seven

there are a few reasons why I like this record (and I do like it). first of all, the sound of “kopyright liberation” is a lot more cohesive and actually more structured than early squaremeter (or panacea’s contribution to “architettura” series for that matter). second, the conceptualism and the whole idea of recycling and using other sounds, presenting them in a different light, transformed through squaremeter’s vision, starts making more and more sense seeing how consistently and with more and more creativity this gets executed. after all, it’s interesting to see how this whole chain of “sample-use-reuse” gets built and how people react to different reincarnations of the sound, sometimes not even realizing that what they though was original is indeed just a transformed and processed version of something else. and the final reason was probably the fact that gradually I grew to like the minimalism and inhuman precision of this genre. it did take me some time, and I still cannot listen to releases a la early squaremeter constantly and at any time. i leave them as an exquisite treat, a sort of mind gymnastics that fascinates and at the same time is too distant and cold to cause any powerful emotion.

clicks, cuts, analog bleeps and skips are still present, but now they sink into a dark mass filled with sparse industrial humming and rhythms, vocal samples, distant strings and cold echoing frequencies with occasional cohesive and minimal percussion. the use of those sparse cut-up noises is a lot less and less radical than previous squaremeter album. here it serves more as a constant reminder of the inhuman, assembled nature of the music, at the same time contrasting more organic ambience of the tracks where strings and vocal samples build more familiar textures that exist in short spans, fading out into timeless void filled with swirling small noises, never ending bleeps, occasional percussion textures, and analog drops.

what appeals to me most on this album is the unusual constant presence of controlled, minimal side of squaremeter that contrasts atmospheric music parts, that never become the main focus of the music, serving as a passing episode in an unfolding mysterious sequence of short fragments floating in the dimensionless artificial space. tracks like “trancentral” happen to remind me of calder’s mobiles. beginning of “trancentral” is filled with abrupt, finite and perfect clicks and cuts that slide, stop, balance and pause, building a precisely balanced structure connected with elegant long curves of cold strings and atmospheric washes. later on it starts its movement obeying the force of tidal waves of minimal percussion and growing string movements. the mobile in motion is slowly changing shapes and colors, remaining perfectly balanced at any point in time by precise touches of short bleeps and clicks.

on the other hand, tracks like “ru con” are blossoming with beautiful chorus movements and melodic passages built on top of steady flowing percussion. the combination of familiar clicks, pan sonic-like static humming, pauses and ethereal quality of chorus and percussion was simply stunning and unbelievably, unexpectedly… melodic and even emotional.

at this point I do not even want to get any deeper into the conceptual side of the record; that is yet another substantial layer offering more food for thought, emphasizing the “music for the mind” appeal of squaremeter. also the “guess this sample” game could be left as an exercise for the reader… uh, listener...