02 March 2011

Marcus Fischer - monocoastal (2010, 12k)

"Monocoastal" fits perfectly in the 12k catalogue as a perfect disciple of some explorations and areas previously opened by Taylor Deupree.

You could sleep peacefully while this record is played, with no risk to be suddenly wakened, a patient morning walk, on your way to work, under heavy fog. 

Marcus Fischer mixes discreet field recordings with instrumentation (for a good part played on found instruments) and processing and never let's on track or one moment focus too much attention, to the point that this album seems almost anonymous or at least like the production or the expression of an aural environment most than something deliberately composed as each fragment seems isolated with limited communication to the rest of the tracks.

There is something bleak, like the pale lights of late winter,  hesitating between coldness and the first illusions of spring., knowing that the fog can only turn into drizzle. It's a really nice record, the sound quality is almost glowing at times, but I was hoping for more intensity or clarity and after having listened to it almost twenty times I've exhausted the craftsmanship and I'm left wishing for a more global view or more undercurrents. It's the same kind of feelings I experience about most of Taylor Deupree solo discography or about Sawako until her album "Yours Gray", before she moved towards something more emotional and haunted.  I think my problem is probably there, Marcus Fisher works hard to be an absent presence on "Monocoastal", haunting his music instead of making it haunted.

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