Moritz Von Oswald Trio – Horizontal Structures

I just purchased a copy from hhv and I was sad to find that both discs play with a background sound from the beginning, before each track starts, until the end. Is this something that has been done on purpose or is my copy problematic?

The comments below are not reflective of the brilliance of this production. Light up, get comfortable and prepared to enter the realm of Moritz Von Oswald. 10/10

check out Marcel Broodthaers' bone artworks if you're curious about the cover :)

This is for shure one of my favorite MVOT releases. It builds on their Basic Channel/Dub-Techno/Ambient ideas, BUT it doesn't end here. Instead it fuzes Basic Channel with ideas from Krautrock to Stockhausen, which totally makes sense and leads to an awesome organic soundscape. You can really feel the progression from the old Rhythm & Sound days. Timeless and never gets old.

Freestyle improvised directionless music that doesn't really do much! Kind of a 'let's jam and see how it goes idea' but ends-up fairly bland.

For their second album, HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE, the Moritz Von Oswald Trio doesn't stray too far from their dub and techno roots but instead expand their sound outwards, as the quiet wanderings of "Structure 1" reach wide and far. The drumming on "Structure 2" give that track more of a definite shape, though that shape is certainly malleable over the course of 15 minutes. But the more subdued "Structure 3" seems content to drift along, but the blips of "Structure 4" offer a bit more backbone onto which the trio can hang their ornamentation. An intriguing journey.

Not bad but nothing special... meandering in a directionless sort of way. Considering the names involved, I expected a lot more from these Trio albums, but they all seem relatively aimless to my ears. But to be honest I haven't been much impressed by anything Moritz has done since Rhythm & Sound, except for that superb Tony Allen remix a few years ago.. Perhaps the bar was set too high and I'm jaded..

1. I'm looking for a reason to listen to this beyond it being some guys who have done some damn fine music in their time. The nature of the recordings implies there be some faith taken on the players and the listeners part. So here we go. I'd swear as structure one expands, it's sounding more and more like the Grateful Dead circa late 80's at the interlude where Drums recedes in to a pattern and right before taking off into Space. This is drift music. 2. Jam bands can use electronic music to great effect when used with a certain regard towards what they can do to a pulse, i.e. groove. Where Structure One loses touch and increasingly goes into itself and some tangerine dream like arpeggios. Two comes alive and has some beads of sweat forming about it as it begins to wiggle and writhe underneath a hypnotizing and flashing framework that only ever, and slowly fades into the background before falling over itself into a canyon. 3. An ocean of sound slowly washing over me and taking me away into the sonic œther and brushing up against the Orb and their logness of dub influences. Play twice before listening music. 4. Guitars without some regard to their noise making and textural ability are just doomed to always just be noodly instruments. Gypsy movements and jammy spasm's in a structured German style. 5. Not sure. But there are some moments of this improv ambient get down that sound not unlike what I suspect would happen when you put a series of different effects on a set of wind chimes going off.