- Over 20 years ago, Move D, AKA David Moufang, started a jazz group. The other band members were Jamie Hodge, who'd made techno records for Plus 8, Karl Berger, a German vibraphonist who had worked with Ornette Coleman, and the guitarist Gunter Kraus. Their first LP was rapturously received—The Wire's Rob Young compared it to Miles Davis's In A Silent Way. Now, DDS has reissued its follow-up, Earprints, which originally came out in 2000. If their self-titled debut, released in 1996, had the loungey feel typical of the trip-hop era, Earprints is more expansive.
The rhythms on this album mark the biggest shift from the first. Some tracks have a jazzy swing, others have glitchy drums. The best find a balance somewhere in the middle. "Born Under A Rhyming Planet At The Foot Of The Odenwald"—named after one of Hodge's old techno projects—has a fidgety drum machine underneath plaintive jazz guitar and a vibraphone whose every note drifts like coastal fog. More unusual routes are suggested elsewhere. "Instructions" touches on drum & bass; "New York Mary Disaster" sounds like IDM in slow motion.
Once you get deep into Earprints, with its wandering basslines and punch-drunk vibraphones, you can start to understand why Demdike Stare liked this record enough to reissue it. Beneath the hepcat cool, there are darker undercurrents. "Strange Ideas," for example, has an unsettling lurch to it, while its vibraphone melody spills across the scale. The vibraphone is dominant, driving a mood that switches between vintage charm and eerie fullness.
Earprints hovers at the edges of various worlds—IDM, acid jazz, trip-hop—which makes it more than just a relic of its time. The album is a unique blend of jazz and downtempo electronica. Besides the melodies, its clear and spacious production is pure ear candy. That feeling of being several things at once while being nothing in particular is also key to Demdike Stare's music and much of what they release on DDS. Conjoint might now be an acquired taste. But whether you've got a thing for jazz, early '00s electronica or experimental sound art, there's probably something for you in Earprints.
Tracklist01. Earprint Nr1
02. Strange Ideas
03. Earprint Nr2
04. Walk On!
05. Earprint Nr3
06. Four Nine
07. Earprint Nr4
08. La Pluie Et La Seine
09. Earprint Nr5
10. The Joint
11. New York Mary Disaster
12. Born Under A Rhyming Planet At The Foot Of The Odenwald
13. Earprint Nr 6
14. Bar Rock
15. Earprint Nr7
16. Instructions
17. Deductions (Who Can Get Me The Phone# For Mark Hollis Or Tim Friese Greene?)
18. Earprint Nr8
19. Die Implosion Des Sterns (... Und Das Absolute Nichts Danach)
20. No Balls