Customer Reviews

From Here We Go Sublime

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As I mentioned recently in a review for Gui Boratto's Chromophobia album, it's sometimes difficult to distinguish the exact reasons why one minimal electronic release is better than another one, due to similarities in production and overall sound. Of course, in the end it usually comes down largely to personal perceptions that can't be explained, but other defining characteristics (because of the constructs of the music itself) are nearly always very, very subtle in and of themselves.

From Here We Go Sublime is yet another release on the Kompakt label that is nonetheless completely stunning, and for reasons mentioned above, it's difficult to explain why. The debut release from Sweden's Axel Willner, it drifts somewhere between minimal dance music and repetitive ambience, with beats that clomp along fast enough to fuel movement, but with enough ethereal qualities that you could simply put it on and trip out on the couch with it easily enough as well. Essentially, it's trance music of the highest quality, veering completely leftward of the cheeseball Global Underground crowd, and falling somewhere between the work of Kaito (also on the Kompakt label) and Wolfgang Voigt (aka Gas).

Willner actually has a few things in common with micro-sample sculptor Akufen, but instead of trying to wow you with his cutting ability and a frantic hand, he has pulled out hundreds of little heavily melodic snippets and stutters and scatters them across gorgeous expanses, building tracks slowly and letting them peak subtlety. The release opens with "Over The Ice," a single that was released last year to great acclaim, and for good reason. The piece is a perfect introduction to his sound, with micro samples of vocals that flutter over a relentless 4/4 thump, building basslines, and all kinds of subtle spacial effects.

With ten songs running nearly exactly an hour in length, it's also a remarkably consistent release. "Good Things End" is constructed as many other tracks on the release, with jittery vocals samples over a rambling, rolling beat and some sudden bursts of tweaked noise. Even though the aforementioned "Over The Ice" got his foot in the door, there are actually a slew of tracks on From Here We Go Sublime that are even better. "Everday" is a perfect example, again building with spiraling upward beats and slippery programming while bright, overlapping vocal samples push things higher and higher until the stunning ending.

At ten minutes "The Deal" is the longest track on the album, but doesn't feel a bit weary as it pushes forward with devastating low-end bass and sprays of overdriven noise. It's the closest thing to Gas (who was supposedly one of his biggest musical inspirations) on the release, and manages to sound both hazy and clear as day at the same time. An outstanding debut, From Here We Go Sublime is yet another excellent album from the Kompakt this label and a release that has gotten some of the most play of anything I've heard this year. If you like minimal electronic music at all, you must seek it out.

(from almost cool music reviews)

More than any other album in the past few years, From Here We Go Sublime reaches back to the "artistic" style of techno that was associated with Warp Records in the early nineties. Like the work of Autechre and Aphex Twin, it's very minimal. The music doesn't really have much forward development, and instead alternates between two or three different phrases for five to seven minutes at a time. Also like the work of Warp artists, the album as a whole seems designed for quiet contemplation, even though many of the individual songs are upbeat. The title gives away Axel Willner's ambition -- the album wants to be more than merely danceable, energetic or fun, it wants to be "sublime."

On the first side, it succeeds to a large degree. The first six tracks are very listenable and make for excellent driving music. Willner's secret weapon is the hazy production, which puts a slight hissing echo on the rhythms while keeping the volume low, so that they sound distant and mysterious. This technique appears on the first track "Over The Ice" and then is repeated exactly on "Good Things End." The piano in "A Paw In My Face" and the keyboards in "Everday," which might have sounded fit for some loud rave track in another context, are similarly treated. The effect is very hypnotic, drawing one into the rhythms.

But there's a big difference between Aphex Twin and The Field. Willner doesn't have the ability of Richard D. James to write simple but inventive and easily memorable instrumental melodies. In fact, he can't really write an original drum track either. Instead, he relies on the most recognizable, generic dance beats, which he then gives the foggy echo treatment. You've probably heard all of them before in popular dance songs. The unvarying pulse of the backbeat makes many tracks seem very similar to one another. For its entire duration, "Over The Ice" repeats the exact same rhythm in different ways. A cut-up vocal sample is brought in, but again, it just follows the beat. There are no melodic lines, nor does the track build up to anything.

And that's actually one of the best parts. The very insistence of the rhythm can be bracing, and after each occurrence of the vocal sample, there's a well-timed break with a chugging counter-rhythm that raises the danceability factor. Under the right circumstances, it's an enjoyable track. But it is limited. Even at its best, the album doesn't have the evocative power of the best techno albums, since it avoids so many of the techniques that make electronic music appealing in the first place, without really substituting anything in their place. Even Willner's use of samples results in less variety than one might think. "A Paw In My Face" uses a sample of a guitar from some disposable pop song, but then the sample is manipulated into a very simple two-note guitar line. As an earlier reviewer observed, the second it sounds like the guitar is about to really do something, the song ends.

