artist: THOMAS LEHN & MARCUS SCHMICKLER
title: Navigation Im Hypertext
label: A-Musik
country: Germany
format: CD
title: Navigation Im Hypertext
label: A-Musik
country: Germany
format: CD
"German synthesizer musicians Thomas Lehn and Marcus Schmickler have been
playing together for quite some time now, long enough that one might expect their
interaction to have grown a bit stale. They first turned heads (and scrambled brains)
with their Erstwhile duo disc, BART, an unforgettable washing-machine roar of an
album, then stretched and expanded their sound by adding AMM founder Keith Rowe
to the mix for the muscular musique concrète of Rabbit Run. It’s always been well-
known that both Lehn and Schmickler are more than capable of playing quiet,
sensitive improv, even with musicians whose range is on the threshold of audibility.
For whatever reason, though, their collaborations together (excepting a whispery
quartet with Rowe and Japanese minimalist Toshimaru Nakamura) have usually
tended towards the dark, abrasive, and deafening.
This new set of albums, one on CD and one available only on vinyl, aims to mark off
some new territory for the duo as they head into the studio as a pair for the first time
since BART. Navigation Im Hypertext will certainly seem like a bold departure for
those expecting a reprise of the last Lehn/Schmickler duo outing, and perhaps even
for those familiar with the broader range of their music outside this combo. It is a
measured, temperately paced recording, with a broad dynamic range; nothing here
approaches the cataclysmic roar of BART, though there are many frantic bursts of
activity to balance out the stretches of calm and quietude. In its style and sound, the
album is more reminiscent of early electronic music than anything either of these
musicians has recorded before: the processed squiggles and bloops sound
positively retro at times, while a few of the more obviously digital sections sound
annoyingly like outtakes from some kind of Nintendo soundtrack (or a 90s Mego
album, for that matter).
These hat-tips to electronic forebears can sometimes be jarring, but it’s not
necessarily an insult to say that the album owes a lot to early electronic composition.
The 10-minute opening track, which judiciously spaces Lehn’s popping, reverb-laced
outbursts amidst stretches of heavy silence and textured undercurrents of sine
waves and static, is one of the duo’s best pieces. There is a tense beauty to this
music, and to the best parts of the album in general, that brings to mind the low-key
synth musings of Eliane Radigue. At times, a thick bass rumble will underpin an
encroaching semi-melodic fuzz that threatens to (but never quite does) explode into a
full-on noise assault. Elsewhere, machine vibrations, sputtering and mechanically
rhythmic, give way to sine shrieks and modem hum, before it all subsides into a
distant foreboding drone, like stormclouds forming on the horizon. On the strength of
passages like these, Navigation Im Hypertext, despite its occasional missteps,
succeeds at stretching the boundaries of the Lehn/Schmickler pairing.
Kolner Kranz
It is undeniable, however, that of the two albums, the vinyl-only Kölner Kranz is the
more successful and satisfying recording. If Navigation Im Hypertext attempts to find
new ground on which to stage the musicians’ collaboration, Kölner Kranz stakes out
familiar territory and then razes the surroundings flat, not so much building upon the
intensity of BART as sounding like several copies of that album being played at the
same time. The jump in density and complexity is truly that exponential. There is
hardly a single space to breathe or pause for processing over the course of this
album’s exhausting 36 minutes, unless one counts the necessary lull when turning
the record over (which may be why it was conceived as an LP in the first place). It is
hard to imagine a musical space more crowded and suffocating, and yet there is little
that’s chaotic about this blustery music. Every sound seems perfectly placed,
deliberately controlled, and the wealth of details adds to the complexity rather than
simply accumulating into a dull, undifferentiated roar.
