Some time ago, a few steps down from the place where I lived back then, there was this unkempt garden belonging to a smallish, rather bland-looking 1920s-era mansion. The garden was surrounded by a stone wall and one side of that wall had a huge crack running right through it. I've passed that spot every day on my way to work. The crack itself was shaped like a lightning striking through the stone or resembled something that would imply seismic activity even if no such thing is known to occur in these part. But its energetic radiance was undeniable to me. Often when I passed it, a rush of electricity flooded my thoughts and I would wonder – what microcosm, what kind of infinitesimal life, would rest inside there? It felt as if that crack could contain a whole reality of its own, different from mine, highly sensitive and yet perfectly encapsulated by the stupor of our mundane wanderings.
Listening to Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten (trans: Conversations With Larvae and Fossil Remains) brought back the memories of that wall, that energy, that phantasmal presence of something beyond physical perception. In a way, this record feels like a live transmission from the inside of that crack – or better, every crack, every narrow gap and interstice gouging the thin layers of a reality we all seem to share.
Notorious for dwelling in these in-between spaces, Christian Schoppik's Läuten Der Seele
project has long since stirred the anima within the hidden reverse of quotidian objects by looping
and re-contextualising obscure and disparate sample sources. With the addition of Jota Solo,
these often oneiric and impressionistic collages and story paintings now open up to a more
expressive and direct colour scheme, quite literally as if Schoppik's sonic phantasmagorias have
been ultimately given a real human voice to speak their mysteries. But whose voice is that?