Klangstabil - Vertraut

Title: Vertraut
Artist: Klangstabil
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 16th June 2010
Label: Ant-Zen



Album Review

Excerpts from a therapy session, where you’re laying your innermost feelings bare, aren’t exactly something you’re keen to share with the world normally. Yet it is what Boris May did when embedding them into ‘Vertraut’, which has become a celebrated closer at KLANGSTABIL gigs, I never had the honour to witness up to now. This acclaimed track now has been compiled together with an array of renditions and two previously unknown pre-versions of familiar material.

The intimacy and heartfelt character of these recorded moments are clear to anyone who’s only listened to the first words, sweeping along on spherical fractals, connecting to clusters of density. I think it’s taken a whole lot of courage to make those private moments public, but apparently it was necessary. The vulnerability revealed here and the seemingly striking distance make you hold your breath, not to disturb with anything here. SOMATIC RESPONSES now are going to shake the song’s fabric by tearing part of its build apart harshly, uncovering raw undergrowth. Remixes by Torben Wendt of DIORAMA are rare, but if he chooses to do one you can always be sure you’re not getting something half-baked or ill-conceived - as is the case with the ‘For a friend’ remix he did of ‘Vertraut’. It’s swimming in placid waters until there’s a persistent, eclectic beat coming, rippling the clear surface, getting spiced up with masterful, melodic riffs.

Not being a newbie to ACCESS TO ARASKA I could tell by simply seeing he’s contributing a remix that this was going to steer far away from ordinary structures and formulatic approaches, and I was right! With its complicated rhythm approaches, glitches and melodies it’s truly an exception amongst the stuff presented. KEEF BAKER rather opts for a more organic sounding variation. If it weren’t for those electronic bursts happening, you could call it a divergent view on calm independent rock. Also Daniel Myer offers a reconstruction of ‘Vertraut’. Not being shaped as much abstract as some of the other remixer’s works, it’s aurally rendering complex human emotions with beautiful melodies, taking the original lines as basis and enhancing them. The ‘Rejected’ remix by L’OMBRE does have beauty also, but disrupts it with fuzzy basses, noise and glitchy sound gimmicks.

You recognize things used in the final version of ‘Away’ and yet ‘Zweiter Schritt’ is not the same as that track, built much rougher and having another excerpt from a therapy session taking place long after the one heard on ‘Vertraut’, and things have inarguably changed. ‘Ein Schritt weiter’, the pre-version of ‘Beziehungsohr’, hardly could be more differing from the final product. The speech samples are still there but the environment has been drastically changed. ‘Ein Schritt weiter’ is purest ambient and ambience while ‘Beziehungsohr’ is forceful with both edgy rhythms and melodies. We could argue whether releasing a CD mostly filled with remixes is necessary and everyone would find points for or against, but fact is, none of the remixes sounds like the one before or afterwards and they have enough unique facets not to be  considered filler material to get the disc packed. Also both the pre-versions are nothing like their final counterparts. The bottom line: This collection is highly recommended!


Tracklist

01. Vertraut - Original Version - 6:33
02. Vertraut - Nostalgic remix by Somatic Responses - 5:34
03. Vertraut - For a friend remix by Torben Wendt - 5:45
04. Vertraut - Neural Chernobyl remix by Access to Arasaka - 4:30
05. Vertraut - Wizballs Out! remix by Keef Baker - 5:40
06. Vertraut - Ostball remix by Synapscape - 4:52
07. Vertraut - Renegade of noise Remix by Daniel Myer - 8:04
08. Vertraut - What do you want remix by KSDJ - 6:26
09. Vertraut - Rejected remix by L'Ombre - 4:28
10. Zweiter Schritt - pre-version of Away - 5:17
11. Ein Schritt weiter - pre-version of Beziehungsohr - 4:11


Line-Up

Various Artists


Website

http://www.klangstabil.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/klangstabil


Cover Picture




Rating

Music: 9
Sound: 9
Extras: -
Total: 9 / 10


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