Thomas Koner — La Barca (complete edition)

Thomas Koner is perhaps Germany's most significant ambient musician since the original Berlin school, specializing in subtle, acoustically precise environments, often centering around faint atmospheric shifting and undulations of sub bass frequencies only audible in the most quiet listening environments, and on the best sound systems.  Many of his skillfully composed works are rightfully considered classics, though it can be difficult to actually sit down and listen to them.  His music is known for its desolate, cold and arctic feeling, which has led to be it being labelled 'dark ambient'.

The original version of "La Barca" came out in 2009, and although I've been a fan of Koner for a long time, I never heard about this album until now.  The premise of the album is that Koner has taken field recordings from various European cities, and processed them with his characteristic methods into a slowly drifting atmospheric texture.  The 2014 'complete edition' includes 10 additional tracks to add to the original 12, for 2 total hours of music.

The album concept turns out to be significant because the ubiquitous presence of human voices gives the album a completely different feel than any other Koner recording; warmer, and more directly emotive.  As an English speaker, I understand none of what is being said in the field recordings (in several languages aside from English).  Really, I think that's good: on an ambient album, too many words could be distracting.  The tones of the voices are blended with the music well, the many emotive inflections of words and soft melodic undertones of speech revealing themselves in this disembodied presentation.

Scanner similarly highlight the intrinsic emotionalities of the sound of everyday conversation in all of his 90's work.  Richard Chartier, another musician known for his cold, impersonal and abstract minimalism, made a similar shift to more emotive and openly human sounds with his latest project Pinkcourtesyphone.  For the first time, Chartier's music focused on human voices and hauntingly romantic synth progressions, like being plagued by unwanted sexual dreams.  Koner's "La Barca" has this same uncomfortably personal feeling.

Koner not only employs voices, but pianos and strings.  Fans of Fennesz or Stars of the Lid will be pleased.  I was not expecting this from him, but it turns out to be a wonderful thing.  As with Chartier's work, the integration of the more concrete elements makes the music feel a lot more listenable, pleasurable and instantly memorable.  This does not require near the attention span of most of Koner's previous music.

As always, Koner must be praised for his attention to detail, cleverly pushing the limits of stereo sound.  On headphones, this is truly a 360 degree immersive experience.  The three dimensional position of every gesture has been considered.  The rushing vortex of smooth reverberation and rustling field recordings sketches a beautifully fluid and exact shape that could only be the result of mastery of craft.  In Koner's hands, the electronics are completely organic.

The voiceless moments there are, such as "Spitsbergen (Hour Eight)", are deeply effecting as well, possessed by rivers and murders of crows.  The zen-like natural stillness, filled with cleansing power, strikes an obvious contrast to the bustle of the civilized world with its ambiguity and lack of human feeling.

It is wonderfully refreshing, if sometimes emotionally draining, to hear Thomas Koner reflect upon the world of civilization in this way, giving us a curious and contrasting alternative to the isolationist natural soundscape he has been known to provide us.  "La Barca" is a somber masterpiece, the most personal work that Koner has ever given us, by a mile.  I would hope any fan of haunting ambient music would be able to see its value.

Fans who heard the original album years ago may be wondering about the 10 tracks of bonus material included in this 'complete edition'.  These tracks total 48 minutes of new music, and are stylistically indistinguishable from the original album, fleshing out the world of the original to epic size.  I feel this edition would be a worthwhile purchase for this material alone.