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LP
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KEPLARREV 008LP
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Herbstlaub, the third album by Marsen Jules, was both introspective and visionary, modest and ground-breaking. Blending elements of classical music with electronic textures, the German artist created six pieces that draw on the power of repetition, yet are full of internal tensions and sweeping dynamics. Now, Keplar makes it available again on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2005. This version, remastered by Stephan Mathieu and with a new artwork by Umor Rex's Daniel Castrejón, shines a new light on a record that paved the way not only for the artist's later work, but also further developments in electronic and ambient music more broadly. "The noughties were a special time," says Marsen Jules today. "It felt like there was a new tool made available practically every day that allowed you to create new musical worlds on your computer." Hence, this prolific phase saw the emergence of a plentitude of genres and styles that can be traced back to individual records -- "precious gems that opened up new possibilities and anticipated a lot of what later would be picked up on," as he describes them. Herbstlaub surely falls into this category, having paved the way for a distinct approach to combining elements from classical and electronic music. While Wolfgang Voigt was focusing on the marriage of romanticism and techno with his Gas project at the same time, the six pieces on Herbstlaub follow a very different concept. Through repetition and reduction, Marsen Jules threw any sense of time out of joint while also inserting an emotional component into the music. "What would remain if you abstract musical contents to this degree, how much of your personality would still resonate in it," he sums up the questions that shaped his approach. "When will reduction result in monotony, and how could unique, magical moments created through repetition?" More than one and a half decades later, Herbstlaub seems both melancholic and brimming with excitement. This is the sound of an artist experimenting freely with the sounds and structures of two supposedly irreconcilable musical traditions with new and exciting tools, creating something previously unheard of in the process. All tracks composed and recorded by Martin Juhls. Originally released on CCO in 2005. Vinyl cut by LUPO. Cover art by Daniel Castrejón based on the original by Alphazebra.
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CD
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OKTAF 012CD
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Marsen Jules releases his concept album Shadows in Time on Oktaf Records Ever since Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain" and Brian Eno's Music For Airports, musicians have used different techniques to create music, which modulates on the basis of strict rules of varying over and over and thus emerges from the very moment itself. Thereby, it is the great depth of a composer's artistry to determine the possibilities, to define the fine line between stagnation and chaos, to sound the limits between monotony and cacophony. Following this tradition is also german ambient musician Martin Juhls aka Marsen Jules. For more than a decade, the sound poet has been reviving touching acoustic moments and condensing them to musical jewels. While doing so, he likes to compare his way of working with the approaches to abstract painting: The sound particles turn into timbres and tone colors that Jules arranges on the compositional canvas of time and space as quietly flowing snapshot. Marsen Jules has refined this technique more and more over the past years and has developed it further in every detail. Thus, his compositions vary on all sorts of levels and modulate in all ranges of the spectrum of sound, reaching deep into the granular structure of the sounds. That way, seemingly static sound structures are created and they vary endlessly, making every single moment absolutely unique. A simple process that is so complex in itself, that even modern high-performance computer systems cannot capture it. Shadows in Time is a generative composition that originates from within itself over and over again in unique forms. What, on the surface, conveys the impression of steady repetitions, in detail turns out to be a constant variation of continuous uniqueness.
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CD
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OKTAF 010CD
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German ambient composer Marsen Jules presents The Empire of Silence, an impressive soundtrack to the epic power and beauty of Nordic snow- and ice-landscapes. He sounds even more elegiac, warm, and romantic than ever before, which may be a result of a strict reduction to bittersweet symphonic string-sounds, sounds that Jules lets subtly meander on the listeners' eardrums, moving on the particle-layer of the sound-continuum. Diving deeper into the sounds than ever before, he lets the frequencies reflect across the sound spectrum with an impressive precision. Actually, there is not much space for real silence on the album. Instead, the epic sounds of The Empire of Silence seem to unfold their archaic euphoria best at high volumes. It's a euphoria that carries everything away and occupies the whole space. For the track titles of the eight gems on this album Jules refers to different words for "snow" in the Inuit languages, of which legend says there are dozens. While the melancholic openers "penstla" (the idea of snow) and "tlaslo" (snow that falls slowly) travel softly, the album raises to its full euphoria with "kayi" (drifting snow) and "skriniya" (snow that never reaches the ground). With its epic magic, the nine-minute "katiyana" (night snow) thrills the listener, while "naklin" (forgotten snow) brings a short inhale. The album finds its peak with the ecstatic glissandi of "chathalin" (snow that makes a sizzling sound as it falls on water) and finds its finish in the beautiful and lofty "ylaipi" (tomorrow's snow).
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CD
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OKTAF 009CD
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Following his highly-acclaimed album Beautyfear (OKTAF 007CD), which is still featured besides Trentemøller and Bonobo in the top-ten of German chill out charts, sound poet Marsen Jules bridges the time with the release of a conceptual mini-album on his own Oktaf Records. The two tracks on the 35-minute long album were created during a two-week residency in the legendary GRM-Studios at Radio France in Paris. The Groupe de Recherches Musicales is an institute for the exploration of electroacoustic music. It was founded in 1958 by composer Pierre Schaeffer, one of the main protagonists of so-called "musique concrete," a musical movement that focused on recorded sounds and sound manipulations as a basis for compositions. Therefore, the artists used tape recorders and record players as their instruments and widened the musical horizon, which until then was only defined through classically-known instruments. These ideas of defining every acoustic event as possible music and the approach to explore the individual universe of such a sound have always been a big inspiration for Martin Juhls' music. Therefore, it was a big honor for the artist to be able to work at this legendary space for two weeks in 2009. For the two tracks created at GRM, Jules dives deeply into the level of subatomic sound-particles. Clusters of string crescendos emerge from a nearly psychoacoustic sound-wall of warm drones in which they disappear with ultra-long fade-outs and reverbs. A touching work -- which has the quality to let the listener drown into it completely.
