schneider TM

Rare these days to find anything coming along that literally blows us clean off our listening pedestal and I’ll admit that the arrival in our gaff of a new platter from Schneider TM didn’t exactly have us scampering to the local bookmakers with our worldly possessions clutched firmly in our hands looking to wager that this was the promised deal. Not that we have anything against Schneider TM its just that previous visitations of his work upon our turntable have always proven – shall we settle for – a little light and leaving you somewhat under whelmed. But then having heard good things about his previous platter ‘construction sounds’ it was a given that huddled beneath the title ‘guitar sounds’ that this forthcoming outing was guaranteed immediate space on the hi-fi. And we weren’t let down in our expectancy, an initial blast of the first two cuts ‘landslide’ and ‘teilhard’ readily caused our synapses to buzz and fry to recall ‘songs from the nerve wheel’ by bill horist from a few years back, that said what set this 5 part suite aside from the chasing pack was the appearance of ‘first of May’ slap bang in the middle, coming as a brief respite albeit momentary it’s a wonderfully lazy eyed moment dreamily dazed that’s spiced in the thoughtful finger plucked intricacies of the late Jack Rose an before him John Fahey which albeit sculptured in moments of playful noodling and tomfoolery is all at once best described as considered and considerable. Five years on and off in the making, the press release describes ‘guitar sounds’ as the second of Schneider TM’s sounds series and finds Dresselhaus’ exploration of the guitar as a medium, testing its potential and limitations and into the process crafting a soundboard that freewheels between harmony and disharmony. Within these grooves there’s much to interest improvised sound scholars schooled in the freeform dissonance of the late 80’s New Zealand scene – Dead C, Dadamah et al not least on the cavernous epic ‘teilhard’ where the seemingly coarse textures are smoothed and mellowed in to a thunderously monolithic drone mirage that appears weaving snake form like through the thick smoky haze though viewed by way of headphones on full tilt the effect is readily more fractured and fierce some as it ruptures and ripples to tidal shards of bowed skree seas to feature what can only be described at its close as the unnerving arrival of snorting pig sounds. Somewhere else and again nodding with demurring affection to the aforementioned John Fahey is ‘landslide’ which for the best part is submerged in rolling lines of parched chime corteges whose surrendering sonic sereneness portrays endless desert scribed vast lads labouring beneath unforgiving sun scorched halos and which throughout its 8 minute duration manages to veer to the gravitational polar pull of both Montgomery’s ’true’ and Ry Cooder’s exquisite soundtrack for ’paris, Texas’ whilst subtly checking in on occasion to tim Hodgkin son’s ‘sang’. in ever sharpening contrast ‘elefantenhaut’ ushers in amid a darkly drawn and fracturing persona, ghostly and fragile as though faintly drawn in the serene cavernous confines of a prayer garden though it’s the epic ‘uberzahl’ that’s left to bring matters to ominous closure, a 17 minute dronal odyssey to which admirers of like minded alchemists such as expo 70 and Aidan Baker not withstanding a fair nod to the trensmat contingency will no doubt swoon to. Much like a shape shifting mistral weaving through the stilled bleakness of a twilight setting the application of a grey to an ever darkening palette is quite something, like the oncoming of a storm the mood is electrified with an air of expectant foreboding, reverberating bowed instrumentations lend something of a Tibetan like tonality to the proceedings before ducking under the radar and venturing off into the realms of some stoned out beardy hypno dream netherworld mirage, out there. Via bureau b in case I hadn’t already said.