J.G. Biberkopf - Fountain Of Meaning

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  • J.G. Biberkopf's debut LP, last year's Ecologies II, tackled "the way global politics shapes the Earth's ecosystem and the architectures and infrastructures of power." The music was grand in shape but lacking content. For its followup, the Lithuanian producer narrows the conceptual lens, and his music comes into clearer focus. This EP centres on the image of the fountain. As Biberkopf says, these once had a practical use, as a public source of water, but are now mostly a "sexualised architectural gesture" to the glory of "dominant ideologies." He links their perpetual "coming" to the constant presence of our own cultural history, more accessible than ever thanks to the internet. To illustrate his point, he transforms music from early in the Western classical canon—Catholic masses, pre-medieval music—into a diffuse kind of ambient. Biberkopf's ideas resonate with the recent "neo-classical" trend, which draws on this shared cultural history, relying on our associations around certain instruments and musical patterns to give insipid music the air of the profound. Biberkop's tracks are similar in some respects. The more angular bits of Ecologies II—drum blasts, jumpcuts, Hollywood foley—are gone, in favour of swatches of celestial voice and the occasional orchestral instrument. But compared to neo-classical's easy catharsis, there's something strange and ambiguous to these five short tracks. "Lake Symphony" is grand but absent somehow, shuffling furtively through a series of ideas. "Multiecstasis" and "Delirium" feature more concrete vocal melodies, but their structures are illusory, hinging on strange pauses and confusing shifts of space. For all this, the music is basically attractive, and Biberkopf's mode is inquisitive. His central question is, "What can be gleaned from this overflow?" and he seems close to certainty on the Aïsha Devi-featuring "The Illusion Of Solidity," whose kick drum booms and dramatic synth leads echo his past music. The tracks works as punctuation, before things get stranger again on "Dance Of Relating," which stutters and warps before diffusing into mist.
  • Tracklist
      01. Lake Symphony 02. Multiecstasis 03. Delirium 04. The Illusion Of Solidity feat. Aisha Devi 05. Dance Of Relating
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