Kammerflimmer Kollektief Absencen

Over the course of four albums, German sextet Kammerflimmer Kollektief have woven mesmerizing instrumental Möbius strips, casually twisting and braiding various strands of ambient drones, free jazz, and moody, Angelo Badalamenti-like atmospherics into deceptively immovable, impenetrable knots. And though their latest work, Absencen, overturns few new stones, this thoughtfully organized album finds the extended group operating at peak levels of cohesion and features some of their most adventurously textured compositions to date.

One of the great band names of our times, Kammerflimmer Kollektief translates to "Shimmering Collective", and began its existence back in the late 90s as the one-man ambient project of composer and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Weber. The music contained on Absencen, however, has clearly been formed and fitted by more than one pair of hands, with several of tracks here co-written by harmonium player Heike Aumüller and one attributed to an improvisation by bassist Johannes Frisch.

The album's inclusive temperament extends to its instrumentation as well, with each of the Kollektief's members allowed an equal voice in the mix to give these pieces their rich, fluid density. On several tracks the group's sound is augmented by the exotic pedal steel flourishes of Trapist's Martin Siewert, an addition that joins with Heike Wendelin's violins to further lengthen the shadows of the group's already canyon-wide sound.

This combination is particularly potent on "Unstet (Für Jeffrey Lee Pierce)", an appropriately high and lonesome tribute to the late Gun Club leader that also blends harmonica and acoustic guitar into a stately, elegiac drone incorporating elements of the traditional tune "Shenandoah". Other such standouts include the brief, lovely "Hausen", which marries jazzy reeds to wistful country strains, and the opening "Lichterloh", a restless narrative that glides across acres of placid ambient swells before being rent asunder by D. Wurm's skronking saxophone blurts and Weber's space age keyboard effects.

Elsewhere, on such tracks as "Nachtwache, 15. September" the Kollektief does occasionally stumble through relatively uninspired passages of polite fusion, resulting in music that settles too cozily into the ranks of the merely pretty. Thankfully, such moments on Absencen are rare, and are outnumbered by the impressive likes of "Die Vögel Sangen Drauben Ihre Ungereimte," an epic closer featuring Weber and the rest of the group in full exploratory mode, as they forge ahead inquisitively, leaving an ever-shifting, endlessly fascinating array of discarded sounds in their wake.

— Matthew Murphy, April 19, 2005