Insomniac Wonderworld
After his highly lauded debut PurpleCoolCarSleep (2003), followed up by what
Rolling Stone Magazine heralded as "The most exciting piano trio album of
the year 2005 ", Bantha Food (2005), we are now presented with Insomniac
Wonderworld, the third album from Carsten Daerr's original trio of himself (piano,
organ), Oliver Potratz (bass) and Eric Schaefer (drums). Saxophonist Uwe Steinmetz
appears as a guest on two tracks.
Insomniac Wonderworld - the title allows for a lot of associations:
for example the world of sleepless creatures of the night, as portrayed in
Jürgen
Roland's 1959 film "Unser Wunderland bei Nacht" (" Wonderland
by Night"). The director combines scenes from Hamburg's nightlife with
the narration style of the American Film Noir here, so creating his own distinctive
aesthetics. With the music of pianist Daerr (born in 1975) it's pretty much
the
same thing: For years he's been expanding the boundaries of his music by harmonizing
the art of genuine American jazz with his German roots, finding his way to
his own expression, his own individual language.
The insomnia on Insomniac Wonderworld
is not one of nervous restlessness however; for Carsten Daerr "insomniac" means
much more a condition of heightened wakefulness in which amazement and wonder
constantly pop into in the present.
Carsten Daerr has retained the ability to marvel at things, and along with
that has the rare talent of literally playing between the lines. The impressions
from
his Southeast Asian tour aren't built into his works in the form of folkloristic
reminiscing, but as far-reaching directness and suspenseful dynamics. On songs
like "Manila", "Kuala Lumpur", "Singapur" and "Jakarta",
it becomes obvious that traveling is the album's central theme. Travel destinations
serve Daerr as the starting point for five of the twelve tracks; the atmosphere,
architecture and sound tapestries from these Asian metropolises are worked
into his compositions.
Daerr plays with the open structures of jazz, leaves the trodden path and
seeks new perspectives to describe places in Southeast Asia. The results of
this
cosmopolitan approach are such unique songs as the energy-laden "Manila", the
strangely impenetrable and mystically charged "Penang", or "Singapur",
that starts like a sixty's instrumental, becomes increasingly complex, and
suddenly ends up reminiscing of reggae and dub . Carsten Daerr, it seems, is
stranger
to no one and nothing in the world of music.
More introspective compositions supply the contrast to these songs, above all
the lyrical "Epilog (for my father)" and the piano-solo composition "Lucia".
These homages to people create a quasi antipole to the "travel songs".
A further caesura are the compositions drummer Eric Schaefer contributes to
the album. In the wild and choppy "Negative FX" he appears to be dealing
with his relationship to hardcore in the 80's, and on the seemingly other-worldly
track "Flatus Voci", the trio uses sound samples of a church organ,
among others. And finally, "R2D2 Reloaded" gives us a double recourse
to the past: for one the song has the same name as the cuddly robot in the
Sci-Fi cult epic Star Wars, for another on Bantha Food there was already a
composition
with the title R2D2 (Err-Zwo-De-Zwo). It's exactly this musical back reference
that shows what quantum leaps the trio has made in the last two years. And
how these nmusicians, after the Bantha Food excursion, have arrived in the
here and now - distinctly more grounded.
After existing for ten years, Carsten Daerr and his trio have not only delivered
the proverbial "difficult third album" as one says in the world
of music, but with Insomniac Wonderworld, have pushed open a door to a new
sound universe. And leave the amazement to the listener.
Recent CD:
Insomniac Wonderworld
and from Traumton Records' website www.traumton.de