März
Love Streams

This is the typical example of a shy album. Shy because it almost unintentionally impresses right from the first listens, only to hide away and quickly be set aside, almost forgotten, but every time it is replayed, it knows how to make its point and is increasingly enjoyable because it has substance and knows how to unveil new details that touch the heart.

"Love Streams" by the German band März was released in 2002 by Karaoke Kalk, a label dedicated to glitch-pop sounds, and it is a light and complex album, fundamentally made of "songs" that seem to be written by a hypothetical Nick Drake born thirty years later, raised in Cologne listening to minimal techno and tinkering with his laptop until he managed to create a very evocative electronic pop-folk. There is no clear dominance of either electronic or acoustic parts, but everything is perfectly blended, achieving a mix where nothing seems out of place and it doesn’t appear possible that other sound solutions could exist outside of those used by the authors. Tracks like "Things Can Only Get Better" (by the way, the melodica theme used here is fantastic...), "Introductory" (which pays homage to Nick Drake by using a sample of his "From The Morning"), "The Help Song," "The Hysteric Song," "The Rain Rains," for example, are representative of the great beauty of this album: simple and made of few elements, they are at the same time sophisticated and refined, with electronic glitches perfectly counterbalancing the shy guitar arpeggios and the Wurlitzer piano. The rhythms often feature a straightforward beat, but never overdone, and here and there a fragile and insecure voice makes an appearance, deliberately choosing a low profile and almost seeming to be placed there by chance, yet perfectly complementing the musical part.

Perfect album for the melancholic days of late February, when winter is on its way out, and a pale spring sun peeks through, shy like this album.