We’re excited to present trans, the brilliant new release from German experimental ambient artist Markus Mehr. The album is available now via Bandcamp and on streaming services such as Spotify. The music of Markus Mehr is available for licensing for film, tv, web, games and beyond via Hidden Shoal. Check here for more info.
trans plays with the idea of change, movement and overcoming. And although the departure for something new also means saying goodbye to the tried and tested, the 6 tracks do not sink into melancholy. There is a radiant power in the electro-acoustic pieces, which aurally explore the bipolar positions between digital awakening and analogue past.
Mehr implements the transformation processes that are evident in culture, society, politics, sexuality, language, etc., by alternating his compositional methods and tools. In a departure from his other works, he uses a conventional piano, which significantly characterises the static nature of the album in three pieces. Long drones form the antithesis to the concrete piano works and distance the album from neo-classical music. Phonographs, found sounds, field recordings – Mehr’s favourite instruments – remain present, but play a more restrained role (than usual). Sounds are also microscopically dissected in trans, granulated, crushed and enlarged, refined and reassembled, but rather form the framework for the respective track. And it is precisely these sound experiments that give the compositions their very own dramaturgy and surprising twists and turns. Like an author, Markus Mehr places his sound actors in a contained narrative over the course of 40 minutes.
