CD – Domizil
Although the term and concept of “subsegmental” are used primarily in psychology and in perception within the context of linguistics and phonetics, nothing stops Marcus Maeder from translating this meme into the field of music. Feeding the cognitive characteristics of tones, organizing acoustic information into subsets fragmenting the sequences and putting at risk our usual ability to grasp whole shapes (be they melodies or – in other areas – written texts and moving images) through this isomorphic method, the author is precise but subtle in shifting our attention towards micro areas of experience. Samples and segments eventually give rise to a minimalist and intricate sound design, coherent yet quite diverse at the same time. No stranger to the reductionist views that have long considered how “less is more” and imagining a whole as the sum of its parts, Marcus Maeder hieratically insists on the punctiform and surreal power of single isolated aural emergencies, between the intervals of silence and the almost ancestral stimulation of the listener.