of kids and animals. The same
sort of diversity can be found with regard to the musical
structures on the album. You can hear polyphone settings of
melodies over straight drum beats with rhythmical complexities
hidden in detail, rhythmical free developments captured in
close circles which are variable enough to bundle the
listeners attention, or very loose musical forms of noise and
field recordings. The careful and sensitive combination of all
these elements amounts to a very rich and unique record that
grows each time you listen to it.
Semuin is Jochen Briesen, who was born in Heidelberg and has
been living in Berlin since 1998, where he studied musicology
and philosophy. In 2009 he is finishing his ph.d. thesis in
philosophy. Besides Semuin Jochen Briesen is working as a
musician/composer and released records with different projects
(Semuin, Gaston, Taunus). The latest Taunus record "Harriet"
was released on Ahornfelder in 2008.
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01-greeting prelude [03:09]
02-wilma [04:22]
03-elefanz [06:04]
04-circles [03:38]
05-circles (weiter) [02:32]
06-plus-minus [05:27]
07-zombie [07:03]
08-neve [03:49]
09-stem(I) [03:27]
10-stem(II) [03:29]
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43:00 min