Seven Horses For Seven Kings

Solo works by German artist Marc Richter are excellent explorations in studio collage of organic sound sources (analog synth, drums, brass, voice and samples with organs and strings), often layered for cinematic atmospheric effect but more often slathered in rhythms, beats. A lot of it gets “weird” if not challenging to listen to, but most is thought provoking. As the album progresses dramatic brass and percussion seem to raise their profile bringing to mind the bombastic elements of Laibach, Test Dept, Einsturzende Nuebauten. Excellent stuff from Thrill Jockey. With exceptions of a few samples, all instrumental.

1) (2:11) swirling weird synth tones, impending, dramatic 2)* (7:35) starts w chill low tones, then spooky sounds creep in, cinematic strings turns to a near Swans plod, grows dense and layered noisy, ends cold 3) (3:41) chill looping w heavy subliminal drones 4)* (6:21) cool synth tone then heavy looping 5) (4:45) chill w skronking sax and heavy organ. 6)*(4:55) big drama w brass, dense, with giant steel barrel percussion 7) (3:33) begins quiet sparse piano type tones and brass, cinematic 8)* (3:13) industrial feel a la test dept or neubauten, pounding, Laibach brass even 9)* (4:26) echoey cool tones 10) (1:58) pounding drums and trippy dreamy tones 11) (2:22) looped layered big drum, oh so Laibach w brass and percussion 12)* (6:14) looped synth arpeggios fade in then big washes of cinematic drama, a switch flips and it is super intense suddenly, wow 13) (9:42) looped layers come in and out, use of silence, then things build ethereally but dense, voice samples appear