There is life and passion in every inch of this album (and yes, there’s a tendency to
think of it in terms of geographical space, so tactile and three-dimensional is the
sound field the duo has created here). The sound is busy and nearly deafening, but
never aimlessly so. Seemingly separate layers — thick digital squalls; looped chunks
of ragged noise; insectile drones; clusters of percussive clicks — come together to
form a unified, overwhelming whole that continually challenges the listener to keep
pace. This is exciting, visceral music that nevertheless retains a carefully calibrated
sense of control." (Ed Howard - Bagatellen)
playing together for quite some time now, long enough that one might expect their
interaction to have grown a bit stale. They first turned heads (and scrambled brains)
with their Erstwhile duo disc, BART, an unforgettable washing-machine roar of an
album, then stretched and expanded their sound by adding AMM founder Keith Rowe
to the mix for the muscular musique concrète of Rabbit Run. It’s always been well-
known that both Lehn and Schmickler are more than capable of playing quiet,
sensitive improv, even with musicians whose range is on the threshold of audibility.
For whatever reason, though, their collaborations together (excepting a whispery
quartet with Rowe and Japanese minimalist Toshimaru Nakamura) have usually
tended towards the dark, abrasive, and deafening.
This new set of albums, one on CD and one available only on vinyl, aims to mark off
some new territory for the duo as they head into the studio as a pair for the first time
since BART. Navigation Im Hypertext will certainly seem like a bold departure for
those expecting a reprise of the last Lehn/Schmickler duo outing, and perhaps even
for those familiar with the broader range of their music outside this combo. It is a
measured, temperately paced recording, with a broad dynamic range; nothing here
approaches the cataclysmic roar of BART, though there are many frantic bursts of
activity to balance out the stretches of calm and quietude. In its style and sound, the
album is more reminiscent of early electronic music than anything either of these
musicians has recorded before: the processed squiggles and bloops sound
positively retro at times, while a few of the more obviously digital sections sound
annoyingly like outtakes from some kind of Nintendo soundtrack (or a 90s Mego
album, for that matter).
These hat-tips to electronic forebears can sometimes be jarring, but it’s not
necessarily an insult to say that the album owes a lot to early electronic composition.
The 10-minute opening track, which judiciously spaces Lehn’s popping, reverb-laced
outbursts amidst stretches of heavy silence and textured undercurrents of sine
waves and static, is one of the duo’s best pieces. There is a tense beauty to this
music, and to the best parts of the album in general, that brings to mind the low-key
synth musings of Eliane Radigue. At times, a thick bass rumble will underpin an
encroaching semi-melodic fuzz that threatens to (but never quite does) explode into a
full-on noise assault. Elsewhere, machine vibrations, sputtering and mechanically
rhythmic, give way to sine shrieks and modem hum, before it all subsides into a
distant foreboding drone, like stormclouds forming on the horizon. On the strength of
passages like these, Navigation Im Hypertext, despite its occasional missteps,
succeeds at stretching the boundaries of the Lehn/Schmickler pairing.
Kolner Kranz
It is undeniable, however, that of the two albums, the vinyl-only Kölner Kranz is the
more successful and satisfying recording. If Navigation Im Hypertext attempts to find
new ground on which to stage the musicians’ collaboration, Kölner Kranz stakes out
familiar territory and then razes the surroundings flat, not so much building upon the
intensity of BART as sounding like several copies of that album being played at the
same time. The jump in density and complexity is truly that exponential. There is
hardly a single space to breathe or pause for processing over the course of this
album’s exhausting 36 minutes, unless one counts the necessary lull when turning
the record over (which may be why it was conceived as an LP in the first place). It is
hard to imagine a musical space more crowded and suffocating, and yet there is little
that’s chaotic about this blustery music. Every sound seems perfectly placed,
deliberately controlled, and the wealth of details adds to the complexity rather than
simply accumulating into a dull, undifferentiated roar.
There is life and passion in every inch of this album (and yes, there’s a tendency to
think of it in terms of geographical space, so tactile and three-dimensional is the
sound field the duo has created here). The sound is busy and nearly deafening, but
never aimlessly so. Seemingly separate layers — thick digital squalls; looped chunks
of ragged noise; insectile drones; clusters of percussive clicks — come together to
form a unified, overwhelming whole that continually challenges the listener to keep
pace. This is exciting, visceral music that nevertheless retains a carefully calibrated
sense of control." (Ed Howard - Bagatellen)