On Sleepwalkers in a Cold Circus Belgian sound artist Koenraad Ecker creates a biotope of musical characters that is sober, delicate, complex and vivid, with a restrained intensity, a “cold fire.” The characters discuss, hesitate, fight, pull closer, push back. Through the use of microtonality and recordings of acoustic instruments it is the elusive sound of a somnambulistic travelogue. “I’m searching for ways to create an intricate narrative, switching perspectives and voices within one form, to use silences and hesitations, cuts and fast-forwards. I’ve used a lot of extremely close-up recordings of objects and instruments, I like the confusion they create by being intimate and menacing at the same time.” There’s a somewhat austere quality to this work; in contrast to the dark drama of his critically acclaimed first LP Ill Fares the Land, very few tension curves are allowed to follow their logical conclusion — they’re left just out of reach, intangible. Sleepwalkers in a Cold Circus seems to hang suspended in the air in a grey mist, moving sideways instead of forward, hesitating whether to let the listener through the door or not.
Shadowy electro-acoustic dimensions for those who appreciate the darkness of Mika Vainio, Valerio Tricoli, or Main.