The one exception to the ultra-minimalist rule is "Silent," which starts out very similar to the other tracks, but introduces a cooing flute-like melody (possibly a manipulated vocal sample) halfway through. All of a sudden, the track really does come to resemble Aphex Twin's best work. Instead of repeating the rhythm, the melody gently snakes around it. The end of the melody flows seamlessly into the beginning, and the unhurried repetition induces a blissful trance. It's also placed quite well in the album, as the culmination of the strong first side and as an airy contrast to the shimmering, processed keyboards of "Everday."

But as the album goes on, the music becomes even simpler and more repetitive, and comes to rely entirely on the echoing production for its effect. "Sun And Ice" goes back and forth between two different keyboard notes in the background, both set to a straightforward house thump. Pleasant as background music, but wearyingly long as a main focus. "The Deal" is a ten-minute succession of repetitions of one sample of airy female vocals, singing one note. Again, unintrusive and airy if kept in the background, but tedious if unaccompanied by some other activity. The title track is a confident demonstration of Willner's method of composition -- after playing a simple loop made out of a sample from some sixties song, he abruptly changes from the loop to the original sample, almost unchanged -- but the fact is, its sole value is as a demonstration. Once you get past the surprise of the old song's sudden appearance, the fact remains that there's nothing of particular musical interest going on. Shortly thereafter, the song ends with a bunch of spastic and not very graceful bleeps.

So, overall I tend to agree with the reviewer who suggested that the album could best serve as a repository of techno "templates." The album can be fun to listen to if you're in the right mood, and it's good as a complement to a setting. If you have something else to concentrate on while you're listening, and you tune into focus only periodically, you might then feel like the album lives up to its name. But if you concentrate exclusively on the music, it may be difficult to sit through the whole thing.

I had no patience for this album at first. It is highly repetitive and simple. I'll admit that I was bored. I gave it some more chances, though. I listened to it while doing other things as background. I highly recommend doing the same. The beauty comes out in the details. It is written on a micro-level. It takes some work rather than the typical instant gratification of a macro composition. You come to expect some of the detailed tiny changes that happen. The gratification is well worth it. This is beautiful if you give it a chance.

Please don't misunderstand my review title! I use music through headphones to unwind before going to sleep. I have yet to get through three tracks (starting at various tracks on the CD) before going to la la land. It is both sublime and redundant, but in the best possible way. Music like this used to come with a warning..."do not drive while listening". Not only is this musical statement hypnotic, it's down right as good as a sleeping pill to me!

Slapping the terms like "trance", "minimal", and "techno", may quickly dismiss this album's true essence. But these labels shine some truth on what the music has to offer. The album undeniably employs 4/4 rhythm, which, I suppose, classifies it as techno; its minuscule musical progression begs for the minimal adjective; and its repetitive and hypnotic structure, no doubt puts people into trance. But that's just on the surface. Beyond the deeper layers, Axel Willner, who goes by the name The Field, employs tiny sampled, hiccuped, locked loops, that create the music all on their own, as if the needle was stuck in skipping groove. Yet, From Here We Go Sublime is not a banging stomp of grinding beats that you may imagine it to be. In fact, it is relaxing and surreal; it is a child of ambient and techno; it is sublime. Landing the album on Kompakt Records couldn't be more appropriate for Willner. The German label has released numerous minimal gems in the past years, from Thomas Fehlmann, Gui Boratto, Klimek and Richard Voigt. And who could deny Kaito's skillfully approach to simplicity in his Hundred Million Light Years. The reviews you may find on The Field are mixed. It may seem that skill is underplayed, when loops go on forever with barely any manipulation, as if an amateur discovered the fun in Ableton's sample locking, layering and filters. But it is that minimal progression, the buildup without the dynamics, the riding trip into narcotic fractal, that works well for Willner, time and time again. My favorite track is A Paw In My Face, because at the end it becomes "unstuck" and my brain unplugs as if the switch flips off in my electric chair.

The Field mastermind Axel Willner came seemingly out of nowhere to do the impossible: up the profile of the already do-no-wrong Kompakt Records and keep the label's sound intact while giving it the twist nobody wanted to admit that it needed. In the same vein as (and on par with) Luomo's Vocalcity, From Here We Go Sublime could go down in history as the album that makes minimal techno accessible, without the need to add vocals or pander to a lower common denominator. But while Sublime is far from "stupid music," it's a refreshingly simple and aerated take on textural techno at a time when too many electronic musicians trip over their own mixer cords, and it thrives on thrust and clarity rather than on strained beauty. Pop music has always been about taking a few key ingredients and flying them to the moon. By looping only crucial elements--sometimes from his own machines and sometimes from others' (who knew that bits of '80s adult-contempo cheese could sound so wondrous?)--over basic kickdrums that highlight what's really important (the melodies), Willner has reflected the joy of pop on a record that doesn't sound like it's trying to win the gold medal, but unbelievably, undeniably does.

