Continuing our Decade on Music coverage, here’s ambi-eared Guardian writer Erik Morse’s list, “in no particular order…”
1. Christian Fennesz, Endless Summer (Mego, 2001)
The paradigm of Mego’s electroacoustic “sound”, Fennesz’s ode to breezy, oceanic pop is a 21st century masterpiece rivaling the work of Brian Wilson, Eno and Kevin Shields. Tracks deftly alternate from pixilated seascapes to reverbed vistas. While the sheets of static and rhythmic glitches invite close listening throughout much of Endless Summer, it is Fennesz’s unique attention to acoustic melody that elevates this album toward a kind of blissful simplicity and an echelon all its own. An utterly indescribable musical experience.
Stand-out tracks: “Caecilia”, “Shisheido”
2. Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research Inc. (Basta, 2000)
The compilation release of the decade, Basta’s two CD treasure chest of Raymond Scott’s jerry-rigged exotica provides hours of bleeps, squiggles and zoinks. Collected from his upstate New York studio work in the 50s and 60s, tracks include radio-jingles, one-off experiments and the cosmic sounds of home-built instruments. In his sonic genius, Scott anticipated every seminal electronic artist of the last fifty years, from Kraftwerk to DJ Spooky to Aphex Twin.
Stand-out tracks: “Cindy Electronium”, “Don’t Beat Your Wife Every Night”
3. Gas, Pop (Mille Plateaux, 2000)
One of many monikers of Cologne musician and label founder, Wolfgang Voigt, Gas represented the vanguard of German ambient at the turn of the century. The final release in a series that included albums Gas, Zauberberg and Konigforst, Pop takes its titular namesake as its ultimate objective, delivering heartaching loops and Voigt’s omnipresent kkickdrum in an atmosphere as haunting as the Schwarzwald of Deutschland. Pop would also serve as an inspiration for Voigt’s massively successful Pop Ambient series.
Stand-out tracks: “Track 7”
4. Child’s View, Funfair (Bubble Core, 2000)
Drum and bass DJ Nobukazu Takemura might very well be the true heir of exotica savants, Raymond Scott and Danny Elfman. Child’s View, one of his side-projects, takes the Japanese musician’s love of heavily processed beats and glitches and combines them with calliope, vibraphone and other carnivalesque tones. Funfair sounds futuristic and retro, digital and phonographic, a testament to Takemura’s mastery of both cutting edge electronica and traditional pop.
Stand-out tracks: “The Cradle of Light” “Assi Que Dodo”
5. Philip Jeck, Stoke (Touch, 2002)
Plunderphonic turntablist extraordinaire Philip Jeck takes Dansette soundscaping to its most extreme in Stoke. Using warped and broken vinyl as his base material, Jeck spins obsolescent straw into gold. Rather than emphasizing rhythmic scratching and beat, Jeck improvises with tactile textures, swirling phases and haunting voices, then edits the results into concise five minute études.
Stand-out tracks: “Lambing”, “Below”, “Close”