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
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