Case in point, I've accidentally given my friends the impression that I really, really like minimalist electronica, which sounds a lot like I'm really, really into obscure czechoslovakian art films. Unappetizing and pretentious as hell. I really must break myself of the indie kid impulse to constantly whip out the most obscure aspect of whatever I'm listening to as soon as I'm prompted to even think about music. It's unhealthy.
Of course, I bring up odd genres in these circumstances because I do discover the most unlikely gems from time to time.
I was pointed toward German artist Pantha Du Prince's This Bliss, as I often am, by CMG's year-end top 50 list. I respect the publication, and their placing of an electronica album so high on such a list seemed incredibly out of character: the genre is simply not one that's typically considered compelling, or really anything at all beyond beautiful vapor. It's most often the place where I go to lose track of time, in the dark, at strange hours of the day, when paying attention is not preferred nor desired.
I won't claim an understanding of what makes a work of music "minimalist", if anything the music sounds complex and lush enough to shame many an album I've heard deemed "lush" and also "complex". I'll just maintain what's been applied to it as a work of art, in the interest of preserving the vernacular and not angering whatever gods might be checking on me. This Bliss is absolutely arresting.
Album opener Asha is as unassuming and attention-grabbing a mission statement as he's-the-whole-band-man Henrik Weber could hope for, wedding a glittering synth melody to a deep and dark 4/4 drum beat that builds itself slowly without losing any momentum. Weber's preferred synth voices tend to fall somewhere between plucky 80's new wave faux-piano and utterly modern xyolophonic resonance. The result is hypnotically alien and gorgeous to hear, and it speaks volumes about the artist's confidence in and love for his chosen medium. This is electronica fulfilling its boundless promise without any creedance given to haters. And oh, there will be haters.
Saturn Strobe pushes the album further, sinking a melancholy string refrain beneath the pound-click-snap charisma of a club-viable drum line. The sound is about as close to organic as I've heard electronica come to, something undoubtedly artificial to the ear that yet manages to achieve a warmth and grandeur somewhere within its swells. Weber knows how to program a tambourine crash that sounds like it's being struck with a goddamn whip: it's a sound he returns to often and one which brings a scintillating, skittering violence to his songs such that the pace never sags. The man is out to make your blood pump without resorting to hackneyed tricks or soggy house stylings. It makes the difference between a beautiful idea and an execution that'll hook itself into your bloodstream without mercy.
And it's a good thing the artist can do this, because these are long tracks, two of them extending past the ten minute mark, which don't so much progress as oscillate. Weber explores a broad expanse of jet black themes on This Bliss, without benefitting from words or clear borders, save for the omnipresent sharpness of the drum program. Late album highlight Florac veers close to shiningly obsidian dance floor bombast as it processes a resonant synth ode to pizzicato over and over again, but reins itself in repeatedly before it can boil over. The restraint that can be felt when the drums' pounding woodblock and precision cymbal tirade are hushed is magnetic, it presses the listener against the beating synthesized heart of the song and exults in its power to do so.
Penultimate track Steiner Im Fug and closer Seeds of Sleep enunciate the dual obsessions Pantha Du Prince seems to build This Bliss around, the former welding the slow turbulence of a downtuned bass to the prickly sensation of ecsatic techno embellishments, the latter lifting ghostly, vaguely symphonic synth voices into deep space powered only by the mesmerizing measures of an impeccable kick drum. This last track is particularly astonishing, something that wouldn't sound out of place on a post-rock record or as the last track of an art rock band's album, the kind of music less capable musicians would tack on thoughtlessly as the means to assure themselves that they are just totally out there, in the ether man.
The trick is, This Bliss is utterly guiltless, it holds the sincerity and potential of the genre as conviction without apology and delivers upon such promise. It's the kind of thing that provokes young boys to lavish adverbs all over their attempts to encapsulate what it does, and defies expectations with staunchly reserved guile.
And in case you were curious, that Stars of the Lid album is about the goddamned prettiest minimalist thing I've ever heard, and it's also something I think they could put in space ships in lieu of those freezing chambers you see in umpteen sci-fi flicks. It puts you to sleep with a power that is not so much grand as it is unnerving.
So, does anyone even make post-rock anymore? Now throwing that fucking phrase around will earn you a proper ass-kicking!
