It is hard not to think of SOPHIE when listening to this album, although the reasons for that are less musical or stylistic. Instead, that is more due to a certain attitude in dealing with sound and rhythm as well as the atmosphere, which is as alienating as it is inviting. Similar to the late iconoclast, upsammy also has a dancefloor background, but Thessa Torsing uses her albums in particular—»Germ in a Population of Buildings« is already her third in four years—as creative playgrounds. One reference is certainly IDM and sometimes, as in the track »Asphalt Flowers,« the complex rhythms actually do some honour to the D in this acronym. Basically, however, Torsing is committed to a kind of sonic worldbuilding in which unconventional rhythms and no less unconventional sounds are nested together to form dynamic sculptures. The loose conceptual superstructure—Torsing has an interest in ecosystems and forms that are in a state of flux, to which track titles such as »Ergo Dynamic Tree« or »Square to Sphere« also bear witness—thus finds its almost perfect aesthetic counterpart. »Germ in a Population of Buildings« is a friendly, open album, but at the same time incrediblycoherent in iterms of production. A rare piece of art.
In Lists
King Buzzo picks 10 records that shaped, improved and formed him
List, Portrait
Jimi Tenor picks 10 records that shaped, improved and educated him
List, Portrait
Lex Blondin picks 10 Records that Shaped, Improved and Formed him
List, Portrait
Six Organs of Admittance picks 10 records that shaped, improved and educated him
List, Portrait