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CD
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OKTAF 007CD
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With Beautyfear on Oktaf Records, German electronic musician Marsen Jules delivers one of his most outstanding albums so far. Mastered by no one else than 12K label-boss Taylor Deupree and with a cover picture taken by the highly-acclaimed photographer Erik Madigan Heck from NYC, the best conditions are laid for a lasting experience of abstract musical poetry and touching soundscapeism. Jules has never been this dense, subtle and fragile before. All 12 tracks on Beautyfear were created during a week stay in a theater workspace on one of the hills of Lisbon. The panoramic view over the dusty city in Spring seemed to have been the perfect surrounding for these cloudy soundscapes, which at some points remind of Angelo Badalamenti's work for David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. "It's an album on the fragility of beauty," Jules describes briefly -- music that can neither be described as ambient music or experimental sound art, but more likely delivers a poetic approach to music and sound itself. With Beautyfear, Marsen Jules makes a great start into 2014 along with the already announced cooperation with Swedish filmmaker Anders Weberg and an upcoming release of his works from a residence at the legendary GRM studios in Paris, one should definitely keep an eye on what is coming next.
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CD
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OKTAF 003CD
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In 2005, Marsen Jules won over the hearts of many ambient enthusiasts with his CD debut Herbstlaub (CCO 023LP), released on the prestigious Berlin electronica imprint City Centre Offices. By that time, it was mainly Wolfgang Voigt and his famous Gas project who was associated with elegiac variations of orchestral sound fragments. Soon after its release, Herbstlaub helped to shape the sound of many aspiring artists such as Rafael Anton Irisarri and Deaf Center and was considered to be a kind of blueprint for the now-popular neo classics genre. With Nostalgia, Marsen Jules now delivers the eagerly-awaited follow- up to Herbstlaub, six years after its initial release. The eight tracks on the CD all have a strong taste of yearning and melancholia that picks things up where Jules left them in 2005. Even more than before, orchestral elements are now the center of the elegiac sound tableaus. These fragments allow the willing listener to get a small, but nevertheless intense glimpse into the unique sonic array that Marsen Jules is capable of creating. Desire, rebellion and mortality are the three central motifs that are explored over the course of the 43-minute running time. The opener "A Moment of Grace" transports the listener deeply into the musical universe of Marsen Jules by marrying fragile strings with sparse electronic elements. With its dramatic strings, the title track "Nostalgia" oscillates between stasis and motion, between rebellion and resignation. With "Shadow/Waltz" and "Endless Whisper Of The Old Brigade," Marsen Jules explores the darker side of his sonic continuum by painting ethereal, droning ambient soundscapes. After two dark and distorted tracks, the album finds its way back to its dreamier side with "Sweet Sweet Longing" and "Kunderas Dream." Finally, Marsen Jules releases the listener into a better, more peaceful world with the hauntingly beautiful "Sleep My Brother, Sleep." With his spherical compositions, Nostalgia offers the perfect soundtrack for windy spring nights for everybody interested in ambient, electronica and modern classical music.
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CD
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OKTAF 001CD
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The new label Oktaf is a platform for music in the realm of ambient, neo-classical and modern jazz. Marsen Jules presents one of his most important albums to-date -- a work of warm, shimmering ambient soundscapes, originally released on the Autoplate label in 2004, now available on CD for the first time and completely remastered. The Dortmund-based musician has been pushing the boundaries between ambient and neo-classical with his releases on City Centre Offices as well as with his contributions to the renowned Pop Ambient series on Kompakt for quite some time now. His music casts a delicate warmth that combines both digital and analog elements to create a sound that has inspired many artists over the years. With a completely reworked and remastered version, Marsen Jules fulfills his wish to release this gem from the back-catalog of the internet-label Thinner so that it will get the attention it deserves. On his follow-up to 2003's Lazy Sunday Funerals, Marsen Jules continues to work on his vision of blending otherworldly strings with fragile ambient sounds. The resulting compositions are reminiscent of the deep, atmospheric sounds of the Pop Ambient compilations, but in their minimalistic approach also pay respect to experimental composers such as Steve Reich and Eric Satie. The source material for Yara was the recording of a band from the circle of Marsen Jules' friends. After listening to it repeatedly, the background noises of the concert that were recorded accidently became more and more important for him: the tuning of an instrument, the opening of a beer can, the laughter of someone from the audience -- emotional moments that transcend the music itself and capture the very atmosphere of the concert. These acoustic fragments were afterwards digitally re-edited in the sense of musique concrète and then put together again to create a texture of elegant ambient sounds. The result is a highly personal sonic web of modulated loops and permanent tempo variations that have influenced many musicians in their creative output. The re-mastered version now impresses with an even richer, more complex sound than the original. In addition, U.S. designer Noah McDonald provided the cover artwork. Includes two bonus tracks not included on the original release. Limited to 500 copies only.
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