philip sherburne

Oktober Im Park

Since this seems to be the season of dire warnings, I think it is important to tell you that your fall (or your spring, you readers in the Southern Hemisphere) will be woefully incomplete if you do not swiftly procure yourself a copy of März's Wir Sind Hier, available October 25 from Karaoke Kalk.

März – the duo of Ekkehard Ehlers and Albrecht Kunze – make sample pop (or at least I think it’s largely sampled – the opening track on their album Love Streams is based principally around Nick Drake’s “From the Morning”) that’s flush with acoustic instruments and glowing, filigreed drones, and overlaid with someone’s – Kunze’s? – husky, whisperish vocals. It’s one of those rare albums that almost completely outstrips my ability to say anything intelligent about it, perhaps because its sense of pathos – a simultaneous rush of melancholy and promise – is so overwhelming. I suppose, given the acoustic instrumentation, many critics will rush to connect it to the “folktronica” of Four Tet et al, but forget all that. Forget everything when you listen to this album; just indulge in your most Romantic, sublime, teenagerish reveries of unrequited love and eternal life, and remember when an autumn wind or spring breeze filled you with a kind of joyful sadness you still haven’t found a name for. Seasons pass and unabashed adolescent emotions dull, but this is a record you could live in – bright-eyed, bristle-necked, and agog – forever.

(For a taster, you may download "The River" and "Blaue Fäden" from the group’s own site.)