Review Text
Dérive is the debut by Spätzer, a new project by emerging multidisciplinary artist Aiken Bömers-Muller. As generative-based compositions, Spätzer's sound designs balance the formalist traditions of ambient music with an insouciant kismet, creating compelling soundscapes that gently invigorate the senses. Bömers-Muller has done his homework: Dérive conceptually draws on both Debord's Situationalist texts as conceptual inspiration, and his direct experience as a matriculated stage actor. After several trips to Berlin's MaerzMusik festival to participate in workshops and field recording, Bömers-Muller' work has evolved radically from his Bellingham-based folk indie band laughingstock (sic) and their 2017 full-length release "Thank You, Laughingstock" on Flat Field Records. One can literally hear this new awareness of the tensions between randomness versus structure, and intentionality versus emergence in these algorithmically-driven soundscapes. Some have described these creations as post-ambient. More precisely, they are soundscapes for the future.
