Mere Rum

Editor's Info:
Rumpistol's second album is in many ways a more demanding and challenging experience than his critically acclaimed debut from 2003.The melancholic melodies and warm harmonies, which played a big part on the debut, have receded into the background on "Mere Rum", and a more experimental approach to both sound and rhythms has emerged. Several technical upgrades have made it possible for Rumpistol to add an endless amount of layers to his productions. The result of this is a deeper and more detailed sound that neither ends up being too polished nor too bombastic. We find ourselves, therefore, on the (artistically) difficult border between pop and experimental music, and yet still "Mere Rum" appears as a homogeneous record where sound coheres throughout the album.This is heard, among other things, this time in the instrumentation which is characterized by the use of hand played instruments such as glockenspiel, melodica, kalimba, saxopohone and especially guitar. This, however, does not mean that rumpistol has left the electronica-genre in favour of e.g. folkmusic but that the electronic element is very much present in the way that the acoustic elements are treated. The instruments are run through the machinery, where they get cut up, tweaked, stretched and filtered in imaginative ways.The influence from the dub-genre is present on all the tracks like on the debut, and the rhythms are once again buildt up around dry clicks and adapted concrete sounds.Last but not least, it´s worth mentioning how the music has evolved from being downbeat to upbeat. "Mere Rum" might not be a pure dance record, but it is definitely more beat oriented than what we might usually expect from Rumpistol. Rumpistol BiographyRumpistol (aka Jens Berents Christiansen) released his debut album in 2003 on Rump Recordings and has played many concerts in Denmark and abroad since then.Festivals like Fusion (D), Norberg (S), Ekko (N), ADE (NL), and Public Service (DK) should be mentioned as well as different concerts at as different places as Mexico and the Baltic countries.Futhermore, he has done remixes and appeared on a split-EP released by the small Danish label, Auditory Designs, as well as different compilation appearances.As a musician, Jens Berents Christiansen has a background in the band Magtvark, where he played guitar, synths, and sang, but since he left the band in the year 2000, he has been concentrating on the Rumpistol project. In a review of Rumpistols debut album, Ken Hollings of the English magazine, The Wire, wrote: "Rumpistols work breathes fresh and open air with admirable confidence, knowing when to pause and when to press on. The balance between fleeting melody and hinted ambience is carefully maintained. ...Guaranteed to take you from the latest of nights to the earliest of mornings with the least amount of fuss." (Ken Hollings, The Wire, april - 2004).
DISCOGRAPHY:"Rumpistol", CD, Rump, 2003."Cph Jazz", 10" split-EP, Auditory Designs, 2004.Remixes:Analogik "So Many Musicians", 10" Auditory Designs, 2005.Magtvark "Freja For Fanden", 2005.Compilations:"D´storemix:2", 2CD, Virgin Records, 2003."Velour", CD, Universal Music, 2004."Lazydays & Sundays", CD, Instinctive Travels, 2004."Dansk Lyd", 2LP, ElectrAros, 2004."Rump Comp Vol. 1", Rump Recordings, 2004."Floating Point 2", CD, Iboga, 2004 "Down Beats", CD, Vistlan Records, 2005."Music From Denmark", DVD, MXP/ROSA, 2005."Pizza Jazz Music", CD, Ryralio Records, 2005."l'été abstrait vol. 2", CD, Abstrait Music, 2005.More info:http://www.rumpistol.comhttp://www.rump-recordings.dk