Ankern

“Certain albums have a unique ability to transcend their physical space. A rock album might convey a sentiment of excitement, a noise album crazed instability, but rarely can an album suggest something tangibly beyond itself or really pervade the physical space of the listener. (…) You will be hard-pressed to find a more apt album to invade and adapt to your space during the winter months, and I imagine that ‘Ankern’ will stand up equally well in springtime.” (Marc Gilman, Dusted Magazine) On his second solo album after "Mondkuchen" (Morrmusic) multi-instrumentalist Frank Schültge aka F.S. Blumm from Berlin presents again a multitude of lovely instrumental pop songs. Guitar, horn and trumpet (Harald Sack Ziegler), vibes (Patrick Leuschner), mbira, kalimba and toy piano being the favourite ingredients of his sound kitchen. The musical result is original in a way that the popular namedropping doesn’t help that much to describe F.S.Blumm´s music. Nevertheless bands and projects like Gastr Del Sol or others who work on the combination of improvised elements with pop-approved structures come to mind, as well as American folk pioneer John Fahey or minimal music representatives Pauline Oliveros and David Behrman for their similar sense of poise and release. “Albums of this unique tactile character usually catch me off guard, and F.S. Blumm’s Ankern is one such album. I was expecting something sparse but staid; a typical melding of analog synthesizers and live instrumentation. (…) The successes of Ankern reside in its limitless variety of sounds and diverse instrumentation. Whereas most instrumental albums find a distinct pace and stick to it, Blumm constantly shifts from deep, orchestrated Berlin-meets-New-Orleans arrangements to sparse Arctic sounds. These descriptions themselves evidence the density of the music – the need to describe it in terms of place, the shifting intangible emotions that the songs encompass. In practice, the music adapts to any variety of environments, and I leave it to the listener to experiment with this at will.” (Marc Gilman, Dusted Magazine)