Hauschka - Versions Of The Prepared

After much anticipation, Hauschka's remix project is finally upon us; 'Versions of the Prepared Piano' includes remixes from a wide range of acclaimed artists situated around the globe, each with their own interpretation of a track from 2005's 'The Prepared Piano'. Ranging from TG Mauss's dirty electro rendition of 'Twins' to Wechsel Garland's laidback pop shuffle that is 'Es Waren Einmal', it's a varied affair throughout. Instead of the lazy and uninventive remixes that these sort of albums sometimes
bring, each artist takes parts of Volker's (as Hauschka is known to his friends) subdued masterpieces and truly creates a new composition instead of an idle rehash. The inventiveness on display here is no more evident than in Eglantine Gouzy's opener, 'Mr. Spoon', which takes Hauschka's 'Two Stones' as a starting point. Keeping the instrumentation simple, Gouzy sings the quirkiest lyrics this side of Joanna
Newsom above the percussive rattlings of Volker's piano. As she tells the tale of a spoon-nosed man in need of some exercise you are transported to a world far away from the original and into a childlike land of delicately layered voices. As with all the vocal remixes here, the wordless poetry of Hauschka's ivory-stroking is beautifully offset by the wide range of lyricists who share their dulcet tones with the listener, all appearing at the top of their game. While many of the musicians featured here
decided to use Hauschka's tender piano recordings as a skeleton to flesh out with the meat of synths, beats, vocals and other instrumentation to create perfect pop gems, a select few chose to completely deconstruct their subject material, taking their remixes down a far more Dadaist path. Nobukazu Takemura pulls 'Kein Wort' apart in the style of his 'Assemblers' series of albums; heavily slicing and processing his sound source until all that is left is a trace of moonlit piano breaking through the
clouds of digital microcomposition. Frank Bretschneider also moves in similar directions with his version of the same song; mixing a jarring piano snippet with an evolving, pulsing haze. Overall the album is a diverse offering, with the only constant being its invariable level of quality. Each composition works as a standalone piece as well a tribute to its source. Because of this, this album will appeal to both those who have known and loved Hauschka's last three releases as well as those that are completely uninitiated with Volker's work.

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