Hauschka, Snowflakes & Car Wrecks (side A)

In his project Hauschka, Vokler Bertelmänn approaches the prepared piano in a fairly novel context.  While the instrument is typically used in overtly jazz and classical contexts, Bertelmänn brings ambient and electronic influences to his pieces.  While the piano has been prepared, it is used here to play notes, and tonality of these pieces is consistently simple, at times recalling Eno's Ambient series in its narrow choice of notes.  The preparations are heard as the pieces build, in a style that borrows from contemporary electronic and techno music.  Subtly propulsive rhythms appear in most of the pieces, gradually adding drive using a repeating pattern.  The piano preparations often play a more prominent role through the build.  The music never approaches any real beat, but the driving movement recalls electronic artists even as it is created acoustically.  The recording also sounds modern and almost synthetic—heavy compression and limiting with fast attacks detach even the most organic piano sounds from their source of origin.  While artists like Sack & Blumm bring acoustic instruments into their arrangements, Hauschka is distinctive within the genre for working solely acoustically.  Several pieces on 2009's Snowflakes & Car Wrecks add sustaining string arrangements behind his now-recognizable approach to the piano.  The cover's simple geometric designs on reverse-stock paper fit Bertelmänn's melding of influences nicely.