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Cisser Mæhl, “Innemuseum”(Sonic Pieces, 2023)

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This debut album from Danish artist/multi-instrumentalist Cecilie “Cisser” Mæhl is easily one of the strongest releases from Berlin’s Sonic Pieces in recent memory. Mæhl has already carved out an impressively distinctive niche. Innemuseum first began taking shape in the summer of 2019 when Mæhl made a bunch of field recordings while working at a mountain lodge in Norway (though those recordings would ultimately become a very small part of the puzzle). After moving to Oslo, she rented a studio space and eventually met some inspiring people who helped guide her towards realizing her unconventional vision (Jenny Hval, Stephan Mathieu, and the increasingly ubiquitous and versatile Lasse Marhaug). The involvement of the latter was especially surprising for me, as this album has the intimate feel of a bedroom chamber pop masterpiece conjured from little more than a violin, a drum machine, and an ancient piano, which is generally not where I expect someone from Testicle Hazard to turn up. That said, the homespun, elegantly minimal feel of these pieces is presented in beautifully detailed, crystalline clarity, which is presumably where the Marhaug magic came into play. I suspect this album would still be quite good even if submerged in tape hiss and murk, as Mæhl has a lovely voice and plenty of great ideas, but the fact that these otherwise hushed songs explode in vivid color beautifully elevates Innemuseum to another level altogether.

The opening “Menneskeaftryk” kicks off the album in strikingly lovely fashion, as Mæhl sensuously sings in Dutch over a backdrop of muted arpeggios that fitfully blossoms into swooningly romantic orchestral swells. The following “Små Ting” is similarly stellar, as a shuffling drum machine groove propels Mæhl’s playfully dancing melody into a realm somewhere between a seductive cabaret performance and the “haunted fairytale” aesthetic of Brannten Schnüre. While both pieces succeed primarily due to the strength of Mæhl’s melodies and the charisma and soul of her vocal performance, there are a number of interesting compositional and production nuances that make them stand out even further. The big one is that Mæhl’s vocals (and presumably several of the instruments as well) are close-mic’d, which gives every piece a sense of intimacy and physical presence, but there is an organic fluidity to the vocal melodies that feels wonderfully spontaneous and alive as well.

The structures and arrangements are similarly intuitive, as Mæhl’s songs feel far more like miniatures or poems than structured songs. That is intended as a compliment, as they do not feel sketchlike at all. Instead, it feels like a beautiful theme is given just enough space and time to develop fully and it does not ever linger around for long once that objective has been reached. Moreover, Mæhl seamlessly avoids recognizable pop tropes like verses, choruses, and repetition, as she can make pop magic in its most distilled form just fine without them (simple, direct, and refreshingly human). Of course, that tendency towards brevity understandably results in quite a short album (under 30 minutes), but it also means that absolutely nothing ever overstays its welcome and that nearly every single song feels like a legitimate highlight (“Banegård” and “Se Nu Stiger Floden” stand out as especially strong). Innemuseum is an absolutely gorgeous and fully formed debut.

Listen here.

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Jasmine Guffond, “Yellow Bell” (Sonic Pieces, 2015)

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Jasmine Guffond’s reinvention under her given name appeared a few months ago amidst a surprising amount of buzz and favorable comparisons to artists like Grouper and early Julia Holter, which is somewhat surprising for an artist who is already this deep into her career. I suppose those Grouper comparisons will certainly grab people’s attention and I accept that Liz Harris is a decent reference point in some respects, but Guffond’s not-quite fully formed aesthetic sounds like it is mostly her own to me (or is at least amorphous enough to make her influences largely irrelevant). At its core, Yellow Bell is very much a warm and lush drone album, but its appeal lies in how tender, human, and unconventional Guffond can be within those confines. While not quite a start-to-finish triumph, the bulk of Yellow Bell is indeed quite good or even sublimely beautiful. The buzz was not misplaced.

Guffond, an Australian currently living in Berlin, has been making unusual music for roughly two decades, which makes me puzzled as to how I have avoided encountering her work until now. I went back and investigated her previous Minit and Jasmina Maschina projects and enjoyed them, so maybe the lesson here is that I need to pay closer attention to what Staubgold is releasing in the future. 

In any case, Yellow Bell is a stylistic break from all that preceded it, which explains the new label and the name change. The amusing irony here is that Guffond is actually stepping away from vocals and guitars, yet now she gets pegged with the Grouper comparisons. In a general sense, Yellow Bell certainly has a Harris-esque mood of bleary mystery at times, but it mostly just seems like an atypically inventive drone album to me. The catch is just that the album’s single most memorable moment is the crescendo in “Elephant” where Guffond’s achingly melancholy, reverb-swathed vocals unexpectedly emerge to supremely Grouper-esque effect.

Most of Yellow Bell‘s other high points, however, come from either Guffond’s unusual aesthetic choices or her use of field recordings. In the aforementioned “Elephant,” for example, her distant, wordless Siren-esque vocals emerge from a warmly quivering synth bed beset by layers of crackling found sounds, soon disappearing entirely to be replaced by a heavy metallic shimmer and subterranean throbs.

Although the vocals eventually return for the haunting refrain, the bulk of the piece’s 10-minute trajectory works so well primarily because of Guffond’s intuitive and nuanced talent for dynamics, textures, and melody—her ability to manipulate density and seamlessly chain together disparate passages is extremely impressive. It is hard not to think of liquid when listening to Yellow Bell, as its defining characteristic is most definitely its fluidity and ability to ebb and flow from one motif into another.

Another highlight is the shuddering, pulsing, and dreamy “Core Notions,” which is kind of a production tour de force: not much changes structurally or melodically over the course of its six minutes, but Guffond juggles the various layers so masterfully that it feels like the piece is gradually being torn apart to reveal a harsher, more menacing interloper. 

“Useful Knowledge” begins in similarly blissed-out and hallucinatory fashion, but then a sultry, shuffling pulse transforms it into something that would be right at home in a creepy seduction scene in Twin Peaks…before it seamlessly winds up in a very different place altogether. Another piece, the double entendre-friendly “Lisa’s Opening,” is even more unusual, gradually shifting from something resembling sci-fi chamber music into a bittersweet reverie amidst ambient chatter (presumably from an art opening) before ultimately resolving into a ghostly, barely-there song.

Yellow Bell concludes with another epic, the complexly layered 10-minute “RR Variations,” which explores another new direction that lies somewhere between analog synth drone and Reich-ian obsessive repetition. It is probably the most ambitious, unusual, and labor-intensive piece on the album, as it sounds like there is an entire orchestra being chopped and sped-up by the end, yet it lacks the vulnerability and humanity that make the rest of Yellow Bell so great. 

I suppose that gets at what is so unique and fascinating about this album: its flaws and its triumphs are nearly impossible to come to a firm opinion on. When Yellow Bell seems derivative, it usually comes about in a fresh and memorable way; when it plunges into more abstract, comparatively untraveled territory, it sacrifices some of its character and ability to connect. The reason it all works, of course, is because Guffond is able to so organically drift between those poles and always sounds great doing it. That places Guffond in a curious no-man’s-land, as I am very hard-pressed to nail down Yellow Bell‘s aesthetic, but I was certainly very happy to drift around to wherever she decided to go.

Listen here.