Article
2012 Artists' Picks

Albums
36
The Alvaret Ensemble
The Boats
Dadub
Day
Enduser / The Teknoist
Alejandro Franov
Christoph Funabashi
The Inventors Of Aircraft
Kostis Kilymis
krill.minima
Lau Nau
Madera Wind Quintet
Todd Matthews
Lubomyr Melnyk
okamononoriaki
The Outside Agency
Oyaarss
peterMann
Pleq + Philippe Lamy
Roach & Metcalf
SaffronKeira
Martin Schulte
Jay Shepheard
Tape Loop Orchestra
Techdiff
TM404
Yard

Compilations / Mixes
Darkroom Dubs Vol.3
Petre Inspirescu
Pop Ambient 2013
v-p v-f is v-n

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Alis
Arkaik
Babi
Bee Mask
Bungle
drcarlsonalbion
Fescal
Fluorescent Heights
William Ryan Fritch
Greyghost
Junction 12
Lind and Loraine
Alessan Main
Martinez
Mikal
Show Me The Future
10 Yrs hhv.de 45 Vol. 10
Wolf Cub

krill.minima: Sekundenschlaf
Psychonavigation

Sekundenschlaf clearly won't win any awards for design, but don't let its bare-bones visual presentation deter you from sampling its contents, which are very good indeed. krill.minima represents, of course, the dub-ambient side of Dortmund, Germany resident Martin Juhls, who's otherwise known for the orchestral ambient material he issues under the Marsen Jules moniker. Sekundenschlaf is, in fact, Juhls' fourth album under the krill.minima name so it doesn't surprise that the material evidences a sound level of craft and polish. Though it's not audibly obvious, most of the rhythm sounds featured in the album originated from ordinary, real-world sounds recorded in his living room, which he then manipulated further in assembling a given piece's melodic fragments and rhythmic structures.

Tracks such as “Bienenkorb” and “Mamor (dedub),” wherein smears and washes drape themselves across organ-like chords and hypnotic bass pulses, draw heavily upon the ambient dub traditions associated with Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound. Consistent with similar releases in the genre (viz. Deepchord), krill.minima's often focuses as much on the textural dimension of a given piece as its conventional musical elements. While “Unter Druck” does feature organ accents and a lulling rhythmic flow, the listener's attention is almost more drawn to the thick coating of crackle and hiss with which the track's covered; “Serpentine” likewise almost buries its woozy, sci-fi crawl under a miasma of ripples and pops, and the ten-minute closer “Timbre” is almost wholly consumed its textural interplay. Jules wisely changes things up in “Monddiode” by giving it more rhythmic heft, animation, and a disposition that's sunnier compared to the sometimes lugubrious tone presented elsewhere. The penultimate “Nachtigal” also switches gears, this time presenting a nimble keyboard-driven exercise that's as emblematic of his Marsen Jules style as krill.minima.

Sometimes there can be too much of a good thing and admittedly that is the case here, with seventy-five minutes of Sekundenschlaf rather more than necessary . Something more in the vicinity of fifty minutes would have made as strong a case for the release and done so more economically and efficiently. Those, on the other hand, who can't get enough of Juhls' dub-techno offerings, obviously will have nothing to complain about.

February 2013