NARROW BRIDGES – Degree of Separation
 
Release Date: 03 August 2010

It’s hard to walk along the crumbling sidewalks of Buenos Aires – past the faded beauty of the Art Nouveau façades, with those hand-painted public buses rumbling by – and not to think of music. Or of love. In the “Paris of the South”, as the metropolis on the River de la Plata is rightfully known, music merges with the city, the soundtrack blends with its backdrop. It tells of the weightiness of life, of cruelty and beauty, of passion – and of love. The fact that it doesn’t have to be tango in order to sonically express the singularity of love in and love for Buenos Aires is demonstrated by the song cycle “Degree of Separation” by Narrow Bridges, which was written and recorded in Buenos Aires within a short space of time, as if the musicians wanted to capture the transient spirit of the city and take it out into the world.

And that spirit captivated Alex Paulick and Min Stiller in it’s irresistible way, whispering its melodies to the artist duo from Berlin almost in passing. Indeed, Paulick and Stiller had only planned on making an initial attempt at an artistic collaboration, not the production of an entire album. With the help of some local musicians, particularly the percussionist Fernando Samalea and guitarist Kabusacki, the special sound of “Degree of Separation” emerged in the flow of the city, recorded by Juan Tanoira at Estudio Aurelia and embellished by the cellist Julian Gandara. The result is an album between Latin America and Europe, between electronic music, folklore and a hint of Latin jazz – a musical post-card in which the senders’ Germanic tech/kraut roots always remain evident.
  
Alex Paulick, musician and driven arranger, one half of Coloma and musician with Kreidler, later found words like “polyrhythmic structures, with various rhythms overlapping” when trying to explain the concept behind “Degree of Separation”. More apparently audible, however, are the live recordings from a spontaneous concert that Narrow Bridges gave just before their departure from Buenos Aires, which – back in Berlin – were interwoven with the main studio sessions and some French Horn overdubs. The material was meticulously mixed onto analog tape by Hannes Bieger, then painstakingly mastered by Bo Kondren. Yet the arrangements are crowned by the feather-light vocals of the mysterious Min Stiller, who alongside her role in Narrow Bridges is otherwise active in design and fine arts.

It’s easy, when listening to “Degree of Separation” by Narrow Bridges – with its fragile melodies, transparent beats and dense, lucid instrumentation – to get a feeling of wanderlust. It is a multifaceted half hour of yearning, of fleeting, ornate beauty. And what all that has to do with love is obvious, yet it remains a matter of perspective – and reveals itself anew with each listen.

Text: Miriam Stein