Articles
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson
Spotlight 7

Albums
Amirali
Ballrogg
Cam Butler
Cakewalk
Crisopa
En
Fazio
Erdem Helvacioglu
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson
Larvae
Lone
Lovelock
Justin Martin
Melodium
Minus Pilots
Michael Mizrahi
Monolake
Montgomery / Curgenven
Motion Sickness T. Travel
Neu Gestalt
Nothing But Noise
Olan Mill
Daphne Oram
Palestine & Schaefer
Principles Of Geometry
Pietro Riparbelli
Seaworthy
Session Victim
Sparkling Wide Pressure
Stratosphere
Trouble Books
Underhill
Clive Wright

Compilations / Mixes
Maya Jane Coles
In The Dark
Lost in the Humming Air

EPs
Alphabets Heaven
Stefan Goldmann
Graz
Köln 1
Posthuman
Quiroga
Rivers Home 2
Sleeps In Oysters
Towards Green

Stefan Goldmann: Adem
Macro

Macro's brainiac techno is always welcome in these parts, and its latest, a three-tracker by Stefan Goldmann is no exception. He brings the same kind of audacious sensibility to the EP's material as he did to his 2009 take on Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps, which was stitched together from 146 sections lifted from over a dozen recordings. But let's be clear: Adem has little connection to Western classical music. It's techno, if techno of the wacky Macro kind.

The EP's prime cut, “Adem,” twists synths into funky shape by warping a single pitch until its insistent thrum breathes Arabian fire—an arresting sound all by itself but one Goldmann amplifies by pairing it with a skipping rhythm that huffs'n'puffs like some Western-styled hoedown (harmonica-styled wheeze is also audible during the track's closing seconds). Skeletal by comparison, the B-side's “Rigid Chain” strips things back to little more than a pumping, off-beat bass line and a slithering hi-hat-and-bass drum combination. The twelve-inch vinyl EP concludes with “Chalgapella,” which isn't a third original but a five-minute version of “Adem” with the rhythm elements omitted. The A-side's eight minutes are so head-spinning, however, that the other tracks can't help but seem secondary by comparison.

May 2012