EVA GEIST
“Äquator System”
(Elestial Sound)




Oh yes – this is music for European nomads. I’ve been told that somewhere. Where? Liners. Duh. On the Bandcamp. It’s where you learn everything. But European nomads is the vibe, and the vibe takes you along with it, on its journey, till you end up in Berlin at some co-op and you get involved in the underground electronic nightlife scene, which is all black and goth and nocturnal. It’s just how we understand Berlin, those of us who have never been there, and maybe even those of us who have been there as well. (I fall under the former category, unfortunately, so all my knowledge is secondhand.) But this Eva Geist character, whose real name is Andrea Noce (but no way of telling what she writes when signing in to a national park register), just sauntered into town one day with a laptop full of synthesized music that she just had to share with everybody, and we should all be wildly grateful that she did, because even though a majority of it is downtempo, there’s a lot to be said about the introspective quality of tunage of this stripe when it’s pumped into your headphones on cloudy winter days. Isn’t every day a cloudy winter day in Berlin? I spent many a cloudy winter day wandering around London, and Eva Geist’s music would have been perfect then. (She was probably still in junior high or something when I was in London.) I imagine Berlin takes on a similar aura. Each of Äquator System’s tracks wants to accompany you in its own way; each clamors for the rewind and repeat treatment, and I’d give it to them if I didn’t have to get on to the next track. “No, ‘Vernal Equinox,’ I love you and all, but I really have to push forward to the title track.” Dejected, “Vernal Equinox” sinks into the background, but hey, I’ll get back to it in a little less than a half hour. Because I’m going to press play again on this thing when it’s over, and I may even get into this European nomad spirit and jet off to the continent one of these days. Ah, who am I kidding – I’m an adult, those spur-of-the-moment post-university jaunts have to be relegated to the past. Too many things to plan these days. Kind of sad, really. I’ll live vicariously through Äquator System, then. It’s totally worth it.




--Ryan Masteller