Music Review: Welcome Tourist

by Jenn Kane

Welcome Tourist features modest cover art.

The most recent B. Fleischmann album, Welcome Tourist, begins dubiously. The man speaks in native tongue over blips and beeps, his voice filled with the type of soldierish quality that only German can truly convey. Slowly a piano breathes into the robotic track, giving it a heart. The song, "02/200", fleshes out into an organic entity by its third minute. Methodic scratching and light jazz drums filter in. Suddenly, it is a building of melody. Each sound has been introduced and they lay over one another solidly creating a veritable tower of IDM masterpiece.

Fleischmann's latest outing, Welcome Tourist, is a daunting two-album affair. The first CD works to recreate some of Fleischmann's more accomplished melodies while the second is filled with only a single 45-minute track.

So, album one: it's pretty. I know this seems to be a trite classification at best, but true. If anything, I think it's some of the more noteworthy music that this genre has produced in some time. It's the genre itself I'm disgruntled with. Glitch pop romance is slowly fading into the credits. With a laptop, a quick hand, and apparently a German sensibility, it seems as though anyone can produce this. And they are. Rampantly. Morr Music has officially become the bastion of IDM, but has yet to deliver something drastically new to the world. Which leaves us with albums like Welcome Tourist.

B. Fleischmann sings up a storm on his latest album. www.bfleischmann.com

There are few remarkable tracks on the album, and only one is truly significant: "Le Desir," half sung and half spoken by German artist C. Kurzmann, plays out as instantly mesmerizing. His voice, slightly accented, reaching towards the high notes with a lilting strain, settles beautifully over a basic skip electronica harmony. "Yes we have dreams / and we want them to come true / yes, we will live for these moments / me and you."

Kurzmann contributes to several other tracks with less success. His voice still intrigues, but the beats are far less inventive and melodic.

As I mentioned previously, album two has only one song proper. Appropriately titled "Take Your Time," Fleischmann very (very) slowly places notes over one another, beginning with a harsh static hiss that fades into an almost smooth jazz lull. Like the whole set, it's a lovely piece to lounge to, but certainly not music to copy, to study, to fall in love with.