KRILL.MINIMA
– “nautica”
(CD/download,
native state)
If the point is to define what is meant with deep,
droning ambient, then this work does not hit the point, but rather it
stretches the point to horizontal size by making time go slower. If I
remember my physics correctly this would mean stretching the event horizon
to endless, but then I never was any good at natural science. Mainly because
I tried to describe everything by aesthetic terms and viewpoints, which in
the face of a 55 year old geometry and science teacher is moot. Anyway, so
many metaphors about the deep sea, the vast ocean, the endless movement of
the ebb and tide, the specific gravity of marine live have been used when
writing about deep, droning ambient (by me as well, the second favorite
place to look for metaphors probably being dark caves or outer space) that
it is a wonder it took so long for somebody to come along and call his
record “nautica” and to tweak a marine theme into each track. The
variety of connotations goes wide circles, from the straight to the
scientific point of “Nautica” and “Kalmar” via the more lyrical
“Submarine Poetry” and “the sea horse and the soft coral” to the
fantastical and imaginary of “The Escargots dream” and “Princess of
the undersea gardens”.
It seems no wonder that it was Krill.Minima aka Martin
Juhls taking that step in such a straight forward fashion. As anybody
interested in electronic ambient should know, since Martin Juhls has
released an impressive load of records on all kinds of labels from Thinner to Aleph
Zero, electronic ambient under the moniker of Krill.Minima, more
click-rhythm oriented music as Falter and some very interesting orchestral
pieces or rather re-workings of orchestral pieces including a conceptual
background as Marsen
Jules, Krill.Minima is always going straight for the main spot.
The music may be subtle and introverted, moving slowly, but always with a
definite pace and an aim. And mostly with some kind of coneptual theory
behind it. Juhls seems to be a prolific worker with the ability to
concentrate on an idea and to execute it in style, without being disturbed
by the next idea to come.
On “nautica” the first noticable thing is a
constant whizz of background white noise, like living next to a waterfall. A
soothing and trance-inducing background to whatever might be happening,
which mostly is layers and spots of electronic shimmers and sounds, that
flow slowly and gently. It is the title track that stands out for using
strong, echoy percussions, almost industrial like, that somehow randomly yet
structured and slowly add a spooky and eerie edge to the track. This one is
the only track on here that could be described as disturbing, all the others
connect to that part of the brain that still remembers that the cradle of
mankind is the sea and how beautiful it was, when everybody was nothing more
than algeae floating endlessly. It is a strong and dynamic piece of serious
music. Personally, the atmosphere reminds me of some of the dark and
brooding tracks that Bill Laswell recorded with Toshinori Kondo in the early
to mid Eighties and I am constantly waiting for a idiosyncratic trumpet to
set in. Of course that never happens.
Martin Juhls has proven often times that he has an ear
for details and “nautica” after all is no different. The way he mixes
soft digital noises and glitches with seemingly old fashioned warbles of
keyboard sounds, then adds a bass drum that is much to slow to be understood
as a beat, is impressive. After some time and when you start to doze off to
the music, the beat gets denser and starts to click into something in the
mind. This is the unique talent of Juhls to produce this kind of anti-dub.
Especially with the almost complete lack of bass, or at least he uses
bass-lines almost always with an enormous understatement. The overall
atmospheres here and there are way cold, but after all so is underwater live
(in more than one ways...) and so is live in urban city centres late at
night. I would have believed it, if this record had been called
“metropolitan” – still some kind of submarine connotations would have
been mentioned.
