For those who doubted that the electroacoustic trio Mersault (Tomas Korber on guitar and electronics, contrabassist Christian Weber, and drummer Christian Wolfarth) were referring to Camus (despite the fact that they misspelled Meursault), the title of their new disc – Raymond & Marie (Formed 107) – confirms it. Who knows what to make of that (could they be thematizing abjection or detachment in their music?) but I thought it worth throwing out there. This sophomore disc, a follow-up to their lovely debut on Quakebasket, is as dark and intense as one might expect. The superb Weber opens up the first piece with a seasick arco figure, with Korber’s whining feedback and Wolfarth’s bowed cymbals rising like tides. I love the contrast between the abstraction of Korber’s playing and the intensely woody feel (even occasionally idiomatic)

that Weber and Wolfarth get (the kind of thing that knocked me out when I heard them first with Momentum3 six or seven years ago). The opener works its way into a lovely, head-clearing drone that ultimately cedes to a truly intense feature for pizzicato and rough slashes of white noise. The feeling shifts on the next piece, dominated by sublimely ethereal overtones and a real oceanic feeling. Weber is in many ways the key to this music, spreading the sound around, changing pitch, or serving as a rhythmic fulcrum. But the group sound is ultimately what compels, an increasingly recognizable idiom that comes through whether in the most hushed passages or in the shrill nastiness that closes this fine disc.


Jason Bivins