BLUERMUTT – when I’m not

(free downlowd, nexsound)

Bluermutt is one part of Crashbonsai, all of Mickey eats plastic and proprietor of Skyapnea, after all only one person though, but with many personalities and he comes from Italy. Next to sounds and sound discourse there is also visual arts and remixing and what no, and if you are thinking now: T’um you aren’t halfside wrong at all. And maybe you have met him somewhere, on various releases and compilations on netlabels and real ones, on a train but didn’t realize because he was working on his laptop, headphones on and stranded somewhere in his own mind.

“when I’m not” has just the right amount of improvisation, collages and groovy rhythms hidden inside sounds to get me into summer soft and easy. Some high frequency overtones might disturb the picture if you are inclined to feel nauseated by these sort of noises but then this is all about hiding the beautiful inside the ugly and the ugly inside the beautiful, turning insides out and outsides in and doing it over and over again until it is thoroughly mangled, yet still looks and feels soft and laidback at the same time as distorted and wrangled. Then Bluermutt adds some vocal samples or field recordings from here and there into the mix and the result is a fascinating mixture of atmospheres and harmonies.

Those of you who have come to expect harsh sounds and chaotic noises from Nexsound might be surprised by the softness, subtleness and ease of these tracks – though these high frequencies can really bug you, I mean, they are giving me headaches easily – but some electric piano here or a lonely, single note picked melody on a guitar there, some soft and slow glitches mixed with echoing notes from the synthie and the overall flirring and whirring of sounds slowly evolving, gives the tracks that perfect lay in the sun and let the world drift by feeling. Emotions are as slow as the rhythms unfolding. Maybe the world is bad but here it is very comfortable.

Another fun thing about “when I’m not” is the way he treads on boundaries and steps on expectations all the time, shifting them around without punching the listener into the face. Take for instence the semi-asian noodling (no pun intended) during the beginning of “in my eyes” or the dense atmosphere of uncertainty audible in “The failure of translation”. The latter track is a seven minute journey through various pars of the spheres that Bluermutt inhabits and is probably the best entry point if you want to get into the music of this artist.

Another good point might be language and meditating on communication by words from a musical viewpoint. Can the basic rules of communication via language be translated into sounds and what would their relationships towards each other be? Are other forms of communication possible, some that don’t use memes pressed into phonemes? And in the meantime check the small pages because Bluermutt (or some other incarnation of his) might be playing in your vicinity.