CORNELIUS

Point

LP/CD, Matador

Constructing music is a painful business and usually the results are less then rewarding. Music has a certain illogic and irrational character, which can’t be put into formulas or mathematics. Musical science is trying to work out formulas like these, and has been for hundreds of years, but the evolution of music has always been able to destroy any theoretical progress. The main steps forward in music were always steps away from the common centre. (Which would mean every direction is forward, which again would mean that we are always on a pole, which again would mean that whatever we do, we ain’t moving anyway. Are you still with me?) The works of modern, serious composers, who use formulas and sounds not familiar in the common tradition are, to use an euphemism, interesting. Make that unlistenable. The psychological pre-disposition of the listener makes it necessary to not step away too far from tradition, to make music edible, but also not stay too close, to keep it interesting. Now, to get back to the direction-metaphor trampled to death before, what is important in musical progression is the starting point, the direction and the way used on the one side, and the appeal to the listener on the other side. And don’t tell me, that musicians (or any artists to that matter) don’t want their work to be received by other people. L’art pour l’art, without any popular appeal at all, is only available to very rich people or very stubborn people. Or stubborn and rich people.

With the enormous rise of electronic music, construction has become very important again in composing. There is a big difference between playing chords on the guitar or the piano, trying to pour your feelings into sounds, and working with a computer to pour your feelings into sounds. Take for instance Frank Zappa. He spent the best part of his latter years constantly remixing, remastering and rebuilding music he had once recorded on the computer. And really, who listens to Zappa-albums from the late Eighties and early Nineties? After that he felt fit to reach into the terrain of modern classical music and worked with real orchestras. I do know, that music can be constructed on analogue instruments as well. Shellac changed my life in some ways, but there is still a lot of humanity in every song by Shellac. These are great musicians and they are able to play that way naturally. About the musical abilities of all these electronic-artists, who produce that massload of 12”es and remixes, I am not so sure.

The main point about Cornelius, to me, is that he combines these straying directions in an unique and wonderful way. “Point” is a wonderful hybrid of Indie-pop and electronic music, but unlike other projects, which are rather a mixture of these things, here the two parts exist as one. The Notwist, for instance, you can always tell the two things apart. They know that, having done shows were the electronic part was produced in one room and the guitar-part done in another one and people could listen to both via transistor-radios they had to bring along. When an Indie-rock-band uses electronic drums or synthies, you’ll get exactly that. I think about a range from Trans Am to Nine Inch Nails here. When an electronic musicians uses analogue instruments, you’ll get exactly that. Take everything from Kid Loco to Aphex Twin. You can still tell the parts apart and enjoy the mix. Cornelius takes a different approach. The guitars are the electronic part and the noise and sounds as well and so on. Let me describe it this way: a cyborg is made of human parts and technological parts. But what happens, if you can’t tell which is which anymore, because the they have become inseparable and indifferable? This is the place were Cornelius is at. There are the acoustic guitars and at one point the electric guitars, but are you sure these are not genuinely electronically created, or maybe only second- or third-generation-soundbites from original sources.

To resolve this point: finally it is all analogue, because our ears receive soundwaves that way and the brain works analogue as well. Maybe the whole discussion is useless (aren’t they always?) because it is all only a matter of using special filters to produce that synthetic effect with the guitars. If so, what remains is a beautiful record, with mostly quiet music that ranges between songs and tracks and which will help you chill out and relax. Only people who have to file records in shops will have a hard time with this (but they deserve it.)