Markus Mehr isn't exactly the hottest name on the music browsing circuit as of now - neither is it a name you'll be finding running rampant on the major music blog search engines, anytime soon. But I hope (by some enormous stretch) to change that, in the form of my first Track Review here on MRD. Yes, that's right...me, reviewing a track.
German-born Mehr, is an ambient architect not afraid to spell out both his ideas and his visualizations onto a larger-scale than most ambient artists of a similar field. And to coincide with the start of Mehr's three-album release over the space of 12 months, 'in' - the first of three similarly simplistic states of being, follower 'on' to be released on June 21st, 'off' the third and final recording seeing the new year in on January 24th - sees Mehr spell out into two similarly-spaced 20-plus-minute compositions. 'Komo', the first track - and in conclusion, first half - of the album could, in some parallel universe, have been shrugged off as another bandcamp distribution where even the most audiophillic would find it difficult to dig up and even explore deeper. Well I'm here to tell you this track deserves far more than just financial credit, it deserves some vocal credit too.
'Komo', spanning a total of 26-minutes is a slow-burner etheral admiration of both progression and placement. Slowly creeping up from the silent confines of its initial build-up, the track unveils itself - a sweeping of droned violins and string arrangements alike sweep across in a repetition that is both soothing yet intriguingly unsettling. The source of this discomfort soon manifests in what begins as a bubbling of electric fuzz, buzzing and sizzling its way through the thinning of instrumentation that itself begins to collapse, break away...only to resurrect itself. But it's the electronics that take over here - the creepier vibes felt previous, now in full swing as the shock-like buzzes intensify into monstrous raws of electronic muster.
A track - and an artist - not for the faint-hearted, 'in' is out now. Check it out, sit back and...ahem relax.
~Jordan
