FOG by Audiokern, Samuel Rohrer, Andrew Nimmo

The agile, versatile Swiss artist Audiokern has put together a tightly focused body of musical work that projects his enthusiasm for a variety of genres, yet which is also colored by a peculiar ambiguity that situates him comfortably within a yet more interesting creative realm: the ever-expanding, restless, international network of artists who excel equally in building rhythmic structures and in crafting “cinema for the ear.”

Audiokern’s newest offering through his own Klangkeller imprint, Fog, is a fresh example of this tendency’s development, showcasing a coherent rhythmic drive and elastic groove, yet refusing to “give everything away” with an overly bright mix: seen this way, the record is best listened to as a series of incompletely formed environments whose exact features demand keen attention from the listener in order to be fully revealed. To that end, the additional talents of Samuel Rohrer (percussion) and Andrew Nimmo (saxophone) bring an extra degree of three-dimensionality to the proceedings.

The opening “Black Birds” vibrates with compelling noir jazz atmospheres, soldered together from fragments of cyborg electronics, saxophone and electric piano. This track calls to mind a host of possible influences (from vintage Cabaret Voltaire to mid-‘90s “illbient” hybrids), and is a most fitting soundtrack for an aimless, but sensorily engaged, stroll through an Alphaville-like atmosphere in which the present and future are indistinguishable from one another. Intriguingly, Samuel Rohrer’s “Black Birds” remix / reprise, appearing later in the program, is like an inverted image of its predecessor: it opts for a warmer and tighter atmosphere filled with hocketing percussion, showing the characteristic hallmarks of Rohrer’s vigorous style without distracting from the consistent, narrative feel of the full album.

The following title track accelerates the tempo significantly and, of course, makes good on that title, with a myriad of glimmering pulses and signals that announce themselves before tantalizingly disappearing into the tactile mist. It is another fine demonstration of Audiokern’s talent for creating an attractive ambiguity, as this network of mysteriously glowing sonic beacons may be signaling to one another or to the listener among them. “Wanted” extends the sensations sparked by “Fog,” with wordless snatches of voice fitting neatly into a sonic matrix of mixed techno-organic percussion.

“Set Off,” while adhering loosely to a “dub” template, still leaves several doors open for interpretation: the persistent clicking, plucked noises and synthetic breezes give it the sensory impact of a dense tropical forest distilled into a rhythm track. Audiokern saves the most kinetic, energetic moments on the disc for the final bow: the closer “A Dream Last Night” simmers with dark melodicism, yet again chooses to keep its secrets partially obscured. A final sample of film dialogue may provide listeners with a profound realization, that the evasiveness of virtual environments, like those we have heard up until this point, is a facsimile of the “fog” of dreams.

Audiokern, aka Alain Zumbühl, born February 9, 1984 in Switzerland, is an electronic music artist.

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