"lightears" is the long awaited debut album by Berlin duo LEO MARS.
After a year of trial and error, a lot of sessions, sound collecting and analysation of possibilities a precisely crafted, yet astonishingly free floating album came to life. In times of almost infinite sounds, instruments and styles it took the duo some time to come up with the basic material, form a language and then of course learn to speak it. Hours were spent in the studio and their favourite lebanese restaurant discussing the world of sound.
"lightears" intelligently smudges the borders between a classic drone, an underground noise, a playful improvisation and an old fashion musique concrete record. All the genres fall into place rather unpretentious - pure sound excitingly assembled to challenge ones listening habits.
A harsh production always bouncing back and forth between digital, crisp electronics and field recordings pushed way over the edge.
With a rather minimal gear and set up LEO MARS managed to manoveur themselves somewhere inbetween a bedroom thrashing noise keyboard project and a theoratical paper score composer duo. Performing in a trance - allowing things to happen - awaken - making a conscious decision - slipping back into space.
artist: Leo Mars
titel: lightears
tracklist:
01 Hi. Are You Hau? // 02 Nova Finale // 03 lightears // 04 Transmutant // 05 Snake Figure //
06 Filthy Tongue // 07 Koalalalola
general:
naivsuper CDR 011 /
music by Leo Mars /
recorded in 2007 /
coverart: Stephane Leonard /
package: naivsuper Team /
www.naivsuper.de / www.myspace.com/leomarsmusic /
p + c 2008 naivsuper & Leo Mars /
all rights reserved
format: CDR
price: 8 euro **
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Leo Mars or formerly know as the Leo Mars Ensemble is Marcel Türkowsky and Stephane Leonard. Both have been playing, improvising, writing and recording experimental and drone for quite a while.
"Lightears" is a collection of seven tightly wound electronic and noise pieces with a sound harkening back to early Japanese power electronics. The material utilizes a range of sources: distorted organs, tape loops, short wave radio, to general hum, noise and probably various other sounds.
I am kind of on the fence here. At first I disliked this work a lot. It was too dense, too noisy and grating to the ears, but it took me a few listens to actually appreciate the form and manipulation of noise on display. My one gripe is that for a duo who have been active for a long time and obviously tested themselves across many projects I was hoping for more range to be found than what is on offer. Although I enjoyed many individual moments, as a whole it did not completely satisfy. I felt they slightly over-used their sound sources in too short a time. But having said that it is not that long anyway, feeling more like an extended EP. A smart move ensuring the tracks do not overstay their welcome. I believe with more care taken Leo Mars can expand and refine the techniques used here to create a better release in the future. 5/10
Zac Keiller (17 September, 2008)
There is no person behind this who is called Leo Mars, but a name they invented and which is hard to google. There will be the US band Mars, the star sign Leo, a philosopher, a beer and more like that. Hopefully also the Berlin band of Marcel Türkowsky and Stephane Leonard, who spent some time thinking what they wanted, recording improvised sessions and talking moves to make. Perhaps it's a bit odd that they come with 'Lightears'... One of them uses tapes with prerecorded sounds and the other has a synthesizer, a distorted microphone an 'a radio intercepting atmospheric disturbances', the end result is something that is not entirely to my satisfaction. It's noise, but it's noise as we know it. Merzbow cut short. Seven tracks in the range of two to eight minutes, with a more clear built, fade in -> noise -> fade out (perhaps the result of cutting it out of various sessions), but in the end I thought it was all bit too easy. Firm blocks of distorted noise, albeit with variation - thank you, god - but does it necessarily add something to this thing we call 'noise'. I am afraid it doesn't. It's very much a flat field they march in. (FdW)
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