“Täuschung” reviewed by The Wire

Vienna based Mikan’s broken english is strangely helpful in highlighting the existential and creative confusion that informs these 31 short pieces, conceived using graphic tools and granular synthesis. “After four years, the distance to this music is completely lost,” he writes. He cannot recall what emotional spasms gave rise to these knotty, fragmented scrawls of abstract electronic music, despite searches through his notes and correspondence. Certainly, the most effective and distinctive aspect of Täuschung is the way in which pieces disappear abruptly, drowned in infancy, after less than a minute sometimes. Several tracks are barely titled, while others are more vividly monikered: “Das Gewitter hat sich in eine Bahnhofshalle zurückgezogen”. It’s as if, to misquote Satie, these are the sonic memoirs of an amnesiac.

David Stubbs