DAVID KRISTIAN

Rhythms for a rainy season

CD, apegenine

Basically, it should be of no interest wether an album was recorded live or produced over a longer time, especially in electronic music, because after all it is the results that matter. Moreover, the expectation of superb genius moments in a live recording versus great and refined skills in a produced record is obviously bullshit, as there are many examples in both directions (positive and negative). Lokai for instance spend a gazillion of hours in the studio with great results, whereas Evol or Keiji Haino turn on the recorder and off they go. And Fennesz has done both with great results. (As usual and according to my review-policy I won’t mention bad examples here). And how the heck am I to compare all of them? Anyway, I came to this point because of David Kristian, who describes the process in which the tracks and sounds on this record were produced on the innersleve of the CD in quite some detail, and while reading about the amplitude envelopes and pitch bend ranges assigned to each sample and about banks of 127 samples making up a a matrix of 1524 micro synths and so on I couldn’t help but think, what do I care about all that if it doesn’t help the music? During the whole 70 minutes of “rhythms for a rainy season” I couldn’t find a single track or sequence of a track that seemed directly traceable to his style of production (of which, by the way I am unable to say if it is something special or common ground). Improvisation or composition can’t be answered right away, especially when those distinctions blur and mesh a lot anyway in this field of music.

Actually, I very much prefer the simple drawing on the centre of the booklet to meditate on and get into while listening to this music. Its shades of brownish moving into yellow, with the white dots as if by accident and the simple line-drawing of a strange tree, makes up a much better analogy or mirror image to the music than the technical rant on the side before. (the cover image is a mirrored part of that painting) In a few words: it looks simple enough, though on closer inspection it certainly isn’t and the result is pleasant and intriguing in a special way that combines laid-backness with the brooding excitement of something about to happen, which though a little sombre never reaches a point where you might call it “dark”. The pace is sleepy, or rather like waking up from anaesthetics while finding yourself taking a walk, for most of the time. There are slight hints at IDM here and there – a place where Kristian came from but has long since departed – especially when the speed heats up for some time. And it does so quite definitely and then reaches deeply into the realms of IDM. Other tracks span back in time and space towards movie-soundtracks of the mid Eighties or even those big walls of synthies that used to cover up the music of (huh?) Howard Jones or even (gasp!) Jean Michel Jarre. Yes, I took these two on purpose because for one, they describe some of the soundscapes derived from his midi-files and submerged into beats and bleeps and blinks perfectly, and for second, because these two musicians direly need a re-evaluation of their true worth to music history. So there, I said it. And I never even liked their music back then nor now.

David Kristian’s work (which I admit, I haven’t followed closely) has covered a wide range ever since he started in about 15 years ago or longer and there is an impressive discography available at his website (and an even more impressive list of the equipment he owns, aptly called “toys”). There was IDM, ambient, field recordings and ever so on (Maybe that makes him write down what he did in a record.) which all helped to fill up the spectrum of sounds from which Kristian so eloquently draws for his invented tracks. There aren’t many people who seem to drench themselves so deeply into sound and soundproduction on a daily basis. Kristain might be on a completely different place today anyway, or even headed back already, but these tracks on here were recorded some years ago already. Do they still possess any kind of worth in a hectic and speedy world such as this one of experimental electronica? I sure think so, because they are still above average in comparison to what I get to here mostly. As I hear Kristian has moved on from electronic musician to soundtrack composer and sound designer – as if he hadn’t been all the time?