Slow Days:The Year Of

Artist: The Year Of

Date Released: May 16, 2006

Label: Morr Music

Produced By: The Year Of

Tracklisting:
 * 1) Mantra
 * 2) There's Something About You
 * 3) Stephen Hawking
 * 4) Alone (I Love You)
 * 5) Bees Be
 * 6) Calling Sky
 * 7) Sleep
 * 8) Ronnie Hawkins

Review: I’ve never been to Germany, save a 2-hour stint at an airport en route to Italy, so I don’t really have a very good idea what modern German culture is like. For a while, I associated all things German with the beer-guzzling, month long party that is Oktoberfest, but after listening to album after album of mellow indietronica from Berlin’s Morr Music, I’m starting to believe that Germans spend the other 11 months of the year in a very relaxed, laid-back state of mind surrounded by grey skies and drab fields. Morr’s most productive artist, Bernhard Fleischmann, is quickly becoming the Scott Herren of Europe between is productive output as B. Fleischmann and his growing roster of side projects; and guess what, The Year Of is his latest offering. Featuring a supergroup-lite line-up featuring most notably multi-instrumental experimentalist Christof Kurzmann and Paul Klink, aka Burkhard Stangl, The Year Of continues Fleischmann’s string of warm, electronic-tinged post-rock, this time settling into a crevice between the more lush compositions of Mice Parade and the Six Parts Seven’s post-country instrumentals. Kurzmann offers Lou Reed-reminiscent vocals, but without the visceral immediacy, and are really the most forgettable element of the album. The highlight of the record is without a doubt the 14-minute centerpiece, Calling Sky, which slowly builds into a fantastic saxophone solo before melting away into echoing vocals, skittering drums and a ringing vibraphone. I like ‘Slow Days’ more than most of the other Fleischmann projects, but I can’t exactly pinpoint why, so if you’re a sucker for lush instrumentation and mellow vibes like me (and apparently Germans), you should dig it too. Mpardaiolo