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Jan St. Werner, "Felder (Fiepblatter Catalogue #4)"
I suspect someone could probably spend years compiling a thesis that contextualizes and explains the ideas, techniques, and inspirations behind Jan St. Werner's bizarre Fiepblatter series, but its overarching concept is apparently a simple desire to "dismantle genres." Last year’s completely bonkers and uncategorizable Miscontinuum took care of that objective quite conclusively though, so there was not much left to prove with this follow-up.  I am not sure if St. Werner would necessarily agree with me or not, but Felder is certainly a hell of a lot more listenable than its prickly, disorienting predecessor.  That said, it is still quite an unapologetically alien and uncompromising release, gleefully taking organic, orchestral elements and mangling them into a stuttering, splintered, and kaleidoscopic mindfuck.
Much like the Fiepblatter series as a whole, Felder is (by design) quite a difficult album to summarize.  The general aesthetic, however, can best be described as resembling a quiet chamber music performance that has been stretched, chopped, digitized, and otherwise mangled into near-oblivion.  The degree of obliteration varies quite wildly, however.  Also, St. Werner has no problem at all with departing from even that loosely defined unifying theme when the mood strikes him.  While it certainly makes for a disorienting listening experience (I feel like the ground is constantly being pulled out from under me), it is not an extremely jarring or unpleasant one, as the overall feel is more "ambient soundscapes with a lot of surprises and sharp edges" than "manic free-for-all." Sometimes, in fact, a slow-moving and completely unmolested melody unexpectedly emerges from the squall, like the mournful French horn theme in middle of "Singoth."  Of course, there is still all kinds of surreal chaos erupting in the periphery while that is happening.  In fact, controlled chaos seems to be St. Werner's muse throughout Felder and he delivers it in consistently inventive and vibrant ways.  For example, the end of the aforementioned "Singoth" bears virtually no resemblance to the beginning or middle sections, as it closes with a surprisingly menacing duet between densely buzzing and ominous drones and a rather sinister-sounding bird.
Given the fractured, constantly shifting nature of Felder, declaring any one piece to be a highlight is a dubious enterprise.  This album is the musical equivalent of that hackneyed regional joke about waiting around for a few minutes if you don’t like the weather.  Of course, the flipside of that is that if you do like the music, it is still going to quickly change anyway.  As such, Felder is best appreciated as a whole.  That said, there are a number of great moments amidst all the entropy.  The closest thing that Felder offers to a single is undoubtedly the all-too-brief "Foggy Esor, Pt.2."  At the very least, it boasts both a coherent structure and a strong melody, sounding like a slowed-down pop song crafted from a hollow, pitch-shifted koto and a steel drum.  Sadly, St. Werner does not expend much time or effort expanding upon that promising motif, instead opting to transform it into a gently twinkling electronic and cello coda after only a minute.  The opening "Beardman," on the other hand, might be the most fully realized and consistent piece on the album, approximating a woozily languorous collaboration between a jazz bassist and early Fennesz.  It still has a bunch of uneasily coexisting segments, but they flow together much more smoothly than elsewhere on the album.  Also, the closing 30 seconds is quite beautiful, sounding like a chorus of sea-sick, pitch-shifted flutes tenderly fluttering. I also quite liked the opening section of "Kroque AF," which sounds like a melody desperately trying to come into focus amidst a host of squelches and processed engine-revving sounds.  The lengthy, melodic, and unexpectedly subdued "The Somewhere That is Moving" is yet another stand-out, as its insistent, hazy piano pulse proves to be an effectively solid foundation for St. Werner's experimentations.
Given that St. Werner is completely unwilling to sustain any single mood or idea for longer than a minute or so, I would be hard-pressed to call Felder a great album.  It is quite imaginative and listenable though and it may very well be a tour de force of…something.  Unfettered imagination?  Mercilessly aggressive processing?  Unpredictability?  I do not know.  It certainly is not boring, but its excesses would be a lot more palatable if they were balanced by a bit more structure and a few strong hooks or rhythms.  This is definitely the sort of album that will be more admired than beloved.  That said, however, Felder seems to be exactly the album that St. Werner wanted to make, as his many sudden transitions into passages of sublime fragility or fleetingly wonderful melodies make it clear that he was in complete control the entire time.  The most likely explanation for Felder seems to be that St. Werner completed a perfectly enjoyable album of melodic, neo-classical electro-acoustic pieces, listened to it, decided it was boring, then decided to enthusiastically chop it to pieces.  Then he probably listened to that album and decided "I bet I can go even further!"  Then he listened to that album and decided "I can go further still!"  And so on.  That imagined process certainly makes for a highly original, challenging, and complex album, but Felder definitely feels like an album where the target audience is unapologetically Jan St. Werner himself.  While there is a lot to like here, it definitely takes some effort, indulgence, and patience to fully appreciate St. Werner's skewed vision.
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