Marsen Jules’ (Martin Juhls, from Dortmund, Germany) “Yara” was originally released on Autoplate in 2004.
The (six) tracks were only available as MP3 downloads (in 192 kbps only!). And unfortunately disappeared completely in 2006 (together with the tracks from the preceding MP3 album “Lazy Sunday Funerals“) .
Marsen Jules continued to release more beautiful music on the City Centre Offices label, such as 2005’s Herbstlaub.
Lucky for us, the Oktaf label decided to re-releases both lost albums. They are now available as a physical CD as well as digital downloads (with better bitrates). The tracks are fully remastered and the Yara CD also contains two additional tracks: ‘Harfenklang’ (Harp Sounds) and the 15 minute long ‘Yara Variation‘.
Even after six years, the album is still as fresh as the flowers on the beautiful new cover (designed by Noah McDonald).
Yara’s tracks are created from of fragments of a live recording of a band of friends. From this, Marsen Jules mainly used the background noises of this recording, the environmental sounds of the concert, rather than the recording of the gig itself: the tuning of an instrument, the opening of a beercan, someone laughing in the audience.
These fragments were reordered, re-assembled and looped, to create an original and very elegant kind of ambient ‘musique-concrete‘.
A unique process with a unique result.
We’re lucky to have Oktaf saving these recordings from oblivion, as they did with Jules’ first release!
Let’s hope more like this is to follow.
amazing song!