Jason Kahn Günter Müller
blinks CD 1552 Jason Kahn - powerbook cover: Nora Müller released 13.9.2004 
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«…They couldn't have made this record without having spent many hours dealing with the way sound decays after you hit an objec; Blinks' high, diminishing tones might issue from a laptop or a minidisk player rather than a bell or a drum skin, but they behave in a similar fashion. The duo also brings a rare instinct for apropos placement to the crackels and pops that course through the CD's nine tracks like the orchestrated emanations of a Geiger counter. Most important, Müller and Kahn seem to have a healthy respect for the fact that people actually listen to their stuff; process never trumps outcome. … The result is the most satisfying effort I've heard from either man in a while.» «Ein fantastisches Album von nahezu gespenstischer Dichte.» «Kahn and Müller both began as drummers. But this is about as far from Roach and Rich – or, for that matter, Drake and Zerang – as you can get. These nine improvisations (each a “blink”) incorporates selected acoustic drums or percussive devices, but modifies and abstracts them using laptop, iPod and other electronics in order to explore fully the resonating properties of drums, their unique sonorities, as well as the possibilities inherent in electronics improvisation. It is also a document of a lovely, satisfying duo music. » «…Another thing that makes 'Blinks' stand out from the crowd is the richness of the sound, each layer of which can be clearly differentiated. There's none of the shrill tinniness that characterises so much work with the new electronics. … For both Kahn and Müller, 'Blinks' is a career high point.» «What you get isnot what you may expect from two drummers. They have moved to anotherlevel with their electronic improvisations. Atmospheres are created and an eerie feeling is generated from the almost constant drone material. Subtledeep beats appear in and out of the landscape giving a feel of movement.…Overall the improvisations are incredibly delicate, subtle and quite anintense, eyes closed listening experience.» «You may or may not know that Jason Kahn and Günter Müller are both former percussionists and that, to some extent, they still use percussion astheir main sound source. In that regard, Blinks delivers a total redefinition of the term “percussion.”…the music on Blinks inhabits the room, turning it into a rocket ship command center where all the radar bleeps and equipment hums fall strangely in synchronicity, living at their own pace, in their own part of the universe.» «Two of the busiest bees in Switzerland are Gunter Muller and Jason Kahn. Both moved away from the drumming to playing around with electronica. Muller plays ipod, percussion and electronics and Kahn is a pure laptop player. And each of them has developped a distinct sound. Microtonal soundscapes that are always a bit ambient and which never is far away from the rhythmical aspect. Together they sample electro-acoustic sources and then start playing around with them in the realms of digital technology. … It's very nice, concetrated pieces of music.» «Both ex drummers, Kahn and Müller have retained very little of old instrumental habits as their music of today is more an imploding narcotization than a percussive course. Sustaining long moments of bliss while elongating their introverted vibe, the couple is methodical, austere and destabilizing; all the "blinks" walk a slow, undetermined pace where electronics control both the orientation and the intensity of the message. Muffled turbulences and morphing loops relate very well with our organism, leaving no space for escaping from this modern way of interpreting computerized trance. Yet the music is extremely focused, letting your will free to accept these new messages as already decoded, like if you were listening to a familiar lexicon. As always with these two guys, technically sound composition/improvisation is in cahoots with light touches of well-channeled energy.» in 2004-Highlights, Butterfly-zine |
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