Andreas Martin & Christoph Heemann, "Memoirs of a Lepidopterist"

After being unavailable for nearly a decade, this sprawling celebration of Andreas Martin and Christoph Heemann rarities and collaborations has finally been given its long-deserved reissue. Drawing from early solo material, H.N.A.S. releases, various compilation appearances, and unreleased pieces recorded between 1987 and 2000, this compilation offers a very eclectic and oft-fascinating window into the creative evolution of these eccentric and mysterious brothers.

Robot Records

The first disc of this two-disc set contains the entirety of Heemann's 1992 solo debut, Über Den Umgang Mit Umgebung Und Andere Versuche along with a handful of Martin/Heemann collaborations that hint at a mid-'90s fascination with minimalism and early electronic music.The two-part "Die Drei Wege Ins Unbekannt" and "…Und Schritt Rücklings Ins Wasser, Der Aussicht Wegen" are superficially very different from one another, but all three pieces deconstruct and loop their source material into strong, pulsing repetition.The shimmering second half of "Die Drei Weg" is probably the best of the three minimalism-inspired works, but the first part features some charmingly aggressive use of water noises.

The solo Heemann material, unsurprisingly, gets quite a bit stranger.It begins with a chorus of chirping birds, descends into ominous ambiance, startlingly launches into some jangling disco guitar, slows into some Reich-ian drone, derails into a kooky percussion theme, and (most bafflingly) plunges into something that could be played during a figure-skating routine without anyone raising an eyebrow.Also, of course, there are some jarring jump-cuts, blasts of static, a rooster, and the requisite nightmarishly tweaked synthesizers thrown into the mix. It makes for quite a perverse, unpredictable, and satisfying listening experience—its inclusion is probably the most compelling argument for this reissue's existence.

The second disc begins with Andreas Martin's complete 1994 EP, Doppelpunkt vor Ort.I had never heard any of Martin's solo recordings before (there are not many of them), but based upon my hazy recollection of the one time that I saw him perform, I was expecting his work to be very acoustic guitar-based.Aside from "Bärenluder" and "Fahrradmusik" however, he tends to venture into some unpredictable and counter-intuitive places.For example, "Wurstfinger" is built around a repeating accordion phrase, some sort of pipe, and something that could be a xylophone (none of which are listed as having been played in the liner notes).Then "Hirschemöhre" seems to be almost the exact same thing, only played backwards.Generally, it is the actual substance of Heemann-related releases that is bizarre, but in this case it is the mere existence of the release itself that has me mystified: I don’t understand why Andreas has only released one commercially distributed solo work or why he would choose to fill it with brief sketches that seem to purposely avoid showcasing his guitar playing.The rest of the disc, fortunately, is filled-out by two significantly more impressive and fully formed pieces: Heemann and Martin’s "Die Nachbarn" (which sounds like a logical evolution from Andreas’s solo work, yet actually preceded it), and the lengthy opening piece from H.N.A.S’s hard-to-find Ach, Dieser Bart! album (which is quite warped and wonderful).

This reissue also features a couple of extra songs that were not included on the 1999 release.The first is "Fussgänger," a simple, reverb-drenched acoustic guitar piece that first appeared on the 2008 Brainwaves compilation.The other addition is an untitled work that was previously only available on the 1999 Memoirs of a Lepidopterist 10" picture disc.Despite being a mere bonus track, it is actually one of best songs on the album, featuring some ghostly drones and a beautiful and (rare) unadulterated acoustic guitar performance by Andreas Martin.

Being a Christoph Heemann release, Memoirs of a Lepidopterist naturally contains a number of thorny and curious discography-related issues.The most enigmatic is the fact that the liner notes state that the flanger-crazy "Nüchtern Fahren, Sicher Ankommen" was taken from the 7" that came with the Ach, Dieser Bart! LP, but there is no such song on that release.Also, there is at least one motif that surfaces elsewhere, as a brief snatch of Heemann's "Über Den Umgang Mit Umgebung Und Andere Versuche Teil 1" turns up on Ach, Dieser Bart! and possibly again in altered form on Mimyriad."Nüchtern Fahren" seems to have also experienced a couple of reincarnations.If I were obsessive enough, I bet I could find several more interconnections, but I suspect that there would still be a great many warped and unrecognizable recyclings that would forever elude me.I would have loved for this reissue to have included comprehensive contextual liner notes to help make sense of it all, but I suppose the fact that the brothers remain as enigmatic as ever is a pretty decent consolation prize.Memoirs of a Lepidopterist can be a somewhat frustrating and inconsistent experience at times, yet it is definitely a unique, surprisingly coherent, and oft-inspired one too (especially given the odds-and-ends nature of the material covered).

Samples:

• H.N.A.S., "Als Der Morgen Kam, War Es, Als Sei Nur Eine Nacht Vergangen"
• Andreas Martin, "Fahrradmusik"
• Christoph Heemann, "√úber Den Umgang Mit Umgebung Und Andere Versuche Teil 2"