Quarterly Critic’s Choice
The best and most interesting new releases of the previous three months are awarded a place on the Quarterly Critic’s Choice. Evaluation criteria are artistic quality, repertoire value, presentation, and sound quality. From 2014 onward, the Long Lists are stored directly with each Quarterly Critic’s Choice.
NEW: Long List 2/2024, published on 5th April 2024
Electronic and Experimental
Toechter: Zephyr
(Edition Dur 01). LP/DL, KulturManufaktur 4252019300015 (Direct Sales)
Often it is the other way around: One is amazed at how much soul electronic sounds can carry within themselves. The debut of the German-Danish band toechter turns this effect upside down. Marie-Claire Schlameus, Lisa Marie Vogel, and Katrine Grarup Elbo are classically trained and assert that in the thirty-six minutes of this album, only violin, viola, violoncello, or their voices can be heard. Their goal was to explore all tonal possibilities in the sense of sound design – as an »ode to string instruments«. But much more has emerged: a fascinatingly irritating, often intimate challenge to listening habits, in which the rhythms often sound remarkably inorganic (»Pendulum«). For the jury: Jörg Peter Klotz