Microstoria - init ding + _snd (Remastered) '2023

Tracks list

Oval's Markus Popp and Mouse on Mars's Jan St. Werner redefined experimental
electronic music with 'init ding' and '_snd', using computerized glitches to
guide enduringly gorgeous, ineffably strange sounds that inspired a generation
of vanguards, from Fennesz and Jan Jelinek to Pole and the Raster Noton set.
Consider this one a touchstone of the advanced curriculum. The digital glitch
was the background sound of the 1980s and 1990s, characterized by the garbled
data-speak of cassette-powered computer systems, the whine of the dial-up modem,
the bizarre skip of a duff CD and the inevitable failure of countless desktop
apps. Soon enough, these sounds made it into the era's experimental music, and
Markus Popp and Jan St. Werner were there early, sculpting stuttering bleeps and
garbled, bit-crushed drones into unexpected rhythms and hypnotic, era-specific
ambience. Microstoria's first two albums set the initial standard for what would
be known as glitch music, and even now - in an era where apps and consumer
technology might bother us existentially but rarely sonically - they sound
unnervingly progressive and startlingly bold. More than just markers of a bygone
age, this pair of albums inform a large amount of music that passes across our
desks week to week. The sputtering ambience of the 3XL/West Mineral set, or the
diaristic, ASMR-cracked music of claire rousay and Martyna Basta is either
directly or indirectly paying tribute to Microstoria's patient,
technologically-aware sound world. Popp and St. Werner smartly foresaw where
electronic music was heading back in the early '90s. They had seen analog
electronic instruments superseded by digital models, and watched closely as
computers began to reshape the way we composed. When they released 'init ding'
in 1995, they noted that thanks to software, the composer was now more like a
designer. A statement like that was controversial back then, but now sounds
prescient - sound design is a key component of modern electronic music, and
certainly the basis of muc experimental electronic music. And so the album plays
like a proof of concept, snipping digital, mechanical sounds from their
malfunctioning arsenal of gear and spinning it into rough, fairytale sequences
that sing from the beating, binary heart of their machines. Clunky, clattering
error sounds are clipped into percussive pulses on the elegiac 'Zuhause', while
early internet blips and buffering sounds are reshaped into placid drones on
'File Care'. Insectoid whirrs and pitchy whines make a jolting symphony on
'Communerism', and 'Dokumint' is the seemingly random sound of a computer
spitting out tones, layered over deep sub bass and stretched, almost
instrumental punctuations. On their follow-up '_snd', Popp and St. Werner
continued the voyage, lavishing the album with a candid shot of a T-Mobile store
- another distinct marker of the era. Now the duo sounded as if they'd been
submerged under an ocean of digital water, coughing and spluttering to avoid
drowning on the brilliant 'Teil Zeit' and spiriting deep basses and resonant
gong sounds with a dial-up burr on 'Per Formal'. At times it sounds like real
instruments contorted through a malfunctioning switchboard; 'Feld 1' is like a
recording of a fritzed elevator, with a broken phone receiver crackling in the
foreground. Plucked sounds might convince you there's a guitar, or ringing hits
might suggest a xylophone, but the more you concentrate, the more you realize
it's all just raw, blundering electronics. It was an impressive feat of
sleight-of-hand back then, and now the record's magic is even more uncanny: a
dot matrix printout from a long-shuttered web café, or the burned out
remnants of a rusty 200mb hard drive. This fresh remastered version treats the
original material with the respect it deserves, and if you're skimming this
site, then you should know that this collection is basically a set text. You've
heard the children of Microstoria, make sure you don't miss out on the real
thing.

1.01 - Microstoria - 16:9 (4:47)
1.02 - Microstoria - Slap Top (4:04)
1.03 - Microstoria - File Care (4:43)
1.04 - Microstoria - Ecclectrig (4:42)
1.05 - Microstoria - Fund (3:01)
1.06 - Microstoria - Zuhause (4:29)
1.07 - Microstoria - Edu (4:28)
1.08 - Microstoria - Pokus (6:04)
1.09 - Microstoria - Communerism (5:31)
1.10 - Microstoria - Dokumint (3:51)
2.01 - Microstoria - Sleepy People / Network Down (5:28)
2.02 - Microstoria - Teil Zeit (5:40)
2.03 - Microstoria - Per Formal (5:11)
2.04 - Microstoria - Feld 1 (4:48)
2.05 - Microstoria - Endless Summer NAMM (4:40)
2.06 - Microstoria - Work Place (5:07)
2.07 - Microstoria - Bpi (3:57)
2.08 - Microstoria - Quit Not Save (2:51)

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