MinaeMinae - Gestrüpp (MARIONETTE)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

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WHAT WE SAY:

Nice to hear Minaeminae back so soon, this time for Marionette with another, albeit less frenetic (& all the better for it) instalment of hypnotic, parallel dimensional tribalism. Ritual music for a new age of post viral, Pachamama praising, we not me, altruism not capitalism, societal revolution. It's time people.

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WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

Marionette starts off 2020 with Bastian Epple who makes music as MinaeMinae – a video editor/director by trade and off-duty he’s a wanderer of his inner worlds of music. On this album titled Gestrüpp, we hear MinaeMinae playfully scurrying through chaotic soundscapes on a tightrope. The sounds lying somewhere on the crossroads of psychedelic trance, exotica, ambient and melodic dance music – veering further off orbit with nontypical rhythms and dystopian percussive patterns.

Growing up in a small village in southern Germany, Bastian was never interested in kitschy folk sounds that everyone would mindlessly clap and sing along to, rather he took solace in the time he would spend delving into patterns and repetitions that pleased him. His guitar strumming and what sounded to his mother like a young Philip Glass on a cheap Casio keyboard encouraged little Epple to continue on this self-taught path of developing his musical language. He then started to experiment with a tape recorder and layering sounds with non-musical samples, which his former village friends found too weird – then to eventually working with a small freeware DAW. Bastian went on to study Media Art at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe – initially enrolled in music but the frustration and doubt of not being able to produce the music he wanted led him into film and documentary media. During his studies, Bastian was living with Florian Meyers (Don’t DJ) for several years where they would philosophize life and music into the wee hours – he encouraged Bastian to start sharing what he’s been quietly working on all these years and slowly emerge from this anonymity which eventually led to his first release on Human Pitch last fall.

Working a day job in the film industry as an editor, Bastian cuts films, TV shows, documentaries, and sometimes also directs films. He often finds himself more intrigued by the rhythm and emotionality of the soundtracks than the cut of the picture. When it comes to making music, Bastian has the freedom to intuitively discover ideas and structures within the instruments and himself. However, through his work as a film editor, MinaeMinae understands the musical material much like a documentary footage and he would cut it up, pitch, and rearrange it. Most of his tracks are a mix of analog, synthetic sounds and recordings of drums, congas, djembe, etc. and sometimes guitar. More recently, Bastian began experimenting with a modular and diy tape echo and delay - seeking more reduced and minimalist compositions relative to his earlier whimsical tunes. These different styles to MinaeMinae’s music production can be heard on this album.

Disproportionate forms, color changes, backdrops weaved into the foreground, all lay the dense earth for Gestrüpp through Benjamin Kilchhofer’s artwork.