christian löffler: mare

Mare is the second studio album for German electronic musician, artist and producer, Christian Löffler. Located on the Darss peninsular, overlooking the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, is Christian Löffler's log cabin, nestled among birch and willow trees where he locks himself up to work on both his visual art and his music. In the center of the room is a huge oak table, splotched with multi-colored oil paints, surrounded by canvases, cameras tripods, tools, brushes. There's a great view of the sea, and the wide patio windows allow the light to flood inside. It's these modest and in some ways rudimentary parameters that allow Löffler to make sincere and honest music. Mare follows in a similar vein to his debut, 2012's A Forest. However a key difference is Mare is much more organic, nearly every sound and every instrument being self-recorded. Many of the album's ideas are based on field recordings taken from the surroundings. On top of this, several microphones were set up in the room and left to run on for whole sessions. The microphones collected everything, from tapping, singing, playing, footsteps, as well as percussive elements added on the fly such as bottles, sticks, keys, or anything lying around. Sometimes he would open the sliding patio doors, where sounds from outside would blend into the mix. Among the instruments placed around the table were an old marimba, a mandolin zither, some self-modified synthesizers, and various other sound tools accumulated from his travels. For Löffler, another interesting aspect of the album is that it's the first time he himself sings on a record. "where the first album [A Forest] felt to just be on the surface of what I can say with this project, it now feels like that I've come closer to the core of what I want to express." The instrumentation, the setting, and the process, make Mare a highly individual body of work that sees him expanding the limits of his set-up. The LP features the highly emotive sound that Löffler's become known for, using deep house as a stylistic framework with which to base his tracks. Exploring spaces of emotional and physical loss, he blends wistful melodies, drum machines, and found sound into a wandering, melancholic mélange. Four tracks that feature the vocals of previous collaborator Mohna. CD version comes in six-panel digisleeve.