Sine World I-X

Great concept. Lovely execution. Over the course of ten tracks, Christian H. Sötemann presents a study of the humble sine wave. Clocking in at just ten minutes (no, the tracks are not all sixty seconds long) the CD leaves the listener longing for more. All but seven of the pieces are compositions. The remaining three are, "...composed and constructed on the spot.". I presume this means they were improvised. Christian started playing guitar in 1988 and has been consistently putting out recordings either as part of one of many bands he's started or as a solo artist.

The sine wave is theoretically the essential building block of musical sounds. It is the combination of sine waves of various frequency and amplitude that gives complex sounds their sonic identity. What Söteman has done here is deliver deconstructed music. It's as if he's done away with all of the timbral elements of a song leaving us with only the harmony, melody and rhythm. "Sine World" is a sonic X-ray. Yes, i wish the tracks were longer and yes i wish Söteman explored more sophisticated compositional tecniques (not in the least, "klangfarbenmelodie" through the implementation of freguency modulation). All things considered, this is a wonderfully presented demonstration of a really cool idea.

JPW