Dedications

Sebastian Meissner of Frankfurt/Main, is a conceptual media artist, composer, sound designer and photographer, and this is his third full-length release under his Klimek alias, and his first for the Anticipate label. Klimek has been building up his reputation through a slew of releases and compilation appearances on Cologne's revered Kompakt -- an institution as much as a label. Always one to embrace change and a new challenge, Sebastian Meissner realized that the Anticipate label would be an ideal home for the follow-up to 2006's Music To Fall Asleep -- an album that cemented Meissner as one of the most interesting post-Eno composers of narcoleptic yet enthralling drift music. With Dedications, Meissner devotes each track to two of his musical idols, from Michael Gira to Steven Spielberg to Marvin Gaye. But these influences are not simply conglomerated and rehashed into a form of faux-originality; instead, they are distilled and deconstructed until only their purest elements remain. On "For Mark Hollis & Giacinto Scelsi," the opening chord of Hollis' "Colour of Spring," from his faultless self-titled album, is held in stasis to breaking point, exposing every beautiful nuance of what could be described as a "perfect" chord. This slowed-down perception of time is something that haunts all of Meissner's work as Klimek, when he is not busying himself under another of his many aliases including Bizz Circuits, Random Industries and Random_Inc. Rather than just focusing on an aesthetic beauty, upon listening it feels as if there is a greater purpose to this music -- perhaps it exists to remind the listener to slow down and focus on the finer details of their own life, perhaps it is simply a tool to relax the listener into contemplative sleep. Whatever its purpose, in its hazy soundscapes and muffled pianos, Dedications is music with a message.