Music Review: Hauschka's Salon des Amateurs

Hauschka's latest album is sonically unique for me. Though I have heard his music before on this website, I can't remember having heard anything like it. By "sonically unique," I mean the actual types of sounds on this recording are original: the instrumentation. Musically, it is less so, but the overall experience is a satisfying one.

All tracks have energy: the kind that can get you dancing, but also the kind that feels like strolling through lighted city streets, being perhaps alone in a sense but surrounded by the diversity of characters you see during late hours in New York City or (I'm partly guessing) Berlin. There is room for contemplation between the different thick-layered drones. Hauschka quickly builds motifs on top of one another, adding piano chords, piano melodies, piano percussion, until he has the different timbres bouncing off the walls and filling the room. It might also help that the recording is so crisp (I would love to have the knowledge to record an acoustic piano that sounds so accurate to reality) and the various changes he makes to the different piano keys so singular in tone that you hear everything all at once. Every click and bang and knock and note is audible at all times. Salon des Amateurs benefits from high-quality audio.

The melodies and arrangements are enjoyable after multiple listens, but the real strength of Hauschka lies in his piano-playing style. By opening up the body of a grand piano and, by what I can only assume is a lot of trial and error, finding ways to alter the tone of piano strings in original ways, you get an atypical experience from one of the world's most traditional instruments. It's hard to describe, so here:



With a sound that would please the indie crowd, NPR devotees, undergrads studying in coffeehouses, and, to an extent, other musicians (an often tough crowd to please), it might be easy listening to a fault. I listen to as much instrumental music as I do songs, and this album will stay with me for occasional reviews. But Hauschka seems to ride the line between traditional-European-inspired indie pop instrumental and Steve Reich's minimalism. It neither robotizes your body's musical rhythm with long and slowly changing drones, nor does it provide as thoughtful or energetic melodies as some other bands I'm listening to now like James Blake or Buke and Gass.

But it is a worthwhile purchase for its uniqueness. For musical globetrotters, Hauschka fills a role occupied by few: a one-man band with the ability to continuously make new sounds with little help from computers. And the best part is that his interesting approach did not fizzle, but provided enjoyable melodies.