Christian Naujoks

VINYL FORMAT. This is Germany's Christian Naujoks' self-titled debut album for the Dial label. A composer of contemporary music, a singer/songwriter, an electronic music producer, a pop musician or maybe a conceptual sound artist - either way you name it, you won't entirely grasp this artist. Starting off with a set of precisely-composed post-minimal pieces for piano and marimbas, flute and strings carefully recorded on analogue tape at Tobias Levin's Electric Avenue Studio, the album leads surprisingly and tenderly through a wide horizon of sonic impressions. From the indeterminate chamber music of "Two Epilogues" and the intimate vocals on the breathless revision of New Order's "Leave Me Alone," (re-titled "Off The Rose") to the subtle sound sculpturing of "Light Over The Ranges," which sounds like a neon-tinged sunrise, to the a cappella croon/Gregorian chant of "Bar 27," this release refuses to be defined, determined, or dissected.

Despite all the disparity of this release, everything is in its right place, like the broken shards that assemble to create a cathedral's stained-glass window. Other surprises include a simply unheard-of 12-tone R'n'B piece "Bloom," in which Webern, Can and Prince seem to collide to form a blutopian party, as well as a concluding, fuzzed-out, half-coherent tribute to Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."