I can’t get the story straight on this album for the life of me. According to its one-sheet, the Düsseldorf trio known as the September Collective laid the groundwork for Always Breathing Monster by going to their local Protestant church, feeding its hybrid organ with pre-prepared MIDI arrangements files, and then recording the automated “performance” that ensued with a few carefully placed room mics — a report that Boomkat’s product review corroborates. I’m tempted to take this intriguing recording-experiment-as-ambient-music premise at face value, but in the Collective’s own words (further down that same one-sheet), this record is actually made of “several improvisations as a trio, duo, and solo [played] on the organ and on the piano underneath the [church] gallery.” Someone at Mosz Records kindly emailed me back to clarify, saying that the Collective indeed played the organ and piano at the church, and that MIDI patches were then used in post-production to further flesh out the recordings. So much for a linear back-story.
In any event, it’s clear that this album is a product of some combination of live, improvised and “live,” computer-generated performances, church hall ambiance and studio sound manipulation, piano and “midified” future-organ. It may seem like a bit of an unwieldy title on its face, but envisioning that organ as an “Always Breathing Monster” is actually a pretty fitting analogy for the way the music sounds: like a carefully-doctored field recording of some kinda huge, lazy beast. From time to time, the thing curves its way about its dwelling, producing an unnerving series of creaks and odd noises — and if nothing else, it is always exhaling a symphony of strange drones and polyrhythms from its countless gills, pores, and spiracles.
As music, the results are a tad unpredictable. The kinetic, densely layered hypnosis of opener “Terzian” sets the scene nicely, creating a rich spatial sense that widely dilates and re-contracts for the remainder of the record. The roominess of the recording technique lends a highly textured backdrop to the strange bleeps, bloops, and static of “Zimbel” and “Nasat,” and a typewriterly pitter-patter constitutes the mid-record breather “Mechanik.” For the most part, Monster is one of those ambient records that can lend itself to unobtrusive listening-via-osmosis while also sustaining the attentions of a more attentive ear. But around a third of the tracks (mostly the shorter ones, thankfully) won’t be of much interest to even the most open-minded of exploratory audio-scientists, from the skronky headache that is “Prinzipal” to the straightup painful “Dulzian,” which feels a bit like getting old Band-Aids repeatedly removed from your flesh with damp sandpaper — while some Stars of the Lid plays in the background.
Hit or miss, though, the vast array of sounds found on this album is quite impressive. “Waldflöte’s” eerie soundscape resembles a cross between one of Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto’s more bit-crunched compositions, an old NES haunted-forest soundtrack, and the icy guitar figures you might find on Eno’s Apollo record. Though I’m not particularly keen on “Sasqualtera” as music, the woodwind sounds and didgeridoo-esque bass are pretty interesting — and I’ll admit to wondering exactly what makes that fuckawful sound on “Dulzian.” Regardless of how it was made or whether or not you love what you’re hearing, Always Breathing Monster will keep you leaning closer to your speakers.