The Field's _From Here We Go Sublime_ seems mistitled, because sublime is already here. I had to admit, on the first listen of this album, I wasn't taken with it. After being so heavily hyped, I had expected something more mind-blowing. But on the second listening, that's when the mind-blowing occurred. Loop-based music is incredibly easy to make, but is incredibly difficult to do well. But Axel Willner, the man behind The Field, has hit on a stunningly gorgeous method: his stuttering loops create almost a trance-like feel to the track such that the variations, when they come, pound into your consciousness, recreating the track anew. So even as a track like "Silent" seems straightforward when it begins, it has morphed into something unrecognizable by its midway point. Even the opening track, "Over the Ice," has its recurring vocal textures, right before things suddenly go acid. But Willner also has some surprises: when the guitar loop of "A Paw in My Face" finally resolves at the end, we can hear the complete transformation of the source material into the blissful hiccups. The same goes with the ambient title track and its slow deconstruction of Motown. "Good Things End" gallops along with thick percussion, like a pack of wild horses across a boreal tundra, and "The Deal" takes a similar aggressive stance before thundering itself into a spacious territory. "The Little Heart Beats So Fast" takes a little expression of pleasure and acidifies it into a full-fledged groover, while the brightness of "Everyday" swings into something new with the introduction of the vocals before it returns to the opening motif. The standout track, "Sun & Ice," has such a richness of sound that it seems to glow in the consciousness, even as it suddenly decays and resumes. _From Here We Go Sublime_ offers so many pleasures that one can return to it again and again, each time discovering new things.

I'm not going to prattle on and on and try to sound like an expert like a lot of Amazon reviewers seem to like to do. All I'm going to say about this album is this: it is phenomenal. There you go...

Slapping the terms like "trance", "minimal", and "techno", may quickly dismiss this album's true essence. But these labels shine some truth on what the music has to offer. The album undeniably employs 4/4 rhythm, which, I suppose, classifies it as techno; its minuscule musical progression begs for the minimal adjective; and its repetitive and hypnotic structure, no doubt puts people into trance. But that's just on the surface. Beyond the deeper layers, Axel Willner, who goes by the name The Field, employs tiny sampled, hiccuped, locked loops, that create the music all on their own, as if the needle was stuck in skipping groove. Yet, From Here We Go Sublime is not a banging stomp of grinding beats that you may imagine it to be. In fact, it is relaxing and surreal; it is a child of ambient and techno; it is sublime. Landing the album on Kompakt Records couldn't be more appropriate for Willner. The German label has released numerous minimal gems in the past years, from Thomas Fehlmann, Gui Boratto, Klimek and Richard Voigt. And who could deny Kaito's skillfully approach to simplicity in his Hundred Million Light Years. The reviews you may find on The Field are mixed. It may seem that skill is underplayed, when loops go on forever with barely any manipulation, as if an amateur discovered the fun in Ableton's sample locking, layering and filters. But it is that minimal progression, the buildup without the dynamics, the riding trip into narcotic fractal, that works well for Willner, time and time again. My favorite track is A Paw In My Face, because at the end it becomes "unstuck" and my brain unplugs as if the switch flips off in my electric chair.

I was leery when I saw that Pitchfork Media, that bastion of scenester fashionability staffed by stiff-jointed, tone-deaf English majors, gave this album a 9.0. Turns out my misapprehension was well-founded. "From Here We Go Sublime" is a surprisingly lukewarm, redundant release from the frequently above-par Kompakt label.

The main disappointment is that there is no sense of build-up or progression to be found on this disc: tracks start in media res, already plateauing, and remain more or less at the same keel for 6+ minutes. Even the most cliché-ridden, club-tailored music has a basic sense of progression, of build and release. The songs on this album sound like the middles of other songs, with intros, outros, bridges, breaks etc. surgically removed. Without any relief from this midtempo monotony, the tracks come off as suffocatingly repetitive rather than entrancing.

For a minimal house/techno effort, I was hoping at least for some clever sound design, but in that regard the album disappoints as well. There is a dearth of knob-twiddling and production wizardry in evidence, leaving the tracks sounding decidedly one-dimensional and two decades out of date.

It's difficult to discern what accounts for this album's esteem amongst self-proclaimed indie scenesters, though my suspicion is that the album/group names have more than a little to do with it. (My initial assumption based on these names was that this was some twee, lo-fi indie rock disc by a New England duo.)

There's so much better, smarter, more fun and more soulful electronic music out there that it baffles me why anyone would waste time on this, as opposed to picking up, say, Sasha's Airdrawndagger, a melodic minimal techno-ish set that runs rings around "From Here We Go Sublime" and predates it by half a decade.