GREGOR
SAMSA - rest
(CD, own)
Is there such a thing as chamber orchestra indie pop?
Because that is what I would call Gregor Samsa, if you made me do it in one
single sentence. Which, by the way, I would completely loathe to do.
Concentrating big, beautiful experiences into tiny little combinations of
nouns, the rejection of differentiation and developments that take place
over time, by all means the codification and negligence of artistic vision
by doing so, is absolutely not to my liking.
How do you like the new record by so and so? Yeah, it
is cool, but have you heard this or that? Yeah, cool. I have been trying to
draw myself from this superficial way of talking about music many years ago
(and also including books, movies, pictures, live experiences, food, and so
on) and I think myself lucky to have managed to do so quite well. To Gregor
Samsa making music has an analogous setting. They also like to take their
time, to spread atmosphere and instead of focusing all originality into one
short line of notes, they find meaning only in structures that work out over
longer periods.
And they do this in arrangements filled with vintage
and orchestral instrumentation such as celestas, clarinets, mellotrons,
Cellos and vibraphones, with electronic manipulations but also
straightforward nocturnal piano parts (“Ain Leuh”) and romantically
melancholic (or melancholically romantic) cello lines. Over a dozen
musicians have contributed to the album and truly, at times you feel a
conductor standing in front of the orchestra giving them cues. It is truly
hard to believe that “rest” is the result of exchanging ideas and
recordings via email and of mastering and mixing at diverse places on the
globe.
Because the arrangements flow like the ocean and
include so many interesting and fascinating ideas, it is hard to make
believe they come from a unit like a band alone. For instance, when on
“abutting, dismantling” the introductory instrumental is suddenly
submerged by a dampened and heaving bass percussion loop and the soft voice
of the singer sets in, those are the kind of magic moments you probably were
looking for on the new album by Portishead – minus the trip hop - but
didn’t find. The same is true for songs like the ominously titled
“Jeroen Van Aken” whereas the female singing voice at the beginning of
“rendered yards” reminds of Ennio Morricone.
Nevertheless, there is a modern melodic element to all
songs as well, keeping it in touch with the realm of indie pop, circling
somewhere far on the outside as Sigur Ros do, though totally different,
where the universe is dark blue to black and where silence abounds to leave
space for universal sounds in harmony. After all it is this mixture of
minimal, classical arrangements and harmonies with the sensibilities and
melodies of pop music, and even if pop music of the most fringe character
whose dynamics mostly lie in stasis, it is still nevertheless pop music
indeed, that is the basis for the fascination these songs radiate.
