more is less
Derek Walmsley
First up in April's office ambience was
Ricardo Villalobos's "Enfants", a minimal Techno masterpiece
comprised solely of a metronome-like hi-hat and beat, rolling piano
and samples of a children's choir. The music is derived, oddly,
from a piece by Christian Zander of Magma, and it becomes a matter
of fascination trying to spot where the loop of singing starts and
finishes (I still haven't managed it).
The treatment is so simple and elegant that, despite running for
all of 17 minutes in its full version, you yearn to play it again
as soon as it finishes. The 12" was hammered repeatedly in the
office in the run up to the April issue. Personally, I could
happily hide myself away with this record for a day or two to try
and discover its secrets. It exemplifies a trend that has developed
in my listening habits over the last year or so: as the amount of
music easily available grows exponentially, a reaction is a
corresponding fascination with singular pieces of music, whose
multiple layers can be unpeeled onion-like. Minimal Techno 12"s on
the Cadenza label have tracks that run for well over ten minutes on
each side, with endless tricks of perceptual acoustics that you
have to listen to and relisten again in order to grasp.
I can hardly remember the last time I listened to a recent album
more than 20 times, but I'm probably close to it with this 12".
Whether this yearning for simplicity is a lifestyle matter, like
the desire to have all your record collection on one handy Mp3
player, I'm not sure. But there is a desire to have more-of-less
that my obsession with this track reflects.
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