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Déformation Professionnelle . Paul Wirkus

 

staubgold 71
2006. cd . dl

When Paul Wirkus' previous album "Inteletto D'Amore" came out on the Quecksilber label two years ago, for The Wire magazine it was the most engaging and fully formed work in the field of glitchology to that date.

"What makes Wirkus such a master is his ability to show enough of the source material to allow the listener to follow the narrative journey of its processing, and to fit the digital shards and splinters which result into the music's total perspective", Keith Moliné wrote. "He never once falls into the trap of believing that it's only in this digi-scree that the art happens."

All this can also easily be said about the Polish musician's and Cologne resident's new work "Déformation Professionnelle". But that's just half the truth. Wirkus has gone a big step further. The glitch still forms the basis, but the result is much more song-structured than before, further emphasizing this sound artist's unique narrative qualities. There's hardly any programming here, with most of the tracks directly recorded live onto dat without overdubs. Melody has become the main focus.

Paul Wirkus

Paul Wirkus' background as an improvising percussionist still informs the pointillist perfection of his output, developed through a series of solo albums and extremely varied collaborations with Barbara Morgenstern and Stefan Schneider (Mapstation) as September Collective and the free jazz trio with Kammerflimmer Kollektief's Johannes Frisch and Mikolaj Trzaska. His previous musical history includes performances with Polish punk group Karcer and late 1990s post-rock group Mapa, which may account for his favouring a live, lo-fi approach to recording.

www.paulwirkus.com