Volker Bertelmann’s 11th studio record is an exploration of empty spaces. These are worlds that were built and once tended but now forgotten, with each song named after real abandoned places. Bertelmann says he was “interested in finding a metaphor for the inner tension I feel when I’m composing music, a state of mind where I’m lonely and happy at the same time”.
This tension begins with Elizabeth Bay and its stirring piano melody, which leaves a trace of menace that echoes and builds into a hopeful climax, blossoming out into a richly realised thesis that is as much about unity as it is desolation.
Bertelmann also explores a sense of fragmentation, and this is speckled throughout Abandoned City. He pays attention to the smallest details: the scratchy quality on the percussion and what sounds like a disjointed music box on the drone-infused, minimal free-jazz piece Pripyat, and the equally furious instrumentation and shapeshifting time signatures on Thames Town.
Who Lived Here 's piano melody breathes a dreamy melancholy, a compelling centrepiece to Bertelmann's vision of pushing the capabilities of an instrument and dissembling its sound. The effect is atmospheric and immersive, qualities that reappear on the epic, elegant Craco.
Barkersville and Agdam burst through with vitality and are uptempo joys. The latter's insistent rhythm crumbles into sharp, nuanced techno percussive patterns – interesting ideas that were signposted in Landscapes (2010) and Salon de Amateures (2011).
Sanzhi Pod City sounds like another release as it widens the metaphor further, with an eastern influence gliding in among the off-kilter beats. These are partly transposed to Stromness, with the prepared piano as a consistent, emblematic touchstone.
Bertelmann's layered recording techniques benefit an album so full of life it's hard to believe that the other instruments you hear, whether harp or balafon, are produced by his keyboard. Through this vision he has created an exhilarating symphony in places that previously knew only silence. hauschka-net.de
Download: Who Lived Here, Craco, Agdam
