The band is Albrecht Kunze and Ekkehard Ehlers, who should beimmediately recognized as having one of the more idiosyncratic bodiesof work within experimental and electronic fields, combining everythingfrom laptop-cut classical compositions to sampledelic drone-outs, tothe occasional micro-house cut. The diversity of Ehlers' previousoutput anticipates März's music not only in the colorful andcross-pollinated nature of the songs but in the playful postmodern waythe duo borrows from its most potent pop predecessors. Few peopledidn't recognize the Nick Drake sample that opened their 2002 debut Love Streams,or the Nico samples that formed the cleverly-named "Chelsea Boys." Ason Ehlers' gorgeous reworking of the Beatles' "Good Night" from Plays John Cassavetes,März samples become more than simple allusions. Their immediacy workswithin the musicians' patient and minimal mood-building to become akind of dreamwalk through hand-picked pop history. The mood of März(German: March) is a bitter psychedelic breath, a walk in the park aswinter is starting, carried through a synthetic orchestra of lapsteel,trombone and double bass. Ehlers' superb tech-house beats guide a vocalof frosty feel-goodisms, drifting into the stylized kitsch lyrics of Love Streams, but remaining triumphant and genuinely comforting. Wir Sind Hier is März at the height of their pop enthusiasm, though stripped of Love Streams'clever appeals to pop mythology. There's even one here called "The PopSong," a perfect un-ironic crack at that golden ideal, as concise andbrilliantly catchy as anything on the band's debut, without giving upthe air of mystery surrounding them. Extroverted though it may seem, Wir Sind Hierstrives for obscurity as well, its increased production levels workingas if in spite of themselves to blend anti-pop elements like theincidental sound clatter and pastoral field recordings thatcharacterize Ehlers' solo work. His tech-house tendencies take over ona few tracks, notably "Blaue Faden," though length and repetition donot harm the album's flow or its pop sensibility. Instead theseextended reveries show Ehlers' and Kunze's talent for making simplemelody sound instantly anthemic, and the duo's willingness to exploitthis becomes part of their unique appeal. Lazy folks will call März'folk-tronica', but the group means so much more to me. Their twoalbums are some of the most essential listening from recent memory,progressive music deeply rooted in the pop tradition yet explodinghelplessly outward toward a loosely-defined, though definite future. samples:
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