Anybody else find it odd that Tristan Magnetique
releases shrink in size as the number of said release increases? The first TM jam
was a triple cassette on Otomatik Muziek, and I wrote about it here. For those of you keeping
score, that’s release number: 1, tapes in release: 3. For 2, on Cosmic Winnetou (again written about here), TM dropped a double cassette
on us – so 2:2. Now we’re on 3, the
subject of these words, on Muzan Editions, and we’re down to 1 measly cassette.
Turn that into a chart and the line shoots up and to the right at a direct
45-degree angle. What’s 4 gonna be,
an unplayable half-cassette released Auris Apothecary style (perhaps filled
with sand)?
I only point out this pattern as an observation, not
a critique or a criticism. Because if there’s one thing you can’t do to a
Tristan Magnetique release is criticize it! (I am, currently, critiquing it.) Perhaps
that’s because Tristan is the alter ego of ambient GENIUS (and Cosmic Winnetou
label head) Günter Schlienz,
sometimes styled “Guenter,” but don’t let that fool you – that’s just for
people who don’t want to deal with umlauts). We like Günter Schlienz around here, and by proxy (and evidence), we
like Tristan Magnetique too. The fact that he’s finally paired with the equally GENIUS ambient label Muzan Editions
seems like a fait accompli, a match that was so destined from the outset of the
careers of each that the intersection is almost too banal to even mention.
For 3,
Schlienz pared down his gear list to include only a “Casio CZ101 and a few
effects pedals,” and with them he crafted another ambient dreamworld populated
by field recordings captured around his hometown of Stuttgart. It’s certainly a
psychedelic wonderland, the hypnogogic tones and soft-focus palette make for an
utterly immersive experience, and that’s absolutely the point – you want these
two long-form pieces to simply overtake your worldview for a while, to cause
you to float in a half-awake state until the line between awake and not awake
completely blurs. It’s easier said than done, but with Günter Schlienz at the helm, it’s easier done than said. And he
does it, like, all the time!
Also, Peter Taylor, aka MAbH, did the artwork for
this tape, along with two others in the batch.
https://guenterschlienz.bandcamp.com/
https://muzaneditions.bandcamp.com/
--Ryan
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