Summer Kling

Although F.S. Blumm is signed to Morr Music, the German label associated with acts like Ms. John Soda, the Notwist, and Lali Puna, he is not an electronica artist, and Summer Kling is not an electronica album. Yes, there are sometimes soft, nearly inaudible electric bleeps in the background, gently percussive, but most of the record is played on organic instruments. It's Blumm's acoustic guitar that takes center stage, moving from the jazzy, almost Brazilian sounds of "Koffer Dill" and "Land Ab" to the sad and pretty longing in "Halbton" and "Wurf." In fact, every song on the album has that kind of poignant melancholy that never quite falls into depression but is never exactly happy, either. Because there are a fair amount of instrumental arrangement (horns, various keys, and woodwinds, all carefully diagrammed in the liner notes), the music on Summer Kling sounds a bit like both Sufjan Stevens and Badly Drawn Boy -- minus the vocals -- but less orchestral and less ornate. Not that Blumm's music is simple, but there's a level of sophistication that comes in its lack of heavily piled layers and dramatic entries and exits. Horns play chords and riff along with the guitar, but nothing is overdone. Everything is very purposefully placed and organized within the songs, with lots of repeating phrases, almost as if it were composed by an electronica artist who's carefully placing the musical elements atop and among one another, but because of the live instruments there's still a real sense of the organic preserved. The pieces on Summer Kling are all rather similar, falling into either the "quick and sad" or "slow and sad" categories (a distinction that becomes even more blurred as the album progresses), but they work well together, creating a poppy, lilting whole that manages to laugh and weep at the same time. It's the perfect soundtrack to any independent film, introspective and sad yet vaguely optimistic, which makes it a pretty good accompaniment to anyone else who's feeling the same way. ~ Marisa Brown