textura

Albums
Aera
Apricot Rail
Darcy James Argue
Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi
Félicia Atkinson
Atom TM
Black Jazz Consortium
Borghi and Teager
Kate Carr
Jace Clayton
Nicholas Cords
Cosmin TRG
Benjamin Damage
T. Dimuzio / Voice of Eye
Field Rotation
Footprintz
Garnica
Stefan Goldmann
Good Luck Mr. Gorsky
Darren Harper
Chihei Hatakeyama
Jerusalem In My Heart
Marsen Jules
Philippe Lamy
Mary Lattimore
Linear Bells
Jay-Dea López
Andrew McPherson
Markus Mehr
Oneirogen
Fabio Orsi & pimmon
Quicksails
Simian Mobile Disco
Colin Stetson
The Third Man
Simon Whetham
Yuco

Compilations / Mixes
Art Department
Balance presents jozif
+FE Music: The Reworks
Ruede Hagelstein
Inscriptions Vol. 2
Rebel Rave 3
Your Victorian Breasts

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Broken Chip
City of Satellites
Fescal
Isan
jffstnhs
Librah
Yann Novak
Simon Whetham

Marsen Jules: The Endless Change Of Colour
12k

The Endless Change of Colour marks a dramatic change of pace for Marsen Jules (real name Martin Juhls, who also records under the krill.minima alias and manages Oktaf Records) given that all of his previous releases have featured multiple tracks of conventional length whereas this 12k outing is a single track lasting forty-seven minutes. That detail alone suggests that the recording represents some kind of zenith for its creator, and one naturally wonders how he'll follow such a venture. The work itself is a generative one that takes as its starting point a single phrase lifted from an old jazz recording and split into three audio streams. That the sampled recording isn't identified is a moot point when the loop-based treatments transform the original material into sound waves, harmonics, and overtones that supplant any and all identifying characteristics of the original; in that regard, one imagines that Jules could have used virtually any sound element as the starting point.

The loops gently pulsate in accordance with different time signatures and thus repeatedly come together and drift apart as the music unfolds at a slow and steady pace. Softly glimmering ripples of glassy sound fill the stereo field so fluidly that the effect is downright aquatic. Making good on its title, the work undergoes glacial shifts in tonality, such that were it be represented visually the transitions from one colour to the next would be so gradual as to be almost invisible. Needless to say, The Endless Change of Colour is ambient music in one clear sense in that it's able to blend somewhat surreptitiously into the environment; and given its generative design, its soft shimmer could also theoretically continue on endlessly (it's easy, for example, to visualize the work being presented as a gallery installation that plays non-stop during the month-long exhibition). At the same time, the recording holds up perfectly well as a rewarding listening experience on its own terms, especially when its temperature is warm, its mood serene, and its effect on the receptive listener entrancing.

April 2013