Ekkehard Ehlers & Paul Wirkus, Ballads (side A)

2009's Ballads consists of a series of short instrumental tracks.  The tracks are vaguely atmospheric, but the individual sounds and ideas evolve too quickly to be particularly ambient or droney — as a result, Ballads falls nicely outside of any obvious niche.  While there is a fairly uniform palette for the album, each track is differentiated by a slightly different set of sounds.  Each track evolves over its short duration, but there is little build or fade to identify a beginning or end.  Sounds featuring pulsing or tremolo are often in the foreground, with more sustained drones behind them in the mix.  The high-frequency spectrum is typically fully, but only momentary digital squiggles introduce any harshness or exaggeration.  Bass hits appear briefly in duration to add impact, and there is little midrange content, especially in the low-mids.  Most sounds lack identifiers as digital, analog, or acoustic in source, but double bass and clarinet players are credited in the sparse liner notes.  The shiny silver printing of the simple front cover image on thick cardboard looks particularly amazing.