2008年 04月 29日 火曜日 03:50

After two magnificent Sending Orbs albums (Through Friendly Waters 2005, My Dogan 2006), another brilliant album on Clone/Dub (Whisper Me Wishes 2007) and a handful of releases in the early 2000s, Kettel (Reimer Eising) completely forgot how to play the piano, arrange his compositions, let alone have a reasonable conversation with his label. He is constantly blathering about "De Spreeuw", a prune eating lamb, a drunken motorist fish (?) called "De Baars". Can you follow us? Fortunately, he rolled out and finished the plans for a new release before all this happened. Maybe it is even our fault, because we stimulated Mr. Lunatic to release an album series: good things come in twos, right? Anyway, we hope that Kettel will recover soon. In the meantime we will keep you occupied with the Myam James albums.

Myam James is maximal electronic music. Kettel manages to squeeze uplifting, warm, cheerful and enjoyable music out of his kettle and pottery factory, which is sad, melancholic and sensitive at the same time. See here the paradoxical twist in much of his work. Beauty lies in the melancholy. Add to this Kettel's profound knowledge of composition and we guarantee you'll be chained to your speakers or earphones for the next months. Probably even longer, because Myam James part II, the sequel, will also be out by then. The album series is in the vain of his very successful earlier work here on Sending Orbs, where Kettel lays claim to the title of Duke of Melody and Count of Charisle, staying surprisingly, but refreshingly true to the roots of the Warp sound from the 90's.

For the Kettel newbies who wonder how electronic music like this is possible, some background information comes in handy.

Little Kettel was classically schooled on the piano to exploit his early discovered musical talent. He loved to listen to classical music, especially Bach. Pianist Glenn Gould was his first idol. Because of his brother (our employee of the month July 2006), Kettel joined the electronic music fanbase in the mid-1990s. A few years before the millennium Reimer started producing electronic music himself and within no time he put out releases on pretty labels as Planet Mu and DuB. Actually, Kettel was just getting started. His music became more mature with every release – if music ever gets old. He also managed to explore different sub genres of electronic music and to produce remarkable crossovers. His ambient album Volleyed Iron (2004, U-Cover) became an instant ambient classic and the Whisper Me Wishes album (2007, Dub) was critically acclaimed for a fantastic crossover of jazz, classical music and electronic music. Remixes for artists as Depeche Mode and Dash Berlin and a Japanese Kettel tour in 2007 are some examples of his growing recognition and popularity.

The Myam James series on Sending Orbs denotes the next and absolutely greatest highlight on his discography. Myam James part I is 9 tracks of Kettel ecstasy, a brilliant My Dogan (title track of the My Dogan 2006 album) remix by early influencers Phoenecia (Schematic/Warp), as icing on the cake, 7 minutes of remix synthesizer-madness by Secede (putting on his Vangelis-clothes once again), and as Eising on the icing an immensely surprising digipack artwork by Jeroen Advocaat inspired by Kettel's current mental condition.

That reminds us… We wish Kettel all well recovering, and you, of course, many hours of enjoyment. We report back in about three months with Myam James part II.

Sending Orbs
Kettel
Myam James 1