t's hard not to be biased when you get to listen to artists that you know and love but there's a reason you love them and this only adds fuel to the fire. hot on the heels of the recent release from 'ariande's labyrinth', comes an offering from one of touched music's favorite artists, karsten pflum. 'love canticles' is a solid collection of squelch, rattle and drop - guaranteed to please our followers and make your feet tap. kicking off with a dissonance that plays with your expectations of melody, the whole thing is solidified with a strong mix of conventional and broken rhythms. there are things you can't escape, notably the ethereal quality and a definite analogue feel that could easily be mistaken as cornish in origin. don't let this fool you however, this is the best of danish through and through, although the keeneared amongst you will hear the cat escaping the bag. other nice touches include a peppering of vocoder, robotically enhancing certain tracks that already felt mechanical and industrious. technical precision marks many of the tracks, 'i am ice' being a perfect example with ambience and crisp sounds aplenty, living up to its name. not being satisfied with throwing a well-styled reworking into the mix to finish off the release, muchloved uk producer ochre steps up and has offered his mastering & remixing skills to polish this great album. they're welcome bonuses that add to the already delightful experience. ochre's not the only remixer here, with contributions from isan (morr music) & humanoid (aka brain dougans - one half of the future sound of london) in the final stretch, the change is noticeable but well within the bounds of what pflum has set out to do. all in all this is a spacious & thoughtful piece of work that carries on karsten pflum's tradition of style melding and refusing to sit in one box. it's great to know he's not going anywhere soon and even better to have him on the touched roster.
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