The thirty-one tracks on Täushung betray a nest of family resemblances, but they are lost on the one who, using graphic tools and granular synthesis, gave rise to them in the first place. Some four years later, the atmosphere, as it were the corona of lightly indicated uses that accompanied their first gesticulations now appears foreign, incomprehensible yet dangerous, like a veiled threat.
Hence the caution, care, and confusion with which Mikan arranges and manipulates the music. For a good part of the time he dwells in a conflicted state. At one end of the spectrum, he wants to decipher and find a certain intimacy with the material. This is evidenced by pieces in which Mikan tries more overtly to mould and tease the material into tense, angular shapes. When this is done, however, certain other pieces don’t fit, the elements never gel, and the compositions appear as a bit of plastic surgery gone awry – thick, droning white noise and mulched electronica echo and bounce off of one another in innumerable ways; loud cascades of swirling sound slashed and cut up by clashing frequencies. At the other end, Mikan approaches them as unapproachable, communicating directly but at a distance, adding and dissolving motifs in the miasma’s so as to bring out their enigmatic quality. With “Flimmerâ€, for instance, he does very little, stalling the structural flow, and allowing the underlying electronic sounds to rise to the surface.
Mind you, outside of this narrative, the ideas don‘t exactly remain fresh at every turn – however little, its spirit wilts when unlit by this light source. Mikan carves out a number of paths within this space, though, and the bracingly gritty alliances that are formed assume many expressions, displaying varying degrees of translucency.
Max Schaefer