Artists: Marcus Schmickler Hayden Chisholm
Title: Amazing Daze
Cat.No.:Haepna H32
Format: CD
Release Date: 8th May 2007

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Press responses:
On the Hapna website ‘Amazing Daze’ is described as a drone journey – and who am I to disagree? Many of you will have come across Marcus Schmickler before, and apart from having an almost Dickensian name, the man has wowed us with his work under the Pluramon moniker, most recently together with Lynchian chanteuse Julee Cruise (new album out soon folks!). Hayden Chisholm is likely a less familiar name, but his glorious saxophone tones have graced the records of Burnt Friedman and David Sylvain and many more, and he is also a renowned composer in his own right, so with this in mind there are no doubt expectations for this meeting of musical behemoths. Typical then that ‘Amazing Daze’ is possibly the oddest thing either artist has put their name to, and also typical that it’s pretty darned astounding. The thing with drone music is it can go either way – it can either be involving, exciting and gloriously haunting or totally boring. I’m well aware that most of the general public would call a good majority of drone music boring anyway, but there is drone and drone, luckily ‘Amazing Daze’ falls into the drone category (that works better when it’s spoken… trust me). Made up of Chisholm’s Bagpipes and Sho playing, processed by Schmickler and electronically spruced up, this is a veritable masterclass in the genre, no doubt taking notes from such milestones as Pauline Oliveros’ crucial ‘Accordion and Voice’ (which was recently re-issued on Important). With this kind of music restraint and subtlety is the key, and these aren’t skills usually associated with bagpipes (possibly the most loathed of all instruments?), yet the opening and title track (dedicated to drone king Phil Niblock) shows that even with an instrument this brash it is possible to make the most haunting, trembling sounds. The natural oscillation of the instrument proves to be an alluring focal point of the listening as you begin to take notice of every breath, every slight variation in the sound, and what should realistically be static becomes anything but. As the track becomes dissonant towards the second half, the mind begins to focus less on the dissonance itself but on the character of the sound, and how it plays with the original sound. The second track (dedicated to none other than Bjork!) is made up of what sounds like Sho and electronics and is much more obviously beautiful, all cascading harmonies and effortless twinkles, but never ceases in its philosophy. This is the sort of music that almost commands a certain amount of meditation, it is anything but background music and demands total attention – and if you give it, you’ll be rewarded hugely. Excellent stuff.
Boomkat

Cologne’s Marcus Schmickler is one of electronic music’s most adept chameleons, changing sonic styles with astonishing dexterity. As Wabi Sabi, he fused 1990s-era IDM with glorious, droning electronics. As part of Pluramon (by far his best-known project), he creates shoegazer inspired rock, working with David Lynch’s favorite chanteuse, Julee Cruise, to create a pie-eyed update of My Bloody Valentine. The bulk of his music-making, however, is as a composer of abstract computer and chamber music (the first recording of his chamber music, the outstanding Demos full-length, came out last year on A-Musik) and as an electro-acoustic improviser. As an improviser, he has collaborated with such improv luminaries as analog synth virtuoso Thomas Lehn and AMM pianist John Tilbury, and is permanent member of Keith Rowe’s all-star improv ensemble, Mimeo.

On Amazing Daze, Schmickler channels his inner Niblock to create a pair of inspired drones in concert with New Zealand-born composer and reedist Hayden Chisholm. Chisholm plays both bagpipes and sho, a Japanese free-reed mouth organ, which Schmickler then processes and layers to form the extended, overtone-rich pieces. Schmickler explicitly dedicates the title track to Phill Niblock and, while it is Niblockian in spirit, “Amazing Daze” is no rote aping of the minimalist master. Schmickler reveals the bagpipes’ ragged textures, as well as Chisholm’s inhalations, exhalations and the final deflated whine as the last gasp of air leaves the bag at the piece’s close. Whereas such rough edges tend to be subsumed in Niblock’s dense, pulsing compositions, Schmickler allows the seams to show, creating a piece that is rough-hewn, abrasive and blissfully haunting. It’s a magnificent, droning tour de force.

The second track on the disc is the wonderfully titled “Infinity in the Shape of a Poodle (for Björk Gudmundsdottir)” (yes, that Björk), which features the delicate, though timbrally similar sho. Whereas the title track was a monumental wall of sound, “Infinity in the Shape of a Poodle” is a more finely wrought creature, as Schmickler and Chisholm tweak and subtly manipulate high-pitched treble tones. It’s an uncanny, unnerving piece that is at first sanguine and meditative in tone, but gradually develops into spectacularly sharp, feedback-mimicking dissonance. Although it’s the less immediately satisfying of the two pieces (the slow fade at the end, in particular, leaves things rather frustratingly unresolved), the interplay of sounds is fascinating as they evolve from quiet beauty into cochlea-searing harshness. Susanna Bolle, Dusted

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