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Bedside Stories - Taub | |||||||||||||||||||
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 I was recently introduced to Harold Nono's music by a friend of mine who was playing his last album To the River Lounge. As we were mulling over the lush textures and depth of what is actually very little in terms of complexity, I was unknowingly being given an insight into the aesthetic which very much informs his contribution to Bedside Stories. Of course of equal note and regard is the other half of Taub Me Raabenstein, who apart from being the founder / curator of the Nonine label is also well known for his prolific creativity as evidenced in a string of his own acclaimed releases. Their collaboration starts on the basis of their commonalities in art (they are also both painters) and 'discovering each others work via the internet', started working together remotely from Berlin and Edinburgh by sending mixes to each other. After a gestation period of nine months the album was complete and Taub was born. Though their instincts are very similar, what they bring together in Bedtime Stories is two different sides of the same coin. It is a work of haunting sonic landscapes and fragmented realities, glued together with precision and beauty. On a psychoacoustic level it lulls you into transcendental worlds of spacious minimal sounsdcapes and sonic cinematic journeys, which constantly resolve back to a single sound event or just quiet. The mixture of timbres is also interesting, particularly in Bed(track one), where a cold steely guitar motif is cushioned in bubbling soft electronica that just oozes sensation, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. What also seeps through at times is a healthy dose of plunderphonia, and whilst most samples are manipulated into abstraction, a certain Moloko sample stands out if nothing else for it's boldness. Still there's nothing like a good lawsuit to raise a profile ! With a heady mix of off kilter accordion, arpeggio like piano cycles, and layered Fripp-esque guitar, Backyard Maud the Fraudian Fairy is my favourite. As the penultimate track it also serves to take you into the farthest reaches of a somnabulists journey, returning to the waking world through quick fire audio visual collages of sonic rapid eye movement. Bedtime Stories is available through the Nonine label, which also features a host of extremely interesting releases and a great selection of artists videos. Review by
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